(website) Star
Wars Ep.2; The Attack of the Clones Seen: 30 March.
2002. Director:
Steven Spielberg. With: Henry Thomas, Dee Wallace,
Drew Barrymore. From the 1982 movie we saw this
remastered version. A few scenes have been added, like
E.T. in the bathtub, but essentially it leaves the
same impression; the scenes were not supposed to be
cut out in the first version. In short: an alien ship
lands and one of the aliens is left behind with his
peers hurrying away from adult saucer-seekers. That
little marooned one is taken in by a couple of kids,
who keep it as a secret toy and pet. Once uncovered by
the grown ups things go bad, but the kids manage to
take it back to its retrieving mothership. A cool
adventure all for the kids. Updated with the
experience gained over the last two decades, one may
wonder. Why do we have this alien presented so sweetly
to comfort us, or better the kids. Father has left for
Mexico and E.T. is there as a substitute. But it is no
authoritative threatening father at all: it is a
botanic, helpless childlover, a sweetheart friend
there to play with the children only. The adults are
the perverted ones estranged from that sweet and
innocent substitute father. Maybe these years we have
become more acutely aware of the inevitable of
acknowledging other life forms from not just our own
culture or planet. That this alien falls in no known
category of aliens, of which some seem to be
dangerous, is of no importance. What is important is
that this alien wants only one thing: to return home.
So now we have a substitute father that points his
lighting finger homewards. E.T. is the dream of the
humanoid of an alien time management -culture that
points back to the original planet. Would that be to
remind us of maybe our own duty to return to the
original of our own planet with our new technologies
and standard time twist? The estranged is the alien
and the back home index-finger is there to point the
way of ecology and real time with the natural of our
planetary order and original belief in ourselves. E.T.
, thank you for your example. We had a warm and red
glowing heart with you! We also hope to find our
planet back. (website)
Film
reviews often tell you what would be
commercially attractive or to the common
expectations. Therefore these descriptions
of non-cliché latest movies you
might want to see but did not decide about
yet.
The
latest films.
30-March.2001 - 24June.2002
Seen:
June 24 2002. Director: Todd Solondz, with: Robert
Wisdom, Selma Blair, Leo Fitzpatrick, Noah Fleiss,
Paul Giamatti, John Goodman, Julie Hagerty, Lupe
Ontiveros, Jonathan Osser. The problem of storytelling
is in this presentation split into two halves: that of
fiction and nonfiction. In fiction we see a young girl
having raw sex with her literature professor and thus
producing a desperately real fiction story that is not
very liked by the co-students. In nonfiction we see an
american college boy dreaming of fame ending up as a
ludicrous character in a documentary on graduating
from college. The latter ends in a drama of bourgeois
murder by the fired housemaid after daddy has been
hypnotized to do so by the frustrated youngest son.
Storytelling number one proves only the problem of the
small-mindedness of our literary efforts to reproduce
the problems of materialistic life and storytelling
number two proves above that how destructive the
ambitions for fame and control can be. All very nice
and humorous, but as is usual with the intellectual
type of film, do we end up with cynicism, criticism,
even the insult of being an accomplice as an audience
and no solution. After the 'end of philosophy' could
we have 'the end of storytelling' here? Of course
there is no end without a solution, and so this movie
cannot take the credit for that. Thus the telling
continues, critical or not for the time that ignorance
persists. And doing so since time immemorial, one
should, if we may say, not forget to include the
classical solutions, without being corny. The
conclusion so far is: criticism is not enough and the
good time of laughing about it is not really the good
time that we personally could identify with in the
story. In one word, where's the hero in this
intellectual shit-eating? Could it be the
cash-register? Treason! (website)
Seen:
June 14 2002. Director: Kevin Reynolds. With: Jim
Caviezel, Guy Pierce, Richard Harris. This classical
story from Alexandre Dumas is the tenth remake. The
first one is from 1908 and the best one from 1934 so
one says. Anyhow, the story keeps on fascinating. In
napoleontic times an innocent man is put in prison
accused of high treason and murder. But in fact he is
victimized knowing the name of a napoleontic traitor
with a son in office who tries to cover up the
betrayal of his father. The friend Mondego of Edmond
Dantes, our victim, is jealous with him and is after
his sweetheart, the all-attractive Mercedes. For the
love of the woman one has to suffer and conquer the
enemy. Half the movie we see Edmond struggling in
prison for thirteen years receiving education and a
treasure map from an imprisoned priest Abbe Faria.
Together they dig a tunnel, but the old man dies half
way. Edmund takes the position of the corpse and is
thrown into the ocean and escapes to the main land
away from the island of Chateau D'If where the prison
was located. There he is captured and forced to
cooperate by pirates. Saving one crook his life he
wins a helper for life. Together they, after closing
their partly involuntary criminal adventures, go for
the treasure and with that money Edmund is out for
revenge. He buys a big estate and invites all the
nobles. He wins back Mercedes and puts his former
friend and an ally called Villefort wrathfully behind
bars cunningly convicting them for the crimes he was
accused of. End good all good he is a rich man,
educated, with a beautiful wife and a son. The
question raised is why this story has become eternal.
Answer is that It represents the most problems of life
as running with the naive of ones youth into the trap
society sets up for the ignorant. It offers the period
of penance each sooner or later has to accept. It
offers the theme of societal rebirth of the converted
and sworn person. It offers the story of the hero
fighting evil for the justice of God and it offers the
final success of winning it all with justice. What
more could one want from life but to find it to that
extreme? Going from the lowest of hell to the highest
of culture is quite an adventure and although rarely
anyone will ever find such a contrast in life or even
would desire that in reality, still this contrast
presents us with the essence of each his necessary
emancipation and calling. A classic must see thus for
the ones not initiated yet, and a mandatory meditation
for the ones more or less following this line of
living. This latest version is up -to date with an
extra bit of Napoleon in the beginning and a for the
rest pretty loyal story line. Thus it is, though not
surprising in its interpretation, an entertaining,
consistent update till the last shot.
(website)
Seen:
June 14 2002. Director: Guillermo del Toro. With:
Wesley Snipes, Kris Kristofferson, This second edition
of the vampire killer Blade that is himself a mutant
vampire is again a high pitched action struggle with
the dark forces that seem to have taken possession of
mankind. The town is infested with vampires we already
knew. Our black hero does not quite consent with their
raving in the middle of the night and goes out to put
an end to them. But this time there is another
mutation immune against the silver and garlic with
which the normal vampires are easily turned to ashes.
Blade needs to be backed up by a team of co-vampires
that also cannot bear the light of day. They were
specially trained to fight Blade himself who is the
only fully light-resistant one. But the common enemy
unites as we know and thus we have a real mean team
fighting all through the movie against a monstrous
type of vampire that turns out to be easily defeated
with ultraviolet light. To the content of this
comic-book movie one may say that next to the styled
graphic violence there is only real enjoyment in the
fine special effects. The tempo although is so high
strung that so now and then hardly anything can be
seen in the excitement. But that is not really what
bothers one. The problem is that as good as everyone
is a vampire in this movie. Such a picture of humanity
is a chilling experience and offers little positive to
identify with. As such we have a power-tripping horror
drama in vampire-style telling us that our raving
youth breaking through the night is an evil to be
fought, if all of us ourselves wouldn't be the evil...
The fact that our hero is a black man raises the
suggestion that the original shaman of Africa does not
agree with all the drug induced trances of our
(post)modern music scene. To party must not have the
blood around the mouth of those drugsuckers; they are
nothing but vampires nonexistent to the light of day
we are thus told. Not a happy message really; Blade is
the hero of intolerance and horror. Part three I will
skip as long as we see no other solution but the will
to destroy. (website)
Seen:
June 6 2002. Director: Marc Forster. With: Billy Bob
Thornton, Halle Berry. This is the movie for which
Hale Berry as the first black woman got an Oscar for
being the best actress. The story is a typical
american dark drama of people in a desperate situation
that are driven into each others arms, however
different their lives and views were before. The story
is about a warden called Hank in a prison where people
await their electrocution in deathrow. He has to
prepare the inmates for their electrocution, offering
their last luxury supper in a ritual called the
Monsters Ball. Hank works there together with his son,
but the son is too sensitive. He cannot cope with the
disgusting death of a reasonably innocent and talented
black man who could beautifully draw. Hank lives with
his own father and his son together in one house. They
are all racist, but Hank cannot accept the weakness of
his son. The son in desperation about Hank hating him
commits suicide right before his fathers and
grandfathers eyes. Now Hank is alone with his father
who is even harder than he is. Alone he is sexually
served by prostitutes that also served his son and for
his dinner he dines in an airport diner regularly
where the woman of the black man he just executed the
other day - and for which his son committed suicide -
serves him. She, Leticia is in a desperate situation:
her husband is dead, and she cannot pay the rent. The
day before she is evicted is her far to fat son hit by
a truck on the road. The son dies, but she is taken
with him to the hospital by Hank of whom she doesn't
know that he killed her husband. She gives herself to
him in a desperate manner. He invites her to come and
live with her expressing his love for her. But his
father hates him for it because she would only be
'black pussy' and deserve no further respect. Without
any emotion he directs his father to a home for the
old and senile and takes the house for himself and
Leticia. Just before she finally gives in to his
propositions for long time cohabitation she discovers
that some drawings of Hank in Hanks possession were
made by her man made just before he died. Completely
defeated by the cruel twist of fate she gives up and
surrenders to life as it is. The american miser is
bound by faith and love. He and she out of ignorance
can't do much about their karma and its cruel system
and they try to make the best of it. No hero's but the
ones enduring in love. No haughty struggle against
fate or penance about sins. Thanks to Hanks conversion
- he manages to quit his job and start a tankstation
to make his living - can the woman accept him. He
suffered the system, she suffered the system. Both are
comrades now bound by karma. Although not directly a
plea against the deathpenalty, it would be difficult
for an American not to be against the death sentence
after seeing this movie. As such it indeed deserves an
Oscar although the inhumane of the system and the
willfully maintained karma still continue with the
Oscars handed out. Will the cinema ever accomplish the
ideal by this subtle way of preaching, or did we only
cultivate our american self-pity?
(website)
Seen:
June 6 2002. Directors: Chris Weitz, Paul Weitz. With:
Hugh Grant. Toni Collette, Nicholas Hoult. What to do
in the postmodern era with all the freedom of
selfrealization? Chase woman, watch t.v. , play
snooker? Our anti-hero is called Will and he has never
worked, his specialty is doing nothing at all in a
cool and decided way. He keeps a schedule though of
all the nothing he does. One half hour is a unit.
Watching the quiz is a unit, shopping is two units, to
the hairdresser two units, buying a newspaper one unit
etc. etc. Thus he spends his days in a pleasant
nothingness, living a shallow life, not really
bothered by anything but a low self-esteem and
loneliness. His father once wrote a famous christmas
carol, and he lives on the royalties. To fight his
loneliness he chases woman, and he is reasonably
successful at it, although he does not succeed in
building a durable bond. So, in order to feed his
sex-appetite, he decides to visit therapy-groups for
single parents. There as the only male he pretends to
have a son just to make a pass on some attractive
mother who doesn't believe in love anymore. That would
be safe sex than without consequences. He does fall in
love though, but at the same time he learns to know a
boy called Marcus. His mother Fiona is a nervous,
unhappy and unattractive vegetarian with a mid-life
crisis who cries a lot and tries to commit suicide.
She dresses her boy the wrong way and learns him to
sing the wrong tunes like 'killing me softly'. So he
is pestered at school for it. But nevertheless, she
tries to make some meaningful life with him. Will has
to father the typical boy with the bad haircut and the
strange clothes, who found out that Will has no son at
all. He blackmails him for it successfully. So he
finds himself obliged to a new mate in life to watch
t.v. with and to worry about when he is harassed by
his schoolmates for being odd or when they steal his
new sneakers. In the end everybody finds out about
Will's lies, but it has no serious consequences. Will
gets closer to his real love and all the people
involved make a kind of family together and everything
ends happily with a christmas diner at Wills. There is
a vague suggestion of having solved a problem, but not
really. Would the alternative life be this or that?
The movie, presented as a comedy is successful in
making good feelings and sympathy. Although the story
is pretty flat, does it not bore at any moment, nor is
one annoyed by the lethargic indifferent and shallow
Will nicely presented by Mr. Grant who seems to have
been successfully leading such a life for himself.
Missing the real drive for results other than a
reasonable love for life suggests a kind of
enlightened state of which one understands the
sideline with the vegetarian principal alternative
culture, that doesn't really know how it all works
with selfrealization. The materialist yup and the
alternative disappointed one make an acceptable
experimental combination in a lifestyle that is only
after a good timephilosophy and those who know that
time can be the God of worship requiring nothing else
for an accomplishment but togetherness and humanity,
understand where the feel-good comes from. The movie
is a subtle directive for leading a less
result-oriented life with more sympathy for the
vegetarian alternative and a better general human
solidarity, however unattractive that
materialistically spoken at first might seem.
(website)
Seen:
May 30 2002 Director: Frank Darabont. Met: Jim Carrey,
Martin Landau, Laurie Holden, Allen Garfield, Matt
Damon, Hal Holbrook. This is a story about the
Hollywood ten: ten Hollywood people would be members
of the communist party and had to testify before the
McCarthy commission. Freedom of expression is thus the
theme of this nice movie that is a tribute to the
classical hollywood-movie. A certain scriptwriter
called Peter Appleton is victimized by the haunt for
communists and loses his job. Desperately he drives
drunk of in his new car to crash of a bridge. When he
wakes up he has no recollection of what happened
before. Found washed ashore outside of the little town
of Lawson he is welcomed there as one of the
war-veterans returning home. The man who thinks him to
be his son has a cinema called the Majestic. It is run
down and closed, for the whole town is in ashes about
all the boys lost in the second worldwar. Peter
wonderfully adapts and even gets the former girlfriend
of the guy whose stand-in he has become. With ten
years past everybody believes that the vague
resemblance is enough to make him a credible real one.
But instead of playing classical piano, he turns out
to be a boogie -expert on the piano. Nevertheless the
make-belief continues and the Majestic is reopened.
The whole town rejoices and everybody is happy. Then
his memory returns as he discovers a movie he wrote
himself. Meanwhile is he also spotted by the
commie-haters and taken to the commission for a
declaration. He refuses and makes an heroic effort
baffling the commission by insisting on the freedom of
expression. End good all good he even returns to
Lawson and resumes his duties as the stand-in son
although everybody by now knows he's not the real one.
He gets the woman of his dreams living in the quiet
homely community far away from the bad of Big
Hollywood and McCarthyism. The film must be
appreciated as an historic document relating to the
persecution of the ten of Hollywood. Further is it a
nostalgic ode to the days gone-by and a commemoration
of the pains and sacrifices of the second worldwar.
There is no analytical undercurrent though so that we
may believe in the holiness of small time attachments
and a middle-class civil freedom of enterprise.
Noteworthy is the insistence on the cinema as the
temple of the New Time where the community is reunited
and the stories of belief, hope and love are told
better than by the classical institutes of religion.
For the sake of the cinema: go and see, but leave the
critical mind about our own contributions to the hell
of modern mechanics at home. American dreamtime!
(filmsite)
Gezien:
30 mei 2002. Regie: Paula van der Oest en Anneke Blok,
Theu Boermans, Jacob Derwig, Pieter Embrechts, Monic
Hendricks, Annet Nieuwenhuyzen. Nederlandse komedie
over drie zussen en een homofiele broer. De vader is
overleden en heeft een hotel genaamd Paraiso nagelaten
aan de kust van Portugal, De zussen zijn: een
gefrustreerde huisarts met een huwelijkscrisis, een
met een losbandig leven als kunstenares en een brave
huisvrouw. De kunstzus verzamelt voor een expositie
het sperma van haar avontuurtjes en hangt dat in
gekleurde buisjes op. Ondertussen bedriegt ze haar
andere zus die een gelukkige moeder is met een wat al
te makkelijk denkende echtgenoot die ze voor haar
karretje heeft weten te spannen. Gezamenlijk gaan ze
in de aanval om te voorkomen dat de broer Nino gaat
trouwen met Bo, een handige meid die ook uit is op de
zeggenschap over het hotel. Als hij normaal trouwt mag
hij het hotel bestieren zo was beschikt. De zussen
doen alles om het huwelijk te voorkomen. Eigenlijk is
Nino verliefd op een t.v.-ster met een kookprogramma.
Vlak voor het huwelijk, zo hebben de zussen
gearrangeerd komt die vrijer opdagen en gooit de
plechtigheid in de war, Nino's jawoord wordt een
neewoord. En dan? de moeder die aan haar derde jeugd
toe is fladdert er als de grootste losbol nog doorheen
en de mannen weten ook niet meer goed hoe ze het
hebben. Maar, eind goed al goed. trouwt Nino met zijn
t.v.-ster, en krijgt Bo een kind van hem op het moment
dat hij zich tot vrouw laat verbouwen in het
ziekenhuis. Dat kind was een ongelukje. Allemaal erg
vermakelijke degelijke hollandse komedie die
internationaal zeker niet misstaat. De postmoderne
chaos wordt er mooi in beschreven en de emoties lopen
nooit zo hoog op dat er definitieve breuken ontstaan.
Te mooi eigenlijk om waar te zijn; zo veel vrijheid en
toch nog samen blijven. Het is dan ook het kapitale
hotel dat iedereen op de been houdt en bij elkaar
brengt. Het thema bezit maakt één, ookal
raak je er gestoord van, is wel grappig, maar
uiteindelijk is het toch wel spiritueel mislukt
gezelschap een beetje in een tragikomische
damesnachtmerrie beland. Een moord plegen doen ze
natuurlijk niet. De begeerte van alle dames wordt
netjes teleurgesteld en de homojongens krijgen het
hotel. Niet meer verder denken. Het is wel goed zo met
de lol.
Seen:
22 may 2002. Directed by George
Lucas;
with Ewan
McGregor; Hayden Christensen; Natalie Portman and
Christopher Lee. The chosen one, Anakin Skywalker is
the most talented Yedi, the galactic knight to protect
the culture and the virtue in the galaxy. But Anakin,
so we learn in this episode of the saga, is growing
into an angry young man. He is too passionate,
vengeful about the premature death of his mother,
falls in love with the attractive young female
governor and disobeys orders. Still an attractive and
straight hero though he has to defend the federation
against the opposition growing against the republic.
The story begins with an attack on the life of the
governor and the Yedi have to find out who's scheming
against. It turns out to be a conspiracy of the dark
side of the force; they are the traders [with
their despicable standardtime consciousness].
They, the evil ones, manage to capture master Obi Wan
Kenobi and pupil Anakin together with the
queen-governor called Padme Amidala. In a spectacular
fight against monsters in an arena they find help from
master Yoda and an army of clones, who as the galactic
cavalry come to the rescue in a kind of galactic
helicopters with more Yedi-knights. In a bitter fight
against the evil genius Dooku (Christopher Lee), are
almost all yedi defeated and looses Anakin his right
arm as a punishment of fate for his passion. Master
Yoda is the real hero of the light-saber, making a
nice and unexpected show of agility against the evil
and all too powerful Dark Lord. Of course there are
the amusing robots C3PO and R2D2 and a happy end with
Anakin marrying the governor, the queen of the galaxy
in fact. Everything is a sheer lust to the eye: the
effects are stunning and the real fan can fully dream
away in the galactic fantasy of many worlds inhabited
by all kinds of humanoids and other beings that are as
easily visited as one does commuting with a train. The
whole story is built on the idea of a federation of
all humanoids and other beings in the galaxy ruled by
nobles of a spiritual order in control with the force.
It takes a kind of yoga to learn to control this force
and giving in to weaknesses as illicit human love,
hatred or a show of mastery, perverts everything into
the passion and selfhood of the other side. The Yedi
aren't perfect and the dark side is an inevitable
consequence of their worldly involvement. Of course do
real yogi's sit at the Ganges and not roam about in
spaceships, but it is nice to see the science of
selfcontrol take responsibility for the continence of
soul and goodness with a galactic association of would
be-enlightened beings. We may, 2002, fantasy about a
galactic order missing a culture of respect for the
galactic of time. But we at this
site
have all good hopes that one day we will be
responsible people with the
yoga
and the
galactic, lunar and solar order of
time
so that the force may be with us in all goodness and
progress of culture. Blessings to all.
(website)
Seen:
15 may 2002. Directed by Gillian
Armstrong
with Cate
Blanchett, Billy Crudup, Michael Gambon. One may at
first wonder why another story of love in war, but
considering our modern political right and left wing
political troubles of opposition in Europe, it is
still an highly actual subject of concern to see how
the territorial right wing racist, fascist and
republican 'pragmatist' fights the socialist
democratic left wing 'humanist'. Now as well as in the
past one was confused about what was good and evil. As
surely the truth of transcendence, intelligence and
soul is always found in reason and its perfect
scientific and spiritual middle, does this movie
though leave little to speculate about who would be
the bad guys and who not. In Europe this might be an
overhauled point of view, knowing that nor fascist not
socialist nor whatever materialist hypocrite
dictatures are acceptable, Still this movie fascinates
for working this theme. We see a young english,
scottish, woman falling in love with a pilot in
England, just before he gets missing in action over
France. She promptly thereafter para-jumps over Vichy,
south France and joins the local french communist
resistance. Vichy, at that time, still had some
sovereignty left in accord with the Germans. The
Germans though can't resist the temptation and
vehemently start chasing Jews there occupying the
territory nevertheless. Charlotte, searching for her
lover can't find him and thinks he died in a plane
crash. Meanwhile she falls in love with the leading
and surviving character of the local resistance. She
and he cannot prevent two Jewish children, which they
were hiding, to be deported by the Germans, nor their
comrades to be killed in the resistance. She is
completely drawn into the matter emotionally to such a
degree that she even doesn't want to flee when the
children and the father of her hero are put on the
train to Poland. She, at the risk of her own life,
quickly writes a letter, narrowly escapes with it from
the Germans, and gives it to the departing children
telling them that it's a letter from their mother.
Just to give them hope. Later on in England she finds
her former friend back she thought dead, but the
romance is over. End of the movie with the peace of
'45, she returns to France to pick up the loveaffair
with her communist hero where she left it. The story
is nicely told, apart from English speaking frenchmen
in France, and Cate is the perfect emotional type
still of fortitude and stamina enough to be a credible
heroin. Knowing Europe, and the rest of the world,
still to wrestle with the materialist duality of a
socialist democratic corruption of a false unity of
(standard-) time versus a racist republican
territorial corruption for the sake of the falsehood
of an international union of capital, is this movie,
however unsurprising in its theme, a mandatory
meditation for everyone of serious political and
spiritual commitment. (website)
Direction:
Ian Softley. Met: Kevin Spacey, Jeff
Bridges,
Mary McCormack, Alfred Woodard, David Patrick Kelly,
Saul Williams. Imagine there is another planet called
K-pax. The beings there live very long and have a
mission to be guardian angels to other human beings on
this earth. One such an angel called Prot is someday
called down to Earth, to where he travels spiritually
with faster than light speed to be there in the body
of his protegé. There he sees how this Robert,
a son of a butcher and butcher himself, discovers his
own wife and daughter raped and butchered. Traumatized
he jumps into the nearby wild river to commit suicide
and is never heard of again. Years later in the middle
of New York Manhattan Grand Central
his body
pops up as if out of nowhere, saying that he is Prot
from another planet. He, having taken over the command
of Robert's body, has the mission to finish business
for Robert. He is put in a mental institution where
the psychiatrist is puzzled with the strange
phenomenon that an alien in a normal human body speaks
accurately of astronomical realities no normal human
being can know of and has special abilities to heal
people and see ultraviolet light. In the course of the
therapy the psychiatrist finds out in regression that
indeed the man is from another planet, but that there
is also a Robert within the same body that has a
serious earthly trauma set to a date, when Prot will
return to K-pax. The psychiatrist does his research to
that Robert and finds the facts confirmed. At the date
set by Prot on which he would be gone and at which one
other patient would be gone with him, it then happens
as Prot predicted. Indeed after a rumorous stay in the
ward where he proves to be 'the most convincing
delusion' engaging the other patients in a therapeutic
approach, does at the time set Prot disappear from
Robert's body. The Real Robert is a complete
vegetative goner afterwards. Also one woman on the
ward mysteriously disappears that same moment and is
never heard of again. The problem with this movie is
that it is based on true fact. It really happened more
or less this way. Go and see how intelligently the
director leaves one room for ones own interpretation
to the happenings he carefully unfolds in this fine
film. At least it gives a nice view on the reality of
psychiatry if one does not believe in spirits
possessing or physical appearances from other planets.
(website)
Seen:
21 April. 2002; Director:
Randall Wallace. With: Mel Gibson, Madeleine Stowe,
Greg Kinnear, Chris Klein, Sam Elliott. In 1965 the
first great battle in the Vietnam-war was fought in a
valley called Ia Drang 'the valley of death' between
400 enclosed american soldiers and almost 2000
Vietnamese soldiers. It was the consequence of the
Vietnamese fighting the French who thought to maintain
there as a colony. The struggle for freedom of the
Vietnamese though was at first not such a success as
it later turned out to be. The Americans used new
technology, armed helicopters, because of which they
managed to defeat the camping army of the North
Vietnamese with rockets, napalm bombs, airplanes and
modern automatic guns. The 400 soldiers almost all
died there, caught as they were in the valley, and it
was only the karmic rebound of the vietnamese killing
their colonial masters that could bring the final
victory. This was the last time America had the divine
right to win in Vietnam as we learn from history. The
Vietnamese commander sighs in the movie, that because
of that so many more had to die before the rights of
the vietnamese over their own country were secured.
The Vietnam-war is clearly pictured as the aftermath
of colonialism and the idea of western superiority
over the so-called ignorant people of nature. But the
laws of karma are stronger than the technological
firepower of the West to prove its superiority of
civilization. This story is the only justification and
confirmation we have of american heroism defending our
civilization in Vietnam. The rest of the Vietnam-war
was the struggle for detaching from that desire to
colonially dominate as a better culture. The main
character, the hero in this true story, is Ltnt
Colonel Hal Moore, one of the few survivors, who
declined to withdraw from the seemingly hopeless
battle. Just to save his men stuck there, to his oath
to be the first and the last on the battle field, and
with the strength of his belief, he managed to gain
the victory. Indeed a truly heroic victory, although
the naive of the colonial and technological dominance
also died there at the battlefield. The vietnamese
learned quickly to counter with forest guerrilla. The
Americans learnt there that the western illusion of
superiority was purely self-destructive, but they
deserve this movie. They have to remember themselves
as heroes and not as losers. That is how they begun
there. The fact that the karmic balance had evened
with that battle and that from then on they could only
lose was the thing they later had to find out.
Detachment is always the problem, and as such does the
movie not tell the complete story. On itself there is
to the story no need to know their final defeat but
historically this document would have been complete if
at the end of the movie was explained why after all
the West with the Americans did loose the war and
proved to be the ignorants of karma. Still to have two
successful colonies called America and Australia/New
Zealand is a great problem. After all normally all
aggressors have to return home. The Moguls learnt it,
English learnt it, as well as the French, the Russians
(almost), the Dutch, the Germans and the Portuguese.
And these Europeans wonder what it takes before the
Americans (and the Jews too) have really learnt that
lesson. Vietnam wasn't enough, Mogadishu wasn't
enough, the Gulf wasn't, the Kosovo war wasn't and
would 9-11 /Afghanistan be enough now? Maybe only the
illusion of power and superiority is over when the
twisted of the modern of time and its world-dominance
has finally defeated itself with the U.S. and the rest
of the West, we maintain on this site. (see also
Black
Eagle Down,
Rules
of Engagement,
Enemy
at the Gates,
Men
of Honor,
Harrisons
Flowers
and
the demands
of terrorism)
(website)
Seen:
14 April. 2002; David
Fincher. Met: Jodie Foster, Forest Whitaker, Jared
Leto, Dwight Yoakam, Kristen Stewart. A panic room is
an isolated room within some great houses in America
to protect against calamities like burglars and
A-bombs. In this story a divorced woman buys her self
a house with such a panic room, just for her and her
daughter. There, directly the first night she's there,
do burglars try to get into the safe that is in the
panic room to steal papers of value that they think
are worth millions of dollars. The woman just in time
finds that out and manages to escape into the room.
Then the siege begins. The daughter is in need of
insulin and must get a shot. But the shots are left
behind, just as the cellphone with which she maybe
could warn for help. Meanwhile the burglars try
everything to get them out of the room. She manages to
outsmart the villains getting hold of her phone, but
it is of no avail within the steel and concrete of the
panicroom. Nevertheless does she find out how to wire
the dead unconnected phone within the room to an
outside line and just before the burglars cut the
connection she succeeds to warn her father. He checks
out and is held hostage to force her out of the room.
The daughter, slipping into a coma lacking sugar, she
tries to rescue with a run on the insulin. But then
the crooks get in closing her out, but accidentally
leave their only gun outside. Thus she gets control
over the situation although this time the crooks have
the daughter. With one of the crooks, he who had set
it all up, being killed because of giving up, do the
remaining two, a hard killer and a human thief , try
to escape. But they fail, the cops alarmed by the
father arrive at the scene despite of being turned
down because of the hostage situation. Before though
nearly the good one escapes having prevented the bad
one after a bad struggle from killing their victims.
But also he is arrested climbing over the wall
outside. Drama finished, panic over. Justice has won.
So what is learnt with this story? In America does
irrational materialism in defiance of the false of the
once european nobility lead to the philosophy of
having castles oneself for a home although one is with
only two and that cannot be. There one is, just like
in former Europe besieged by the crooks of greed
holding one the mirror and hindering the
communications. One has in fact only right on one
panicroom so is shown. And even there one is not safe
trying to sit on the treasure. Although the bad guys
kill one another after all, does one suffer severe
trauma with everybody disconnected and confused being
crazy after the money and /or the way to large
property. God is the police, the cavalry rescuing and
only by them peace and order is found. Naturally that
is also an illusion, but then we have to watch another
movie of course. And after we've seen all the movies,
have the producers enough money for a castle of their
own with of course again the necessary panic room.
Next movie 'The American Guillotine' ? At least the
realization is growing that turning away from the
European fortifications and inequity of capital
management ones own capitalism does not safeguard
against the very same fate that half the nobility in
Europe had to face. (website)
Seen:
6 april. 2002; Director: Mark Pellington. With:
Richard Gere, Laura Linney. This is a story about the
Lord of Death who is seen by all sorts of people all
around the world when death is at hand. He takes the
form in this movie of a winged creature, called the
Mothman. Telephones are ringing, strange voices are
heard and incredible delusions take place, all to warn
the people for the impending danger of an airplane
crash, or an other great disaster. The story begins
with John Klein, a Washington Post journalist who
deeply in love with his wife buys a new house. But
being too much in love he doesn't see what his wife
saw just before their car fatally crashes: the
Mothman. She dies, and he ends up in a strange sense
of reality where he is drawn half into his wife's
psychic nearness. From that strange things start
happening in his life: suddenly he finds himself in
Pleasant Point West Virginia, 600 miles from New York
without knowing how he got there in just a half hours
drive. There he discovers that more people have
strange experiences of a supernatural kind. Looking at
drawings he sees the same figure his wife drew of the
Mothman just before she died in hospital. He starts a
research project and gets himself more and more
involved with the people there who have the idea with
him that a great disaster is about to happen. Would it
be the nuclear plant nearby or what? He cannot figure
it out and researches further with an expert in the
field. That man warns him that he might die staying
there, but having found sympathy with an attractive
policewoman who helped him in his mothman research he
turns back intuitively, although his wife (?) from the
beyond, tries to pull him away from the reality of his
insights in the problem. He returns to Pleasant Point
just in time to find out that the bridge there is
collapsing with all cars in a traffic jam on it,
dropping in the water, together with his police
friend. He narrowly manages to rescue her from the
drowning she had premonitions about. He has then a new
friend, has learned to believe in the supernatural and
has achieved to follow his intuition and not his
attachments and fear. Thus we may identify us with the
more sensitive hero with another heart but drive of
his rational mind. There is more between heaven and
earth than we may suspect. The bridge really collapsed
in West-Virginia and the mothman apart from being seen
also elsewhere in the world today we already knew for
millennia as Yamaraj, the Lord of Death from the
Hindus. The world grows wiser and the game stays the
same. Open up and contemplate this in between reality
of the possible presence of our Lord of Death.
(website)
Seen:
30 March. 2002. Directors:
Bobby en Peter Farrelly With: Gwyneth Paltrow and Jack
Black.
'Shallow Hal wants a gal' is what the father of our
main character entrusted his son on his deathbed. Only
nine years old he forgot thereafter everything about
his father except for that admonition to chase woman
for their looks. Thus we see Hal chasing woman for
their looks. Not very good looking himself though he
does so with little success. Then he is locked in an
elevator with a t.v. guru who hypnotizes his dictum
away telling him to look for the inner beauty and see
that only. Thus he consequently falls in love with fat
or otherwise unattractive woman with ears too big,
teeth too crooked, who are transvestite or simply
uncontrolled in their behavior. The story preaches
against the dictum that the appearance would reflect
the inner person and poses that it might just be the
other way around: ugly people must have a nice
character to get along and beautiful people must be
bitches to keep order in their lives. Not completely
untrue this though is a difficult exercise in
philosophy in fact. Set up as a comedy good
entertainment is offered, but the tricky points of the
thesis are left open. The concept of karma is too
difficult to deal with in a simple comedy and thus
some might feel offended to see stereotypes confirmed
in stead of being overcome. The opposite of something
is still of the same polarity. So we do not really get
a solution to the problem of being judged by ones
looks. Not even when Hal in the end manages to
overcome his shallowness and declares his beloved fat
girl his eternal love. It is somewhat of a cheap
solution for a difficult problem in fact unsolved in
this indeed shallow comedy that leaves one with a
lightly neurotic twist of feeling. One is reminded of
the different movies dealing with people ending up in
one anothers bodies. Now we may laugh about the
misperception to the external, but still there is this
little cramp that says that the form does matter to
the person and that beauty belongs to the opulence of
the divine. Hindu's even believe that one can end up
in animal bodies ones next life. That might explain
something of that cramp: even being in a beautiful
human body there is no guarantee that next life we
will have the same. (website)
(The
20th Anniversary)
other
movielinks and searchengines
|
add
a link
|
backgroundgraphic: Argotique