Monday, November 16, 2009

the ENLIGHTENMENT


On the transmission of ideas:


What is an idea might also be expressed as who is an idea? Marx is an idea as well as a person. Or rather we speak of Marxism for his ideas and for his person we say Marx. This classification may not be unique to English but it may also have its opposite in certain lebenswelts, even if they are imaginary. We can conjure a Borgesian world whereby a person is their idea and in fact in some computer remain as both idea and person.

But the realisation we encounter here is that people do not have one idea, they have many. So, where, therefore do we delineate an idea like: It would be nice to have bacon for breakfast from Bacon is central to the Enlightenment or even bacon was more central to the Enlightenment than Bacon.On the transmission of ideas:






Sunday, November 01, 2009

Halloo, The Departed and The Dark Knight Returns



Dear People

hello post Halloween where I was not able to perform in any horror film whatsoever. I do have some film review news: As you know I look and trace possible genealogies between films, and here is one: Batman, The Dark Knight Returns by Christopher Nolan and The Departed by Martin Scorcese.

Watch these two films back to back and you will see that they share:
  • The Civic theme; City as one of the main characters; city in peril, under threat, menaced by corruption but the good are at work
  • The same look of Police as a kind of Pageant
  • The gang scenes of money for drugs swaps
  • Joker Jack Nicholson needs no mention but the slaying of Police Commissioner Gordon played by Gary Oldman and Head of Police Queenan played by Martin Sheen
So there you have it.


Sad Squorch at the beginning of November 2009

Saturday, September 05, 2009

Hyping up The Golem, The Football Agent and The Night The Bad Haircut Came Home

WOW! This is K1's effort at a musical. It's pretty good. He's trying to get it on TV. He wants it to be part of a series of seven called The Gnuthausen Chronicles. I wish him luck. He hasn't included me. All he's done is put me in a few grainy YouTube efforts. K1 when are you going to write a musical for me? I've got a title already: The Puppet, The PuppetMaster and The Night The Bad Strings Were Repaired At Last. Good title. And I'd be the STAAAH!

Thursday, September 03, 2009

Hurt Locker Review

The Hurt Locker


This was a good film by the director of Point Break, Kathry Bigelow, also a good film. But these are not great films. I won't go into Point Break which I enjoyed immensely.

Hurt Locker has some wonderfully suspenseful moments but you never tear off the nail you're chewing. Why? I put it down partly to plot. You need the plot to vice-grip the characters and you need to the tension of your heroes' predicaments. This happens but the web does not ultimately stick. There are great scenes of Sergeant First Class William James the team leader of an Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) in a bombsuit; great suspense but perhaps as a result of Sgt James' total not giving a shinola, we too don't "mind" if he's blown to "Jesus" as he himself says. I won't get technical. It is a worthwhile film if you're into war movies. It is not in the league or psychological depth of Full Metal Jacket, itself which is not in the league of an earlier true masterpiece of Kubrick's: Paths of Glory. Some cultural observations:

  • The bombsuit reminds us of Kubrick's 2001 with the breathing sounds and while the ordinance in the film has been praised I can say that the way it carries off does not always make us jump. The sound-design of the film should have been better even if it meant imitating the breathing in the spacesuits in 2001, which adds a suspense drawn from a kind of hypnoticness.
  • The bomb disposal robot is similar to Wallee. To what degree was the film of Wallee a lament for the mistakes made after the invasion of Iraq?
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