philosophy in film

Jacqueline Kennedy.

Jackie.

The movie. Based on a true story.

But what does that really mean? Everyone will react to her – to her life, to the choices that she made – from a point of view that may or may not be in accord to whatever the facts actually were.

And then we will pass judgment on all of that based on what we insist [or wish] that the facts had been instead. And what [in a perfect world] they ought to have been.

Jackie was the queen of Camelot. In fact some go so far as to call her its inventor: thedailybeast.com/articles/2 … death.html

Those were the days. Back then everything was said to be possible. The dawn of a new age. The New Frontier.

Or, in other words, blah, blah, blah. If, of course, that is how you are inclined to look at it.

Jackie was a beautiful woman. Natalie Portman beautiful. How important then is that in understanding her, in understanding her options, in understanding the reaction of others to her?

And her celebrity of course was second to none. Which prompts us to consider again that gap between how the famous are perceived and how they really are. Or, as Jackie herself put it: I believe the characters we read on the page become more real than the men who stand beside us.

And, in this day and age, being a woman doesn’t change that.

And then, as she reminds us right from the start, this will only be her own version of what happened.

And then, finally [as some never tire of reminding us], the rich really are different.

Look for God throughout. Just no less mysterious.

IMDb

[b]Actress Natalie Portman’s skill took actor Billy Crudup aback. “The proficiency of her artistry is very unusual,” he said. “When somebody is so possessed by their character and their work is so refined that you are literally transported and taken away by it, that is something unusual. As deep as I was in character in the scenes with her, I couldn’t help but also have a part of me watching her with the deepest admiration.”

One challenge that loomed for Natalie Portman as she prepared was Jacqueline Kennedy’s highly distinctive dialect, impeccable diction and whispery voice. “She had such an amazing voice,” Portman mused. “It was truly from another era. She had a finishing school sort of way of presenting yourself - very demure, where you bat your eyelashes and speak in a breathy voice. Her accent was posh but also mixed with a real New York accent and also a little British. Her dialect is an unusual combination of sounds that were completely unique to her. The first time I did it on set, I think Pablo [director Pablo Larraín] was terrified,” Portman recalled. [/b]

IMDb trivia: imdb.com/title/tt1619029/tri … =ttqu_sa_1
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_(2016_film
trailer: youtu.be/g9pW3B8Ycc4

JACKIE [2016]
Directed by Pablo Larraín

[b]Journalist: Mrs. Kennedy? They told me to come up. And I’m so sorry for your loss.
Jackie: Have you read what they’ve been writing? Krock and Merriman and all the rest?
Journalist: Yes, I have.
Jackie: Merriman’s such a bitter man. It’s been just one week. Already they’re treating him like some dusty old artifact to be shelved away. That’s no way to be remembered.
Journalist: And how would you like him remembered, Mrs. Kennedy?
Jackie: You understand that I will be editing this conversation just in case I don’t say exactly what I mean?
Journalist: With all due respect, that seems very unlikely, Mrs. Kennedy.
[pause]
Journalist: Right. Okay. Uh, so this will be your own version of what happened?
Jackie: Exactly. Come in.

Jackie: Do you know what I think of history?
Journalist: Of history?
Jackie: I’ve read a great deal. More than people realize. The more I read, the more I wonder: When something is written down, does that make it true?
Journalist: It’s all that we have.
Jackie: Had. We have television now. Now people can see with their own eyes.

Collingswood: Mrs. Kennedy, this administration has shown a particular affinity for artists, musicians, writers, and poets. Is this because you and your husband just feel that way. Or do you think there’s a relationship between the government and the arts?
Jackie: That’s so complicated. I—I don’t know. I just think that everything in the White House should be the best.

Journalist: Is your faith helping you?
Jackie: I’d prefer to discuss my faith with a priest. You’re not a man of the cloth, are you?
Journalist: No, I’m not. I’m just trying to get to the truth. That’s what reporters do.
Jackie: The truth? Well I’ve grown accustomed to a great divide between what people believe and what I know to be real.
Journalist: Fine, I will settle for a story that’s believable.
Jackie: That’s more like it.

Jackie: There’d been the biggest motorcade from the airport. Hot, wild like in Mexico or Vienna. The sun was strong in our faces but I couldn’t wear my sunglasses. Jack has his hand out and I see a piece of his skull come off. It wasn’t flesh colored, it wasn’t white. He slumps in my lap. His blood, his brains in my lap. And I’m saying Jack, Jack can you hear me, Jack, I love you Jack! And his head was so beautiful, and his mouth was beautiful and his eyes were open. I was trying to keep the top of his head down. Keep it all in. He had the most wonderful expression on his face, you know? Just before they’d ask him a question, just before he’d answer. He looked puzzled. I knew he was dead.
Journalist: Mrs. Kennedy…
Jackie: Don’t think for one second I’m going to let you publish that.

Lady Bird: Can I send someone back to help you change? Before we land? All those cameras… People will be watching.
Jackie: There were wanted posters. Everywhere. For Jack. With Jack’s face on them…Let them see what they’ve done.

Jackie [to Bobby]: It had to be some silly little Communist…If he’d been killed for civil rights…At least then it would have meant something. You know?..Jack warned me. Said we were going to ‘nut country.’

Bobby [to Jackie riding in the ambulance with the coffin]: Lyndon’s people are claiming I told him to take the oath in Dallas. Asshole couldn’t wait and now they’re blaming me for it.

Bill Walton: The next day it returned to the White House, and then they walked all the way to St. Matthew’s in a long, grand procession. It was a sunny spring day. Only six hundred tickets were allotted, but thousands lined the streets and rooftops. Citizens, Senators, Congressman, Diplomats and Officers – all in their full dress uniforms. Walton picks up a photograph. Lincoln’s mount, ‘Old Bob’ was draped in a black blanket with white trim and tassels. Hooded, he was led riderless at the head of a miles-long procession by the Reverend Henry Brown.
Jackie: I can feel Jack getting angry with us. ‘There you go, spending all that money on those silly little knick-nacks… The man would spend whatever it took for votes, but balked at buying a beautiful painting. I guess we don’t have to worry about that anymore…We must get this right. It has to be beautiful. Did you tell them we’ll need a horse-drawn carriage? We have to march with Jack. Everyone. A big beautiful procession that people will remember.
Bill Walton: Mrs. Kennedy… You don’t have to do this. In fact, I don’t think they’ll let you parade through the streets. The world’s gone mad. You should take the children and disappear. Build a fortress in Boston and never look back.

Caroline: Mommy… Why are you dressed so funny?
Jackie: Something very sad has happened. And this is how we dress when something sad happens.
John Jr.: Mommy, where’s Daddy?
Jackie: Daddy won’t be coming home.
Caroline: Why not?
Jackie [struggling]: Daddy had to go see your baby brother Patrick. In heaven.
Caroline: Why?
Jackie: Because I’m here with you. And we don’t want Patrick to get lonely, do we?
Caroline: But what about us?
Jackie: Caroline, I need you to be a big girl. You can be brave, right? You can be a soldier? A very bad man hurt Daddy. Daddy would come home if he could. But he can’t. He has to go to heaven.[/b]

What else really is there to say?

[b]Jack Valenti: We need to discuss the funeral. We all want to follow her lead. But, we still don’t know much about this Oswald. There may be coconspirators.
Bobby: I’ll talk to her, but she makes the call.
Valenti: There’s also the matter of the Oval.
Bobby: What do you want me to do first – plan the funeral or pack the furniture?
Valenti: I know this is all delicate. That’s why I’m approaching you. But a procession is insane. I just can’t have my President walking. Given what’s happened.
Bobby: Your President?
Valenti: My President.
Bobby: Well, regardless of what happens, my brother is going to be carried in a box.
Valenti: And I am sorry sir…
Bobby: Fuck off, Jack.

Bobby: Jackie… They’re worried about an outdoor procession. They think it’s a security risk. Everyone’s spooked. Apparently even State’s discouraging foreign dignitaries from attending. It’s eight city blocks to Saint Matthews. That’s a long way to be strolling through crowds. All those rooftops. All those windows…
Jackie [firm]: Bobby it’s our last chance. We have to march with him.

Bobby [right after Lee Harvey Oswald’s murder on TV]: You’ll not speak a word of this! Understood? I’ll tell Jackie when the time is right. Sit down.
LBJ: Excuse me?
Bobby: Sit down.

Jackie: I think God is cruel.
Priest: Well now you’re getting into trouble. God is love. And God is everywhere.
Jackie: Was he in the bullet that killed Jack?
Priest [firmly]: Absolutely.
Jackie: Is he inside me right now?
Priest: Yes. Of course he is.
Jackie [wearily]: Well that’s a funny game he plays – hiding all the time.
Priest: The fact that we don’t understand him isn’t funny at all.
Jackie [angrily] If there’s a heaven, there’s your God – with all his empty promises. What kind of God takes a father from his two little children?!
Priest: Thy Lord sacrificed his only son…
Jackie: And my two babies. Arabella in the womb. And Patrick. Thirty-nine hours on this earth. Just long enough to fall in love with him. What did I do to deserve that?
Priest: Nothing. [/b]

What else really is there to say?

[b]Jackie [to the priest]: There are two kinds of women, those who want power in the world and those who want power in bed.

Jackie: …he was a great father. I picture him in that rocking chair in his office. Caroline and John at his feet…How could I hate him?
Priest: Take comfort in those memories.
Jackie: I can’t. They’re mixed up with all the others.

Nancy: The children are ready. Shall I take them downstairs to ride with Maud?
Jackie: I’d like them to come with me.
Nancy: The press is out front. I thought you’d prefer…
Jackie: Their father is leaving this house for the last time. They should be there to say goodbye to him.
Nancy: But the cameras? Those pictures are being broadcast to every corner of the world. Jackie: Those pictures should record the truth. Two heartbroken, fatherless children are a part of that.

Journalist: I’m only wondering if you considered doing more to shield the children. I think most people would have…
Jackie: We aren’t ‘most people’. Most people don’t have to make those kinds of decisions, hours after watching their husband get murdered next to them.

Jackie: Mr. Valenti. Would you mind getting a message to all the funeral guests when they land? Not sure where this is going
Jack: Of course.
Jackie: Inform them that I will walk with Jack tomorrow. Alone if necessary. And tell General De Gaulle – if he wishes to ride in an armored car – or in a tank for that matter – I won’t blame him. And I’m sure the tens of millions of people watching won’t either.

Jackie: I wrote him a letter. That night, before we moved the casket to the Capitol. Do you know what I wrote? That I wanted to die. I wanted to die.
Priest: I understand.
Jackie: Do you?
Priest: I do. Unless you are asking permission.
Jackie: No, only crass, self-indulgent people kill themselves. No, I was just hoping… if I walked down the street next to Jack’s body then someone would be kind enough to do it for me.
Priest: In front of the whole world…A famous life, a famous death.
Kennedy: I never wanted fame. I just became a Kennedy.

Priest: You say you pray every night to die. That your children have no use for you. That you wish only to be with your husband. And yet – I’m not burying you today. There comes a time in man’s search for meaning when one realises that there are no answers. And when you come to that horrible, unavoidable realization, you accept it or you kill yourself. Or you simply stop searching…I have lived a blessed life. And yet every night, when I climb into bed, turn off the lights, and stare in to the dark, I wonder…Is this all there is?
Jackie: You wonder?
Priest: Every soul on this planet does. But then, when morning comes, we all wake up and make a pot of coffee.
Jackie: Why do we bother?
Priest: Because we do. You did this morning, you will again tomorrow. But God, in his infinite wisdom, has made sure it is just enough for us. [/b]

You know, it that’s true.

Jackie: Maybe that’s what they’ll all believe now. Camelot. People like to believe in fairy tales. Priest: And you? Do you believe you’ve done him justice?
Jackie: I believe the characters we read on the page become more real than the men who stand beside us.

Your mother is weird [if gifted] and you live a cloistered existence in a “secluded farmhouse” somewhere in Portugal. In other words, one of those really strange, intimate relationships between a parent and a child that produce a point of view far, far, far removed from the madding crowd.

Just no less frenzied. And no less prone to horror. Still, when you are being shaped and molded in an extraordinary set of circumstances, the consequences embedded in your interactions with others are likely to be much the same.

Just [here] considerably more bloody and brutal.

Still, this one is bursting at the seams with ambiguity. Regarding, among other things, what is actually unfolding. As one reviewer noted, “…A lot of the story was left up to interpretation. We are given small hints towards things in the dialogue here and there, but must make our own decisions on what the truth actually is.”

So, to the extent that this is seen as a “horror” film more or less than as a “drama”, is really up to each of us to decide.

What do make films like this “horror movies”, however, is that we know that people can actually do these things. And have reasons to. Reasons that you and I are not able to talk them out of. They simply do not see the world around us in the same way.

And, in order to make it all that much more suspenseful – spooky – it is filmed [as it only could have been] in black and white.

Look [or listen] for the Cartwrights.

IMDb

[b]The music that Francisca and her father dance to is “Naufrágio” in the voice of Amália Rodrigues. This type of Portuguese traditional music is called “fado”, which translates to “sad destiny”, and it’s commonly used to express the feeling of losing someone dear.

The three Portuguese-speaking actors all use different accents: Lucy has a Brazilian accent, Francisca has a continental Portuguese accent and António has an Azorean accent. [/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eyes_of_My_Mother
trailer: youtu.be/WWLNn5kk0iU

THE EYES OF MY MOTHER [2016]
Written and directed by Nicolas Pesce

[b]Mother [to Francisca as a young girl]: Saint Francis spent many years living alone in the woods. Then one night, he saw an angel burning in the sky. And when he woke up, he had stigmata. But loneliness can do strange things to the mind. Eventually he died of an eye condition that also would have caused psychosis.

Mother: Cow eyes are very similar to human eyes. The construction is almost exactly the same. The only difference is they’re bigger. In Portugal, we used to practice surgery on cows. Here, they practice on people.

Mother [repeating herself]: Bathroom is through the living room, to your right.
Charlie: Would you show me? I think you should show me the way. Ma’am. I’m trying to be polite. Now, we can try this one more time before I start to become unreasonable.
Mother: I am sorry, sir, but I really need you to leave. I don’t quite know what you’re planning.
Charlie [pulling out a gun]: Hey there, Franny. I’m gonna need you to sit over there on that chair and be real quiet. Can you do that for me?
[Francisca sits on the chair]
Charlie: Now, why don’t you be a good host and show me where that bathroom is?

Father [to Fransisca]: I need help with your mother.

Francisca: Why us?
Charlie [chained to the floor in the barn]: You let me in.
Francisca: You’ve done this before. Why do you do it?
Charlie: It feels amazing…You’re gonna kill me, right?
Francisca: Why would I kill you? You’re my only friend. I’m gonna take care of you.

Kimiko: Have you lived here a long time?
Francisca: My whole life.
Kimiko: Was this your parents’ house?
Francisca: Yes.
Kimiko: Do you live here alone now?
Francisca: Mm-hmm.
Kimiko: I’m sorry, I’m asking so many questions. I ask a lot of questions when I’m nervous.
Francisca: Why are you nervous?
Kimiko: I don’t do this very often.
Francisca: Do what?
Kimiko: Go home with people.

Kimiko: What did your mother do?
Francisca: She was a surgeon in Portugal.
Kimiko: What kind?
Francisca: Eyes. When I was little, we used to do the dissections together. I remember I was fascinated by how the inside of the body looked. She always hoped I would be a surgeon one day.

Kimiko: What happened to her? I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.
Francisca: Someone killed her.
Kimiko: What? What about your dad?
Francisca: I killed him.
Kimiko: No, really.
Francisca: Really.
Kimiko: What? You’re not serious, are you?
Francisca: Yeah.

Francisca [to Chartlie after plunging a knife into him over and over]: You were right…it feels…amazing.

Francisca [sobbing, aloud to herself, after burning the chopped up body of her father]: What am I going to do? What am I going to do? I can’t be alone anymore. Please mother, help me. What am I going to do?

Francisca: You think I could just hold Antonio?
Lucy [who picked Francisca up and drove her home]: I’m sorry. We…we really have to get going.
Francisca: Please, can I hold him just for a little bit? Okay?
Lucy [with hesitation]: Okay, okay, just do it quick.

Antonio [now a boy]: Mom, who is that?
Francisca: What?
Antonio: There’s a person in there.
Francisca: Did you go in the barn?
Antonio: Who is that? Who is that?
Franciscas: I told you to never go into the barn.

Francisca [to Antonio asleep in bed]: Everything I do is for you. I just want us to be together. I would do anything to be with you.

Francisca [to Antonio asleep in bed]: Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. And whether or not it is clear to you, the universe is unfolding as it should.

Francisca [aloud to her herself in the forest after digging up her mother’s body and cradling the skull]: Mother…I miss you so much. I wanted to make you proud. I wish you could meet Antonio. He’s perfect. I just want us all to be together again.

Francisca: Baby! Baby, wake up. Baby.
Antonio: What’s wrong?
Francisca: You know how much I love you, right?
Antonio: What’s wrong?
Francisca: Nothing’s wrong, nothing’s wrong. Whatever you learn, don’t let it change how you feel about me, okay?
Antonio [hearing someone pounding on the door]: Who’s here?![/b]

Right on the cusp. And in so many ways.

At least here in America.

The left-wing, liberal Sixties was all but kaput. And we were just inches away from electing the right wing, conservative Reagan agenda.

But trust me: Only if you actually lived through it could you really understand. And, for some folks, once they began to fully understand that [as John Lennon put it] “the dream is over”, they had to come up with ways to accommodate the “new order”.

Sure, there were still the idealistic parts. But more and more they had to come up with ways in which to intertwine what they felt ought to be with was going to really happen instead.

Of course in Southern California this was all the harder still.

But then that is a very different movie.

Here we have entirely more self-absorbed folks grappling with all of that perennial “personal stuff” that will always be around whatever the particular social and political climate might be. Sex, love, gender roles, parenting. A boy being raised by three women.

In other words, where this gets tricky is that Dorothea was born in the 1920s. So she is already into her forties when the Sixties took off. A whole different kind of cusp for her.

Anyway, some things you can fix, some things you can’t. And, for most of us, we have to go about the business of moderating our ideals and through negotiation and compromise come up with ways in which to make any particular family work with the least amount of dysfunction.

At least in our postmodern world. After all, there was a time [spanning the greater part of human interaction in fact] when communities were considerably more…inflexible. A place for everyone and everyone in his or her place.

Well, by and large.

Here the folks are comfortably ensconced in a white middle class suburban enclave where, among other things, no one ever worries about the bills being paid. It’s as though the rest of world barely exists. It’s all about them.

IMDb

[b]During rehearsals, the cast was encouraged to bring in music they believed their characters listened to. Then, to encourage familiarity among the cast, there would be a dance party where the only rule was that everyone had to dance and it didn’t matter what the song was.

As her character is based on the director’s mother, Annette Bening watched a lot of Mike Mills’ mother’s favorite films, including Stage Door and movies starring Humphrey Bogart; his seminal film Casablanca is edited into the film.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th_Century_Women
trailer: youtu.be/bxcvng_CpMQ

20TH CENTURY WOMEN [2016]
Written and directed by Mike Mills

[b]Julie [to Jamie]: It was so much easier before you got all horny.

William: We are connected to the dirt, 'cause we came from the dirt. The dirt is made of stars. and started out the same way that we are. So…When you put your hands into that… Dirt and feel the Earth Mother…
Abbie [bursting out in laughter]: William…

Jamie [voiceover]: My mom was born in 1924. When she was my age, people drove in sad cars to sad houses. With old phones, no money or food. Or televisions. But people were real.

Banker: I’m sorry, your son is too young to have an account in his name only. Little guy.
Dorothea: No, he’s a person, he’s not half a person. And he’s not some cute little guy. He has vision, autonomy and privacy. He needs a bank account. Can you do that for us?

Jamie: Do you think you’re happy? Like… As happy as you thought you’d be when you were at my age.
Dorothea: Seriously? You don’t ask people question like that.
Jamie: You’re my mom.
Dorothea: Especially your mom. Look. Wondering if you are happy… It’s a great shortcut to just being depressed.

Dorothea: What is that?
Abbie: It’s The Raincoats.
Dorothea: Can’t things just be pretty?
Jamie: Pretty music is used to hide how unfair and corrupt society is.
Dorothea: Ah, okay so…they’re not very good, and they know that, right?
Abbie: Yeah, it’s like they’ve got this feeling, and they don’t have any skill, and they don’t want skill, because it’s really interesting what happens when your passion is bigger than the tools you have to deal with it. It creates this energy that’s raw. Isn’t it great?[/b]

Yet another conversation about punk rock.

[b]Dorothea [voiceover]: My son was born in 1964. He grew up with a meaningless war. With protests. With Nixon. With nice cars and nice houses. Computers. Drugs. Boredom. I know him less everyday.

Dorothea: He said it was just a game. You breath real hard and another kid pulls on your diaphragm. And you faint. He said you’re supposed to come to a few seconds later. But it took Jamie almost a half an hour to wake up.

Dorothea [to Abbie and Julie]: I think History has been tough on men. I mean they can’t be what they were. And they can’t figure out what’s next.

Julie [about Jamie]: Don’t you need a man to raise a man?
Dorothea: No, I don’t think so.

Jamie: What’s wrong?
Julie: Tim Drammer came inside me.
Jamie: I don’t wanna hear this shit.

Dorothea: Well, you can handle bad news or you can’t. You have to start somewhere. Men always feel like they have to fix things for women… But they are not doing anything. But some things just can’t be fixed. Just be there…Somehow, that’s hard for you all.
Jamie: Mom, I’m not “all men”. Okay. I’m just me.
Dorothea: Well, yes and no.

Jamie [to Julie]: What do we do for two hours?

Julie [to Jamie]: I think being strong is the most important quality. It’s not being vulnerable, it’s not being sensitive. It’s not even—Honestly, it’s not even being happy. It’s about strength and your durability against the other emotions.

Jamie: No ring.
Julie: No ring.

Julie: Can I have one?
Dorothea: No, they’re really bad for you.
Julie: You smoke all the time.
Dorothea: You know when I started, they weren’t bad for you, they were just stylish, sort of edgy, so… It’s different for me.

Dorothea: Abbie.
Abbie: Yes?
Dorothea: Let’s go out tonight. I want to see this modern world.

Dorothea [voiceover over a montage of punk rock images]: It’s 1979, I am 55 years old. This is what my son believes in. These people. With this hair. And these clothes. Making these gestures, making these sounds. It’s 1979 and I am 55 years old and in 1999 I’ll die of cancer from smoking…They don’t know this is the end of punk, They don’t know that Reagan’s coming. It’s impossible to imagine that kids will stop dreaming about nuclear war, and have nightmares about the weather. It’s impossible to imagine HIV.

Dorothea [tending to the bruises on Jamie’s face]: So what was the fight about?
Jamie: Clitoral stimulation.

Abbie [after Dorothea shows her her car with ART FAG spray painted on the door]: Yeah, That’s what Matt called me. For liking the talking heads.
Dorothea [seeing the words BLACK FLAG sprayed on the other doort]: And what is Black Flag?
Abbie: It’s a hardcore band. So…The people who love Black Flag, hate the Talking Heads.
Dorothea: What?!
Abbie: The punk scene is very divisive.

Abbie [to Jamie]: Whatever you think your life is going to be like, just know, it’s not gonna be anything like that.

Woman in club: How old are you?
Abbie [whispering in Jamie’s ear]: Age is a bourgeois construct.
Janue [to the woman]: Age is a bourgeois construct.
Woman: Good answer.

Dorothea: What does that mean… Art Fag? I mean, what is…? If you would’ve thought about it from more like a sociological perspective. Where does that come from? Art fag. What is that?
William: Abbie understands it.
Dorothea: Abbie does not understand it, she’s just a part of it.

Abbie: I gave him beer, and then I taught him how to verbally seduce women. Then we drove drunk, but I stopped that, and then he kissed Trish, and then we walked home.
Dorothea: Ah.
Abbie: You’re not mad? You’re mad.
Dorothea: You get to see him out in the world, as a person. I never will.

Jamie: What’s it like? For girls.
Julie: What? Sex?
Jamie: Orgasms.
Julie: Do you really wanna know what it’s like?
Jamie: Yeah.
Julie: I don’t have them.

Julie: Half the time I regret it.
Jamie: Then why do you do it?
Julie: Because half the time I dont regret it.

Jamie [reading aloud from It Hurts To Be Alive And Obsolete: The Aging Woman by Zoe Moss: “Interested in others. And I think, intelligent. All I ask is to get to know people and to have them interested in knowing me. I doubt whether I would marry again and live that close to another individual, but I remain invisible. Don’t pretend for a minute as you look at me, that I am not as alive as you are, and I do not suffer from the category to which you are forcing me. I think, stripped down, I look more attractive than my ex-husband but I am sexually and socially obsolete and he is not. I have a capacity now for taking people as they are, which I lacked at 20. I reach orgasm in half the time and I know how to please, yet I do not even dare show a man that I find him attractive. If I do, he may react as if I have insulted him. I’m supposed to fulfill my small functions and vanish.”

Dorothea: I appreciate that you trying to help, I do…I just think you are taking it too far. And this stuff, with you know, the women’s movement I respect, but it’s just…It’s complicated, and I think it’s too much for him.
Abbie: I don’t know what it is that you’re talking about.
Dorothea: Okay, he is 15 years old boy…
Abbie: I know…
Dorothea: You are giving him hard core feminism…
Abbie: But he really loves it and it’s really…it’s helping him.
Dorothea: Helping him what?
Abbie: It’s helping him become a man.
Dorothea: This is the boy you were talking about. Learning about a female orgasms… is helping him be a man?
Abbie: Well what man do you know that cares anything about that? It’s a miracle!
Dorothea: He’s a high school kid. Okay? It’s too much, I’m telling you.
Abbie: I think he seems really okay with it.
Dorothea: You know you don’t actually know what you’re doing with him? Okay? Just…
[she walks away]

Jimmy Carter [on televison]: There is a growing disrespect for government…for schools, the news media. And all the institutions. This is not a message of happiness or reassurance. But it is the truth and it is a warning. It is a crisis of confidence. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of unity and purpose for our nation. Too many of us now, tend to worship self indulgence and consumption. But we’ve discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We always believed that we were part of a great movement. Of humanity itself…Involved in the search for freedom. We are at a turning point in our history. The path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest…down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom. It is a certain route to failure. Thank you and good night.[/b]

Cue the Reagan era?

[b]Abbie [at a dinner with lots of people]: Ugh, stop it, I’m menstruating.
Dorothea: Abbie, you know what? You’re menstruating, okay. But do you have to say it, Ok? Do we really need to know everything that’s going on with you?
Abbie: What? I am menstruating. What is that a big deal?
Dorothea: We don’t need to hear about that, thank you.
Abbie [turning to Jamie]: If you ever wanna have an adult relationship with a woman…Like if you wanna have sex with a woman’s vagina, you need to be comfortable with the fact that the vagina menstruates… I’m just saying… Menstruation, it’s not a big problem. So, start saying now… Menstruation.
Jamie: Now?
Abbie: Yes, menstruation.
Jamie [meekly]: Menstruation.
Dorothea: Jamie, no… You don’t have to.
Abbie: You’re saying it like you’re scared, don’t say it like you’re scared. Say it like it’s normal. Menstruation.
Jamie: Menstruation…Menstruation.
Abbie: Not bad.

Julie: The first time that I got my period, I was watching One Flew OAver the Cuckoo’s Nest, with some guy. And…yeah I just told him that I had to leave. So I went to the market and I bought a box of tampons. I read the instructions on the box and I put one in. And I never told my mom about it, but she never asks. So it didn’t matter. I never saw the end of the Cuckoo’s Nest.
William: Jack Nicholson got a lobotomy…and so the big Indian guy, smothered him with the pillow…so that he could be, you know, be free.

Jamie: Mom, I’m dealing with everything, right now. You are dealing with nothing.

Jamie: What’s wrong?
Julie: Nothing.
Jamie: Tell me.
Julie: I think that I’m too close to you…to have sex with you. It’s confusing…
Jamie: I can help you get over that.
Julie: I don’t wanna get over that.
Jamie: Yes you do.
Julie: You’re being like the other guys.
Jamie: I don’t want to just, have sex with you, I want you…
Julie: But it’s your version of me. It’s not me. It’d be a lot better if you just wanted sex. You’re exactly like the other guys…[/b]

As with most things, La La Lands are not all created equal. Sure, you can live in your very own world practically anywhere. But there is something about doing it in Hollywood that brings out the truly best and the worst renditions.

Then it all comes down to politics. And options. Your idea of La La Land may well be at odds with others. And more [or less] within reach.

Take, for example, the La La Land that is the Trump administration and Fox News.

Of course that one is on the other side of the country; and it involves a whole different set of variables. Though I’m sure that some day Trump: The Musical starring Sean Hannity will be coming to a screen near you.

Here though the La La Lands evolve over the course of two Hollywood careers. In other words, there is La La Land when you are struggling to “make it big” out there…which can then evolve [or devolve] into an entirely different sort of La La Land when you finally do make it. If you ever do at all. Or if you can do it on your own terms.

And that’s before you are forced to untangle the personal from the political. Besides, who is to say where to draw that particular line. And who is to say what a true actor or a true musician is? When are they really worthy of respect?

All that boundless bullshit in other words.

Look for the part where it’s a musical. But this one is said to be more “grounded”. Still, few things are more surreal [even ludicrous] than folks [out of the blue] bursting into song, performing choreographed dance numbers in the course of, for example, living their lives.

I hate them.

IMDb

[b]According to composer Justin Hurwitz, all the piano performance featured in the film was first recorded by pianist Randy Kerber during pre-production. Ryan Gosling then spent two hours a day, six days a week in piano lessons learning the music by heart. By the time filming had begun, Gosling was able to play all the piano sequences seen in the film without the use of a hand double or CGI.

The audition scene, where the casting director interrupts Mia’s emotional performance to take a phone call, was actually inspired by one of Ryan Gosling’s auditions in real life.

The line in the film said by Sebastian “That’s LA. They worship everything and they value nothing.”, was actually added in by Ryan Gosling himself, when he heard his real life girlfriend, Eva Mendes, mention it as a “joke”.

The plot has strong ties to Emma Stone’s real-life history. The movie is based in LA, and Mia is discovered as a college dropout actress pursuing her dreams. Stone is a school dropout herself, moving to LA at the age of 15 in pursuit of an acting career.

John Legend, singer and pianist, had to learn how to play the guitar for his role.[/b]

IMDb trivia: imdb.com/title/tt3783958/tri … =ttqu_sa_1
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_La_Land_(film
trailer: youtu.be/0pdqf4P9MB8

LA LA LAND [2016]
Written and directed by Damien Chazelle

[b]Laura [sister]: I brought you this. It’s a throw rug.
Sebastian: I don’t need it.
Laura: Yeah? What if I told you Miles Davis pissed on it?
Sebastian: That’s almost insulting…Is it true?

Sebastian [to Laura]: I’m letting life hit me until it gets tired. Then I’ll hit back. It’s a classic rope-a-dope.

Sebastian: I want to let you know you’re looking at a new man. A man who’s happy to be here.
Bill: Right, and you’ll play the set list.
Sebastian: Happy to. Even though I don’t think anyone cares what I play, but, yeah.
Bill: Well, if by “anyone” you mean anyone other than me, that would be correct. I care and I don’t want to hear any of that free jazz.[/b]

Instead, the set is “jazzed up” Christmas carols.

[b]Sebastian: I hear what you’re saying but I don’t think you’re saying what you mean.
Bill: I don’t think you hear what I’m saying. You’re fired.
Sebastian: Well, that’s what you’re saying, but it’s not what you mean. What you mean is…
Bill: You’re fired.
Sebastian: It’s Christmas.
Bill: Yeah, I see the decorations. Good luck in the New Year.

Sebastian: Alright, I remember you. And I’ll admit I was a little curt that night.
Mia: “Curt?”
Sebastian: Okay, I was an asshole. I can admit that. But requesting “I Ran” from a serious musician, it’s just, it’s going too far.
Mia: My Lord, did you just say “a serious musician?”
Sebastian: I don’t think so.
Mia: Can I borrow what you’re wearing?
Sebastian: Why?
Mia: Because I have an audition next week. I’m playing a serious firefighter.
Sebastian: So you’re an actress? I thought you looked familiar. Have I seen you in anything?
Mia: Uhh, the coffee shop on the Warner Brothers lot, that’s a classic.
Sebastian: Oh I see.
Mia: Yeah.
Sebastian: So you’re a barista? And I can see how you could then look down on me from all the way up there.

Sebastian [to Mia]: That’s L.A… They worship everything and they value nothing.

Mia: I should probalby tell you something now, just to get it out of the way.
Sebastian: Mmm–mmm
Mia: I hate jazz.
[Sebastian stops dead in his tracks]
Mia: You okay?
Sebastian: What do you mean, you hate jazz?
Mia: It just means that when I listen to it, I don’t like it.

Sebastian: I just think that people, when they say that they, you know, hate jazz, they just don’t have the context, they don’t know where it comes from. Jazz was born in a little flophouse in New Orleans, and it’s just because people were crammed in there, they spoke five different languagers, they couldn’t talk to each other. The only way they could communicate was with jazz.
Mia: Yeah, but what about Kenny G? What about elevator music…jazz that I know. I mean…I find it relaxing.
Sebastian: It’s not relaxing. It’s not…it’s not. Sidney Bechet shot someone because they told him he played a wrong note. That’s hardly relaxing.
Mia: Yeah, but where I grew up there was this statiom called K-Jazz 103. And people would just put on that station when they had a cocktail party…And everyone would kinda just talk over it.

Sebastian: You have to see what’s at stake with jazz. I mean, look at these fellas. Look at the sax player right now. He just highjacked the song. He’s on his own trip. Everyone of these guys is composing, they’re rearranging. Then they’re playing the melody. And now look, the trumpet player. He’s got his own idea. And so, it’s conflict…and it’s compromise, and it’s just new every time. It’s brand new every night. It’s very, very exciting…And it’s dying, Mia. It’s dying on the vine. And the world says, “Let it die. It had its time.” Well, not on my watch.

Sebastian: Fuck them!
Mia: You always say that.

Mia: I think you should call your club Seb’s.
Sebastian:Why?
Mia: Because no one will come to a place called Chicken on a Stick.

Keith [to Sebastian]: You say you wanna save jazz. How you gonna save it if no one’s listening? Jazz is dying because of people like you. You’re playing to 90-year-olds at the Lighthouse. Where are the kids? Where are the young people? You’re so obsessed with Kenny Clarke and Thelonious Monk. These guys were revolutionaries. How are you gonna be a revolutionary if you’re such a traditionalist? You hold onto the past, but jazz is about the future.

Sebastian: You should come.
Mia: To Boise?
Sebastian: Yeah, you can knock it off your bucket list.

Mia: Do you like the music that you’re playing?
Sebastian: I don’t know…I don’t know what it matters.
Mia: Well, it matters because if you’re gonna give up your dream of opening your own club, I think it matters that you like what you’re playing on the road for years.
Sebastian: Do you like the music I’m playing.
Mia: Yeah. I do. I just didn’t think that you did.

Sebastian: I thought you wanted me to do this, it just sounds like now you don’t want me to do it.
Mia: What do you mean, I wanted you to do this?
Sebastian: This is what you wanted for me.
Mia: To be in this band?
Sebastian: To be in a band, to have a steady job, you know to be… you know.
Mia: Of course, I wanted you to have a steady job so that you could take care of yourself and your life and you could start your club.
Sebastian: Yeah, so I’m doing that, so I don’t understand like why aren’t we celebrating?
Mia: Why aren’t you starting your club?
Sebastian: You said yourself no one wants to go that club. No one wants to go to a club called ‘Chicken on a Stick.’
Mia: So change the name!
Sebastian: Well, no one likes jazz, not even you!
Mia: I do like jazz now because of you!

Mia [to Sebastian]: People will go to your club because you’re passionaite about it. People love what other people are passionate about.
Sebastian: Not from my experience.

Sebastian: You know, I have a steady job. And now all of a sudden you have these problems with it. I wish you would have said it earlier before I signed on the goddamn dotted line!
Mia: I’m pointing out that you had a dream that you followed. That you were sticking to it…
Sebastian: This is the dream!
Mia: This is not your dream.
Sebastian: Guys will work their whole lives to be in something that’s successful, that people like. You know? I mean, I’m finally in something that people enjoy.
Mia: Since when do you like being liked?
Sebastian: Because I don’t enjoy it doesn’t matter.
Mia: Why do you care so much about being liked?
Sebastian: You’re an actress! What are you talking about?!..Maybe you just liked me when I was on my ass because it made you feel better about yourself.
Mia [after as pause]: Are you kidding.
Sebastian: No.
[A long pause as they stare at each other]
Sebastian: I don’t know…[/b]

There are lives that most of us cannot even imagine. This is one of them. All we can do is to watch it unfold and wonder: What would I do?

And then every once in a while you wonder what ought to have been done for children like this. Also, is there a way to actually untangle all of the strands embedded in this extraordinary life and figure out what might have been the best of all possible worlds.

And so much of it revolves around sheer luck. Suppose Saroo had not stumbled upon the man in the restaurant? Suppose instead he had been abducted by the child snatchers? Or taken by Rama?

Saroo’s first family is “poor but happy”. But he gets separated from them at a very young age and then fortuitously he is brought up in a family that is prosperous and happy.

To connect or not to connect the dots. To go back as an adult and find that first family. The family he lost.

Many no doubt have imagined it…

Suppose, just suppose, you found out that your own family was not your “real” family. You were adopted. Would you feel the need to go back and find your true biological folks? Yet here of course the circumstances can be vast and varied. This is just one set of them. Your own may be nothing at all like them. It’s all profoundly embedded in the complex interaction between here and now and there and then. And once you start in on connecting the two, who knows what the consequences might be.

Look for the teeming masses. And this is about as close as most of us will ever get to them.

And then what to make of Mantosh.

IMDb

[b]Dev Patel had to develop a new physique to portray Saroo and attended several hours in the gym in order inhabit his part. He also grew a beard and developed an Australian accent (with Tasmanian dialect), visited Saroo Brierley’s orphanage in India and wrote a diary while he took the original train ride that Brierley accidentally took as a young child. In total, he spent eight months preparing for the role.

Rooney Mara’s character is not based on a single real-life character, but is a combination of several of Saroo’s real-life girlfriends who were with him through his search.

4,000 boys were auditioned to play the young Saroo Brierly, according to line producer Pravesh Sahni.

In India, over 80,000 children go missing each year and there are over 11 million children living on the streets. [/b]

trivia at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt3741834/tri … =ttqu_sa_1
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_(2016_film
trailer: youtu.be/-RNI9o06vqo

LION [2016]
Directed by Garth Davis

[b]Noor: You speak Hindi?
Saroo [as a boy]: Yes. I got lost.
Noor: Where are you from?
Saroo: Ganestlay.
Noor: Where is that?
Saroo: Home.
Noor: I don’t know where that is.

Noor: There is a man and he is called Rama. He is a good man. He helps everybody. He will help you too. He’s coming tomorrow morning.
Saroo: Is he going to help me look for my mum?[/b]

Nope.

[b]Rama [to Noor]: You’ve done well. He’s exactly what they’re looking for.

Mrs. Sood: It’s my job to make sure there isn’t a single kid here who should be somewhere else. That’s why I’m here. People don’t like me here.
[she shows Saroo a clipping from a newspaper]
Mrs. Sood: We have been asking around about you for a long time. We have published your picture in the newspaper. In all the newspapers in Calcutta. 15 million people read this paper. But we haven’t had a single reply.
Saroo: My home is far away.
Mrs. Sood: Not one reply…We found a family over in Australia who want to look after you.

Saroo: Did you really look for my Mum?
Mrs. Sood: We looked everywhere.[/b]

And then out of the blue he is out of the Third World and into ours.

Sue [to Saroo]: So you’ve come a long way, haven’t you? Little one. I’m sure it hasn’t easy. And one day you’ll tell me about it. You’ll tell me everything. Who you are, everything. I’ll always listen. Always.

20 years later…

[b]Lucy: Saroooo…you OK? Saroo?
Saroo [lost in a memory]: I’m not from Calcutta… I’m lost.

Bahrat [at dinner party]: Did your mother look for you? If she did she might have left a paper trail.
Saroo: My mum couldn’t read or write.
Bahrat: What did she do?
Saroo: She was a laborer. She carried rocks.
Bahrat: Your mum?

Lucy: Saroo, you need to face reality.
Saroo: What do you mean, “reality”? Do you have any idea what it’s like knowing my real brother and mother spending every day of their lives looking for me? Huh? How every day my real brother screams my name? Can you imagine the pain they must be in not knowing where I am? 25 years, Luce. 25!
Lucy: Why didn’t you tell me what was happening to you?
Saroo: We swum about in our privileged lives. It makes me sick. I have to find home. They need to know I’m okay.[/b]

Cue Google Earth.

[b]Lucy: What if you do find home and they are not even there? And you never stop and you keep on searching? You don’t know what happens over time. Things change. Entire worlds change.
Saroo: I don’t have a choice.

Saroo: I’m sorry you couldn’t have your own kids.
Sue: What are you saying?
Saroo: We… we… weren’t blank pages, were we? Like your own would have been. You weren’t just adopting us but our past as well. I feel like we’re killing you.
Sue: I could have had kids.
Saroo: What?
Sue: We chose not to have kids. We wanted the two of you. That’s what we wanted. We wanted the two of you in our lives.That’s what we chose. That’s one of the reasons I fell in love with your dad. Because we both felt as if the world has enough people in it. Have a child, couldn’t guarantee it will make anything better. But to take a child that’s suffering like you boys were. Give you a chance in the world. That’s something.

Saroo [aloud to himself as he stares at the computer screen image of his old home town]: Ganesh Talai. Ganesh Talai…Ganestalay…Mum.

Saroo [to Lucy]: I found home.

Saroo: And Guddo? Where’s Guddu? Where is he?
Mother: Guddu…
Villager: Guddo is no more…he is with God.

Saroo [on a video link to his mom and dad]: I just wanted to say that I am safe. I’m safe and questions have been answered. There are no more dead ends. I’ve found my mother and she thanks both of you for raising me. She understands that you’re my family. She’s…she’s happy just knowing that I’m alive.

Titlecard: Saroo Brierley made it back to Ganesh Talai on February 12, 2012. He’d been lost for over 25 years. All those years earlier, on the same night he stepped up into that empty carriage, his brother Guddu died — hit by a train not far from the platform. Saroo’s mother had never given up hope of Saroo’s return, and had never moved away.

Saroo learned that all those years ago, as a five year old, he had been mispronouncing his own name. He was ‘Sheru’. meaning lion.[/b]

When it comes to films of this nature there is Donnie Brasco and all the rest. Brasco was simply riveting from start to finish. But the premise is the same. It revolves around an exploration into the complex relationships that can emerge when one particular man is sent to infiltrate one or another extremist organization — a group which is deemed to be either dangerous to “society” or are engaged in behaviors that violate the law.

But things get particularly tricky here because the group is an ideological contraption. Its membership revolves around both moral and political objectivism. And its object is to obtain the materials needed to build a “dirty bomb”. To build the bomb and to use it in order to further “the cause”. The cause here being to create a world where white people – the right white people – rule.

In other words, they are said to be terrorists. Home grown terrorists.

But how do you actually accomplish the task of becoming a successful “infiltrator”? Well, among other things, you have to 1] assume a new identity 2] remain undiscovered and 3] get out alive. And since this is “inspired by real events” the tension here becomes all that more palpable.

It is simply mind-boggling how much necessarily goes into creating his new “reality”. And then he has to live it right down to the bone. No fuckups are allowed. So, if you can’t think – really think – on your feet, don’t become an undercover infiltrator.

And then the part where he wobbles back and forth when confronted with situations in which, in order to prove he is “one of them” he has to do some really crazy [even illegal] shit.

Now, some might criticize this film because it offers clip after clip of one or another white supremacist explaining their world view, of defending it. In the end of course they get thumped, but not before being given plenty of air time.

IMDb

[b]The film takes its inspiration from the real-life story of FBI agent Michael German, who helped co-write the script.

The name “Imperium” is Latin but commonly used in German, meaning “empire”, and is synonymous with the German word “Reich”, although never in the context of the German Empire (“das deutsche Kaiserreich”) or the Third Reich (“das dritte Reich”). However, English-speaking Neonazis do frequently refer to a “Western Imperium” as a theoretical future global empire following their political and philosophical views. [/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperium_(2016_film
trailer: youtu.be/I3lFBq7_CPk

IMPERIUM [2016]
Written in part and directed by Daniel Ragussis

[b]Title card: “Words build bridges into unexplored regions.” Adolph Hitler

FBI official briefing the team: These containers carried cesium-137. It’s used for radiotherapy applications in hospitals, but it’s highly regulated and had no business being on that truck. When we tracked the shipment back to Baltimore, the customs record showed eight containers, not two. So there’s six more of them out there, all of them in the country illegally. If that quantity made it’s way into a radiological device, we could be looking at thousands of casualties, mass evacuations and radioactive contamination throughout the D.C. area.[/b]

Only it’s not “the Muslims” this time.

[b]Tom: Uh, lab analysis puts the cesium coming from north Africa. So the guys on four, they put together this map. It’s an analysis of Muslim communities in DC, Maryland and Virginia, along with their countries of origin. We’d like each…yes?
Angela: What about leads on the DT front?
Tom: Well, given the cesium came from north Africa, we don’t think domestic is really in the picture.
Angela: The last time anyone tried to build a dirty bomb on US soil was James cummings. He was a white supremacist living in Maine, he was going to set it off at Obama’s inauguration. He had uranium, thorium, and he was trying to acquire cesium. I’m sure you’re familiar with the case.

Angela: What do you know about Timothy McVeigh?
Nate: Uh…he was some kind of lone extremist…in a militia?
[she hands him a book]
Angela: Here. Timothy McVeigh was a decorated Gulf war veteran. He was not insane; He was not a lunatic; And he was not stupid. He was a white supremacist, following a plan. What plan? A plan from a book called the Turner Diaries. It’s about a “race war” to exterminate blacks, Jews, and “mud people.” You know how the war gets started? The hero drives a truck bomb into a federal building. Timothy McVeigh was reenacting that scene from the Turner diaries. He was carrying the book with him when he was arrested. What he was trying to do was start the race war. You’re focused on the Islamic guys. I get it. We all create a narrative based on what we think is important. We see what we want to see. But just because you’re not looking at something doesn’t mean it’s not there.

Angela: What do you think undercover work is? Beating guys up and shooting at them? No, it’s people skills. It’s controlling situations.
[She hands him a copy of Dale Carnegie’s How To Win Friends & Influence People]
Angela: It’s this.
Nate: Seriously?
Angela: This is the only undercover training you’ll ever need.

Various voices in the background discussing the dirty bomb scenario: A dirty bomb is any kind of crude, explosive device that when detonated, disperses radiation around and beyond the blast. What you would do is irradiate a large territory. Now some of these things have a half-life of 30 years. In many cases, this material cannot be seen, it can not be smelled, cannot be felt, cannot be tasted. The more technically capable an adversary is the more likely they would be to find ways to spread the radioactive material over larger areas. One of things that we’ve been taught in recent years, is that we must be able to prepare for the unthinkable.

Angela [to Nate]: The Turner Diaries, it’s sold over a half a million copies. Who do you think is buying it? Eric Rudolph, the olympic bomber, Wade Paige, who shot up the sikh temple. Larry Ford, developing typhoid and cholera. Liam Carr, with the cyanide bomb, Anthrax, ricin, botcillism, c-4, ied’s, I could go on like this for hours. And all of them are white supremacists.

Nate [practicing his new identity]: My name is Nate Thomas. I was in the marines for three years, on a wmd squad in Iraq. But I saw a lot of things over there that changed me. I started to wonder what was really going on in this country. And now I’m back home… Trying to make a new start. I’m starting to figure out the truth about some things. There’s really only a handful of people who know what’s going on. But I want to be one of them. And I want to make a difference.

Angela [taking a sheet of paper from Nate]: What’s this?
Nate: It’s my DD-214. I was up all night Photoshop-ing it, so if anyone wants to see proof of my service in the marines, they can just…
[Angela rips it up]
Nate: What the fuck are you doing?
Angela: No, no, no, no. Listen to me. If you get yourself in a situation where you have to show somebody your DD-214, then you’re already done. You understand?

Angela [voiceover]: Lone extremism is not a social phenomena, it’s a tactic. Terrorists call it leaderless resistance. The leaders of the movement provide inspiration, but they also encourage hidden cells act independently like Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols.

Vince: Look at this bottle. You see anything funny?
Nate: You’re talking about the Jew tax?
Johnny: What’s the Jew tax?
Vince: Tell 'em, Nate.
Nate: Start looking at the food you buy, and you’ll see this little “u.” The union of orthodox rabbis gets paid to perform a “blessing” on everything in the grocery store. For this “blessing,” they rake in billions of dollars in taxes.
Vince: We can’t control the ketchup, but we can control the streets. That’s how it went down in Germany. And we think of ourselves as a Sturmabteilung. We are a thinking man’s soldiers. First here in the head. And then here in the fist. And that is where the revolution starts. We’re not these tired old KKK guys, waiting for some catastrophe to start a race war. We’re the catastrophe.[/b]

Next up: Nate gets a Nazi tattoo.

[b]Nate [to Angelo]: Look at my fucking arm!

Vince: Stay away from those faggots. They got this fucked up religion where they think the Bible was written for white men and aryans are the lost tribes of Israel. The Bible. Jews invented christianity. Jews invented the printing press, and the Bible is the most published book in the world. I mean, anything seem off to you?
Nate: How about the fact the romans conquered every mud race on earth, and then christianity finished them off in a hundred years?
Vince: You gotta know who to stick with in this movement. You’re with us.

Madeline: The tree house is to pretect us.
Nate: Yeah, from what?
Madeline: If the mud people come. Always be ready. Always be watchful and stick together.[/b]

Madeline is about 4 or 5.

[b]Nate: I’m kind of surprised you invited those guys.
Gerry: Well, you can’t exclude them. I mean, they’re the next generation. They need our help. Need to understand their heritage, and be proud of it. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? The children. What kind of a world will they grow up in?

Roy: Hang on, wait a minute…First you tried to stop me, then you try to scare them off, and then you set off that fucking alarm. That wasn’t an accident, was it? Was it, Nate? You wanted them to get away. What the fuck, Nate? Huh? I said what the fuck?
Nate: Okay, you’re goddamn right I wanted them to get away! You want to be a soldier, Roy and not a fucking thug? Then think! You think about security cameras, Roy? You think about the liquor store we were just in? You think about the clerk or the license plates on my fucking truck? You think about any of that shit? Fucking Aryan warrior…A hundred spics and niggers ain’t worth the life of one white man, but go ahead, put us all in prison. That’s how you’re gonna win your race war? Huh?

Dallas [to a room full of white supremicists]: If you take millions of white people, and flood every country in Africa with them, what do they call that? Genocide. But what’s happening to every white country on earth? You’ve got affirmative action that kills white jobs. Abortion, that kills white babies. Gay rights, that kill white families. Folks, let me explain something to you. “Diversity” is a code word. And what it means is white genocide!

Nate: So, Gerry, if you don’t mind my asking, how did you end up in the movement?
Gerry: Listen, for me, it was the books. My parents were practically liberals. Totally blinded by the ZOG. You know, I always knew something was wrong; and I had this anger, I couldn’t put my finger on it. Here. It all started with this.
[he hands Nate a book]
Gerry: I was 13. Read it in four days. It explains race, culture, capitalism and how democracy destroyed western civilization.
Nate: Democracy: “Three people form a government. Then two of them vote to steal the wealth of the third.”

Nate: How do you reason with someone like Gerry? How can you ever hope to change their mind?
Angela: Listen, you need to remember why you’re doing this. We’re not social workers.
Nate: You wanted me to relate to them as human beings, right? “Open up to them?” You said.

Andrew [to Nate]: Take a look at this. This is the entire DC water system. Plants, pipelines, the whole deal. Now, Nathan, the guys you’re hanging out with, they’re all talk, because they’re punks. They’re amateurs. They sit around drinking beer all day, maybe they beat up a few niggers or each other. We got no use for them. We need men like you.

Andrew: Let me ask you something, Nathan. What’s your opinion on infiltration?
Nate: Well, how do you mean?
Andrew: How do we prevent it?
Nate: Well, it’s tough. For one thing, you gotta keep guys with rap sheets out of important positions. That’s…that’s how they flip most people.
Andrew: We have a polygraph back at the compound. Maybe we should make everybody take it.

Andrew: I gotta ask you something. Roy said he contacted the NPRC. Said there’s no record of you having served in the Marines.
Nate: You mean Roy went and filed a 180 with a government that he fucking hates, just to… okay. I was on a wmd squad, so that’s black ops. And he knows that, the fucker. Wait, hold on, are you guys taking this seriously? Is that what that was all about in the truck? Because, I understand you have to do your due diligence or whatever, but that’s a fucking serious accusation! I don’t need to take that shit from anybody!
Andrew: Hey… hey, hey! Okay. Let’s get out of here.

Dallas [to Angelo]: I know your type. You think you’ve got it all figured out, and you don’t know shit. I’m an entertainer. I do this for money, and for fun. And I don’t give a fuck about ZOG or the race war or any of that shit. I tell these jackasses what they want to hear, and they worship me for it. So fuck you, agent Zamparo.

Angela: This happens sometimes, you know? I mean, it sucks, but…
Nate [incredulous]: “This happens”?! Is that all you’re gonna fucking say after we find out all of this? Everything you fucking put me through has been for nothing?
Angela: It’s the nature of the work.
Nate: No! This…this happened because of your pet theory! And like an idiot, I went along with it! “Oh, yeah, she’s an expert,” I thought. “She knows what she’s doing!”
Angela: I’m sorry, Nate.

Nate: I always felt like I could change the world. You know, I could right wrongs, you know, fight injustice.
Gerry: Nate, listen, it’s guys like us that feel these things the most. Idealists.
Nate: Yeah, I just keep thinking about that quote. “For evil to triumph, it only takes good men to do nothing.” But how? You know, fucking how? I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Gerry, I shouldn’t be…I’m just really tired.
Gerry: You know, Nate, maybe you’re going about this the wrong way. The rallies, the speeches, the politics… That’s not how the change is gonna come. It’s gonna come from the unknown soldiers, from the leaderless resistance.
Nate: How do you mean?
Gerry: Let’s go out back. I made some improvements to the tree house.[/b]

Cue “the event”.

[b]Gerry: You guys remember Timothy McVeigh’s last words?
Nate: Yeah, he read Invictus.
Gerry: “It matters not how strait the gait, how charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.”

Nate: And you’re sure they’re not gonna try and test this somehow?
Angela: Yeah, that’s why terrorists love TATP. You can’t identify it without a mass spectrometer.

Nate: What about the TATP?
Gerry: David got ammonium nitrate instead. He used his name, so the jig is up. They’ll know it’s us. It’s not gonna matter tomorrow. We’re in this to the end now, Nate. Do you understand? They’re not gonna take us alive.

Nate [on the phone]: The cesium is here!
Angela: All right, everyone! Let’s get ready to do this!
Nate: No! Angela, you have to tell him to wait.
Tom: Wait? No, no, no, we need to get in there now!
Nate: There are three guys in there with machine guns and they’re building a bomb. This is a residential neighborhood. His wife and kids are in the house. If you come in here now, it’ll be a blood bath.
Angela: This is a volatile situation.
Tom: Yeah, which is why we need to move now…
Nate: No, he doesn’t get it! These guys are fanatics! They will not be taken alive!
Angela: Tom, you’re not in there! We have to listen to him.
Tom: And what the fuck happens if the explosives go off while we’re waiting around? Nate, you got 60 seconds to disarm those guys, because we’re coming in.

Angela: Why do you think I picked you? I knew that you would understand them. And they’d understand you. And the more authentic you became with them, the more authentic they’d become with you. Because when it comes down to it, there really is only one essential ingredient to fascism.
Nate: It’s victimhood.[/b]

As a kid I was an avid sci-fi reader. And a theme that kept recurring over and again was the one with aliens landing on Earth. For better or for worse. Close encounters of any number of kinds. Though not many of the Third Kind. Like this one.

Back then I kept thinking that it was only a matter of time before one or another alien species really did land. Or, at the very least, there would be evidence of their existence. And then once SETI was up and running I figured it was only a matter of time.

I don’t think that way anymore. In fact, I suspect I will go to the grave as ignorant as all the folks before me regarding whether or not “we are alone” in this vast, vast universe.

Instead we still have to “go to the movies” in order the imagine what it might be like.

What’s crucial though is that, should they ever land here, it will be one of those momentous experiences in which everything becomes understood in terms of “before” and “after”.

But more to the point is how each of us, situated in our own sense of reality, will react to it from any number of conflicting perspectives.

Above all, look for some rather fascinating ruminations on, among other things, language, time and memory. It’s one of those films that is less [far less] about the “action” and the “special effects” and more about the scientific and philosophical imponderables that face all of us who inhabit whatever the universe/multiverse actually is.

Especially in this day and age. After all, if extra-terrestrials ever did land, almost everyone would know it in an instant. Imagine the reaction on “social-media”. Everyone would have a political ax to grind. And the wackos would come crawling out of the woodwork.

As for what it all “means”, here is one take on it: screenrant.com/arrival-movie-201 … explained/

IMDb

[b]Director Denis Villeneuve and screenwriter Eric Heisserer created a fully functioning, visual, alien language. Heisserer, Villeneuve and their teams managed to create a “logogram bible,” which included over a hundred different completely operative logo-grams, seventy-one of which are actually featured in the movie.

Director Denis Villeneuve and the writing team took extensive efforts to ensure the movie’s scientific ideology was accurate. Renowned scientist and tech innovator Stephen Wolfram and his son Christopher Wolfram were consulted to ensure all terminology, graphics and depictions were sound.

In writing the story, Ted Chiang had in mind the following quote of the great physicist Albert Einstein: “The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”[/b]

trivia at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt2543164/tri … =ttqu_sa_1
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrival_(film
traler: youtu.be/tFMo3UJ4B4g

ARRIVAL [2016]
Directed by Denis Villeneuve

[b]Louise [voiceover]: I used to think this was the beginning of your story. Memory is a strange thing. It doesn’t work like I thought it did. We are so bound by time, by its order…But now I’m not so sure I believe in beginnings and endings. There are days that define your story beyond your life. Like the day they arrived.

Student: Dr. banks, can you turn the TV to a news channel?

Louise [on the phone]: Mom, please don’t bother with that channel. How many times do I have to tell you? Those people are idiots.

Reporter [on TV]: After Tuesday’s extraordinary events, the president this morning has declared a state of emergency, with as many as 5,000 national guard being deployed to the state of Montana alone. Borders are closed and flights have been grounded, stranding millions of travelers. Panic buying of gas, water and food continues to escalate, and federal authorities have temporarily lifted all caps on overtime for law enforcement. The atf has put a temporary ban on new gun licenses, forcing many independent suppliers of hunting equipment and firearms to close their doors to the public.

Louise [after hearting the elien spoken language on an audio file]: Did they have mouths…
Colonel Weber: How would you approach translating this? Do you hear any words? Phrases?
Louise: I don’t…I don’t know.
Weber: So what can you tell me?
Lousie: I can tell you that it’s impossible to translate from an audio file. I would need to be there, to interact with them.
Weber: You didn’t need that with the Farsi translations.
Lousie: I didn’t need it because I already knew the language, but this…this is…

Weber: Mornin’.
Louise: Colonel.
Weber [answering a previous question about the Sanskrit word for war and it’s meaning]: Gravisti. He says it means “an argument.” What do you say it means?
Louise: “A desire for more cows.”
Weber: Pack your bags.

Ian: [reading from a book by Louise] “Language is the foundation of civilization. It is the glue that holds a people together. It is the first weapon drawn in a conflict.”
Louise: That’s quite a greeting.
Ian: Yeah, well, you wrote it.
Louise: Yeah. It’s the kind of thing you write as a preface. Dazzle them with the basics. Ian: Yeah, it’s great. Even if it’s wrong.
Louise: It’s wrong?
Ian: Well, the cornerstone of civilization isn’t language, it’s science.
Weber: Ian is a theoretical physicist from los Alamos.

Ian: Priority one: What do they want and where are they from? And beyond that, how did they get here? Are they capable of faster-than-light travel? I’ve prepared a list of questions to go over, starting with a series of “handshake” binary sequences…
Louise: How about we just talk to them before we start throwing math problems at them? Weber: This is why you’re both here.

Louise [inside the “ship”]: So, what happens now?
Weber: They arrive.

Weber [looking at Louise’s equivalent of an electronic chalkboard]: What’s that for?
Louise: A visual aid. Look, I’m never gonna be able to speak their words, if they are talking, but they might have some sort of written language or basis for visual communication.

Weber: Everything you do in there, I have to explain to a room full of men whose first and last question is… “How can this be used against us?” So you’re gonna have to give me more than that.
Louise: Kangaroo.
Weber: What is that?
Louise: In 1770, captain James Cook’s ship ran aground off the coast of Australia, and he led a party into the country, and they met the aboriginal people. One of the sailors pointed at the animals that hop around and put their babies in their pouch, and he asked what they were, and the aborigine said, “kangaroo.”
Weber: And the point is?
Lousie: It wasn’t till later that they learned that “kangaroo” means “I don’t understand.” So, I need this so that we don’t misinterpret things in there. Otherwise, this is gonna take 10 times as long.
Weber: I can sell that for now. But I need you to submit your vocabulary words before the next session. Fair. And remember what happened to the aborigines. A more advanced race nearly wiped them out.
[Weber leaves]
Ian: It’s a good story.
Lousise: Thanks. It’s not true. But it proves my point.

Weber [looking at Louise’s list of words for the aliens]: These are all grade-school words: Eat, walk. Help me understand.
[Louise writes “What is your purpose on Earth” on chalkboard]
Louise: Tghis is where you want us to get to right?
Weber: That is the question.
Louise: Okay. So, first, we need to make sure that they understand what a question is. Okay, the nature of a request for information along with a response. Then, we need to clarify the difference between a specific “you” and a collective “you,” because we don’t wanna know why Joe alien is here, we want to know why they all landed. And purpose requires an understanding of intent. We need to find out: Do they make conscious choices? Or is their motivation so instinctive that they don’t understand a “why” question at all? And…and biggest of all we need to have enough vocabulary with them that we understand their answer.

Louise: They have names. So, what are we gonna call them?
Ian: I don’t know. I was thinking Abbott and Costello.

Ian [voiceover]: Here are some of the many things we don’t know about heptapods. Greek. Hepta, “seven.” Pod, “foot.” Seven feet. Heptapod. Who are they? Trying to answer this in any meaningful way is hampered by the fact that, outside being able to see them and hear them, the heptapods leave absolutely no footprint. The chemical composition of their spaceship is unknown. The shell emits no waste, no gas, no radiation. Assuming that the shells communicate with each other, they do so without detection. The air between the shells is untroubled by Sonic emission or light wave. Are they scientists? Or tourists? If they’re scientists, they don’t seem to ask a lot of questions. Why did they park where they did? The world’s most decorated experts can’t crack that one.

Ian [voiceover]: How do they communicate? Here, Louise is putting us all to shame. The first breakthrough was to discover that there’s no correlation between what a heptapod says and what a heptapod writes. Unlike all written human languages, their writing is semasiographic. It conveys meaning. It doesn’t represent sound. Perhaps they view our form of writing as a wasted opportunity, passing up a second communications channel. We have our friends in Pakistan to thank for their study of how heptapods write, because unlike speech, a logogram is free of time. Like their ship or their bodies, their written language has no forward or backward direction. Linguists call this non-linear orthography, which raises the question, “is this how they think?” Imagine you wanted to write a sentence using two hands, starting from either side. You would have to know each word you wanted to use, as well as how much space they would occupy. A heptapod can write a complex sentence in two seconds, effortlessly. It’s taken us a month to make the simplest reply. Next, expanding vocabulary. Louise thinks it could easily take another month to be ready for that.

Louise [to Ian]: Trust me, you can understand communication and still end up single.

Talk radio host: First contact with whoever it is that is inside that thing, and who’s running the show? The government. That’s right, folks, the same government who ruined our healthcare and bankrupted our military. Look at these people! Most of them don’t even have guns! We could be facing a full-scale invasion. Our president’s willing to sit back and let them waltz in and take our country. We are falling asleep at the wheel, people! You know what I’m talking about. I know you do. What if the smartest thing we could do right now would be to give them a show of force? I’m talking about a shot across the bow. What do you think?

Ian: I was doing some reading. If you immerse yourself into a foreign language, then you can actually rewire your brain.
Louise: Yeah, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. It’s the theory that the language you speak determines how you think and…
Ian: Yeah, it affects how you see everything.

Louise: Following suit. Suits. Suits, honor, flowers. Colonel, those are all tile sets in mah-jongg. God, are they… Are the Chinese using a game to converse with their heptapods?
Weber: Maybe. Why?
Louise: Well, let’s say that I taught them chess instead of English. Every conversation would be a game. Every idea expressed through opposition, victory, defeat. You see the problem? If all I ever gave you was a hammer…
Weber: Everything’s a nail…We need to ask the big question. Ready or not.

Louise: Heptapods’ purpose. Heptapod purpose earth. What is your purpose?
Ian: Okay. There you are. What does it say?
Louise: Offer weapon.
Soldier: You saw what they wrote!
Louise: Using a word they don’t fully understand.
Ian: Could be a request.
Soldier: A warning.
Weber: Enough! Louise?
Louise: We don’t know if they understand the difference between a weapon and a tool. Our language, like our culture, is messy, and sometimes, one can be both.
Ian: And it’s quite possible that they’re asking us to offer them something, not the other way around. It’s like the first part of a trade.
Weber: So, how do we clarify their intentions beyond those two words?
Louise: Well, I go back in.

Louise: I can read it. I know what it is.
Ian: What?
Louise: It’s not a weapon. It’s a gift. The weapon is their language. They gave it to us. Do you know what that means?
Weber: So we can learn heptapod. If we survive.
Louside: If you learn it, when you really learn it, you begin to perceive time the way that they do, so you can see what’s to come. But time, it isn’t the same for them. It’s non-linear.

Zhang [to Louise in a surreal time loop]: I will never forget what you said. You told me my wife’s dying words.

Louise [voiceover]: So, Hannah, this is where your story begins. The day they departed. You all right? Despite knowing the journey and where it leads, I embrace it. And I welcome every moment of it.

Louise: If you could see your whole life from start to finish, would you change things?
Ian: Maybe I’d say what I felt more often. I-I don’t know.

Ian: You know, I’ve had my head tilted up to the stars for as long as i can remember. You know what surprised me the most? It wasn’t meeting them. It was meeting you.
Louise: I forgot how good it felt to be held by you.
Ian: You wanna make a baby?
Louise: Yes. Yeah. [/b]

There are few issues more politically charged than the right to bear arms. So when a film more or less revolves around it folks are likely to take sides.

Now, sometimes a film will try to be “balanced” in its assessment. Think for example Dead Man Walking and capital punishment. On the other hand, many “Hollywood” and/or “independent” projects tend to be really, really liberal.

Whatever that even means in America these days. A nation where the NRA more or less has a lock on both the legislative and executive branches of the government.

After all, the “gun industry” is always going to be about the right to make lots and lots of money selling guns.

And that’s the other focus of the film: lobbying. Here, money doesn’t talk, it screams. And all throughout the capitalist political economy. This is just one more snapshot of crony capitalism. Then it’s only a matter of whether a “principled protagonist” can make a difference. In other words, put a tiny dent in it all.

The NRA promptly despised it. On the other hand…

Ironically, the film’s message is not directed at gun control as much as it pulls back the curtain on the corruption and manipulation present among high-powered lobbyists in DC politics, with gun control operating merely as its topic of debate for a lobbying endeavor central to the film’s plot.

This film exposes how “the system” works. And some voters are even aware of it. But enough of them aren’t to sustain a ruling class decade after decade after decade. It’s almost the equivalent of a game though. Pieces are moved on the board and those who think more moves into the future win.

So it’s like this tug of war between principles and profit.

It’s not “based on a true story” however. So your guess is as good as mine regarding the extent to which this is typical or atypical of how the “game” really is played in Washington.

Look for the part about ends and means – that murky line between self-interest and doing the right thing, between the personal and the political.

IMDb

Upon the film’s theatrical release, the US gun lobby mounted an aggressive social media campaign, especially across middle America, encouraging their expansive membership to boycott and excoriate the film. This attack also transpired in the wake of Trump’s unexpected election to POTUS, further invigorating his base of supporters to tarnish the film’s credibility. It’s noted that very few of the film’s detractors even watched the film, nor judged it on its merits, yet they still believed the film carried a pro-gun-control message that threatened their constitutional rights. Their efforts were largely effective in adversely influencing the film’s box-office momentum. However, the film received high praise from critics and audiences who viewed it, and its fanfare on home video and digital HD has largely vindicated the false rhetoric and manipulated ratings that was propogated by the NRA and its hardcore supporters.

trailer: youtu.be/AMUkfmUu44k
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Sloane

MISS SLOANE [2016]
Directed by John Madden

[b]Elizabeth [more or less to the camera]: Lobbying is about foresight. About anticipating your opponent’s moves and devising counter measures. The winner plots one step ahead of the opposition. And plays her trump card just after they play theirs…It’s about making sure you surprise them. And they don’t surprise you.

Elizabeth: I’m going to tell you a story.
Pat: Please, no!
Elizabeth: A priest is giving a young nun a lift home from church one day… and as he’s shifting gears, he rests his hand on the nun’s knee… This is offensive and inappropriate. The young nun looks up at the priest and says: “Father, remember Luke 14:10.” The priest withdraws his hand, embarrassed. Next time they stop at a light, he places his hand a little higher up on her thigh. The nun says: “Remember Luke 14:10, Father.” The priest apologizes: “The flesh is weak”, he says… So he drops her off and when he gets home, he reaches for his Bible and he flips to Luke 14:10. Anyone know what it says? Hm? What does it say, Pat?
Pat: “Friend, come up higher, then shalt thou have glory.”
Elizabeth: Know your subject, people!

Sanford: Our polling data is telling us that we’re not connecting with the female voter, so… we want to change the narrative… from mothers losing their kids to guns… to mothers protecting their kids with guns… from a battered wife threatened by a bullet… to fending off her violent husband with a .38. Guns as tools of female empowerment…
George: What’s the saying? God created humans…
Sanford: …and Samuel Colt made 'em equal.

George: I don’t remember you caring ever, one way or another, about guns.
Elizabeth: My position solidified somewhere between Columbine and Charleston. Come on, George, any headcase, felon or terrorist can buy an assault rifle from a gun show, the Internet or his buddy at the Bowl-O-Rama without so much as an ID. Heaton-Harris puts a stop to that.
George: Christ, Liz, this is the gun lobby. Do you have any idea how long I’ve been trying to reel them in?

George [to Elizabeth]: The only reason you and your team of gum-chewing ragamuffins are here… is that your arrogant pranks might generate enough buzz to attract clients like Bill Sandford. Meaning, if you don’t dedicate yourself to his cause. This firm won’t have any use for you. Now go away. Look into those numbers. Start getting women into guns!

Rodolfo: Will you admit that the present system is broken?
Elizabeth: I remain committed to the Second Amendment.
Rodolfo: Dildos are illegal in Texas, but Joe Public can walk into a sports store and walk out with a shotgun.
Elizabeth: That would explain the low rate of dildo-related murders in Texas.

Elizabeth [to Jane on the phone]: Listen, uhh, if Socrates never wrote anything, how is it anyone’s ever heard of him?

Elizabeth [to her team]: I am leaving Cole Kravitz and starting work as the lead consultant for the Brady Campaign at Peterson Wyatt. I’ve secured positions for everyone in this room without changing your current compensation. So who’s with me on this?
Pat: I just spent the last hour wiping your shit off Bill Sandford’s shoes. Assuring him that your the right lady to broaden his membership. We’re INCHES from a green fuckin’ light! Elizabeth: So you’re saying I should put you down as a “Maybe”?

Elizabeth: Ramirez, how many TEC-9s do you own again?
Ramirez: Enough to defend my property. Plus two more to piss of the lefties.

Sen. Sperling: Ms. Sloane. Welcome to the party.

Elizabeth: Calm down, Daniel. You’re starting to look like you care.
Daniel: No, I don’t care about you any further than I can throw you. I work for the one ethical lobbying practice on the Hill and I wind up defending the…the poster child for the most morally bankrupt profession since faith-healing.

Sanders: Look, there’s over 5 million of us and we’re armed. We’ve beaten this kind of Bill before. We’ll beat it again. They’ll make a lot of noise, they’ll wave their banners. But in the end, it’s so predictable.
Jane: She’s not predictable. She aims to surprise. She’ll share things with her team but she won’t share everything. She’ll have a plan for certain people but they won’t know until they’re dropped right into the middle of it.

Elizabeth [to the team]: We’re all here to ensure safe passage of the Heaton-Harris Bill into Federal law. How do we do it?
Esme: Realistically, we don’t. We fight as hard as we can, build a strong base of support… so we have a better chance when we introduce the next Heaton-Harris or the one after that. I didn’t just move across town with the aim of losing as slowly as possible? Name and seniority?
Esme: Esme Manucharian. 9 years.

Elizabeth: Ok, Esme, why are we gonna lose?
Esme: For every dollar Brady spends on campaign contributions do you know how much the gun lobby spends?
The team in unison: 38!
Elizabeth: So politicians bow to money…but why? It’s not going into their pocket that’d be bribery.
Cynthia: Like what the Indonesians just did to Senator Jacobs?
Elizabeth: That was legal bribery for educational purposes but yes…A Senator’s priority isn’t representing the people. It’s keeping his ass in office.
Cynthia: That is so cynical!
Elizabeth: Cynical is a word used by PollyAnnas to domate an absence of the naivete they so keenly exhibit.[/b]

Cue the reality:

[b] Clara: If senators only care about protecting their positionwouldn’t that make them slaves to public opinion? Polling data puts a majority of Americans in favor of Heaton-Harris.
Elizabeth: And that’s exactly why you keep losing…
Rodolfo: Well, this is actually our first crack at guns but I take your point.
Team member: What point?
Rodolfo: Public opinion is overrated. Return re-election for senators was 82%. The voter turnout was 36%.
Esme: I’ll bet most of them were paid up members of the gun lobby.
Elizabeth: Thank you!
Rodolfo: Our opposition has created a base of voters vast and fanatical who go out and vote exclusively on the issue of guns.

Elizabeth [to the team]: Come on, arguments and rebuttals. Let’s have it! Wake up!
Team Member: It’s the first step toward a National Register of firearms.
Elizabeth: Scaremongering, no one’s even come close to proposing that. And if they did, it would have it’s own day in Congress. Next.
Team memnber: And it’s 2 steps away from confiscation.
Elizabeth: The gun lobby’s rhetoric is based on the falsehood that we want to take something away from people. We don’t. We want to make it more difficult for dangerous people to buy firearms. If we can’t burst this fallacy, we may as well go home.
Team member: The new rules will increase wait times by 2 weeks.
Elizabeth: Welcome to America, where you’ll wait 6 months for an X-ray but hey you can buy an AR-15 in 5 minutes flat![/b]

Then there’s this part:

[b]Elizabeth: Forde, human interaction is an exchange, my money for your…
Forde: Dick.
Elizabeth: I was gonna say skill-set. But that’s only exchange I’m willing to make.
Forde: You sound like a banker.

Elizabeth: Everyone turn to tab 9, please.
Cynthia: I don’t have anything at tab 9.
Rodolfo: Security, lock down Cynthia Green’s desk. Secure her files and her hard drives and escort her off the premises. Your Blackberry, now! Now! Let’s go.
Cynthia: He offered me a partnership track.
Elizabeth: Good luck with that.
Rodolfo: Clear the office. Come on, come on! Everybody out!

Little Sam: Ever hear the expression: “fly on the wall”? Meet the cutting edge in eavesdropping. Rodolfo: It’s a cockroach.
Little Sam: Which can be retrofitted into the cybernetic robo-roach. We glue electrodes to it’s antennae perforate the thorax so we can control it’s movements from our link.
Elizabeth: Don’t call PETA, Schmidt.
Big Sam: These guys can crawl under doors, into crevices, bags… completely undetected. They can go weeks without food and still be mobile.

Jon [on television]: There were 372 mass shootings last year…64 school shootings…and there are over 300 million guns in our country. If background checks are to be of any use they should apply to all gun sales, not just some. Isn’t that what Heaton-Harris is proposing?
Pat: The Bill expand the scope of gun regulation. And it’s yet another affront to Americans’ constitutional rights…
Elizabeth: No. The Bill closes an absurd loophole which allows people on Terrorist Watchlists to buy guns without any check whatsoever.
Pat: It’s an incursion into individual liberty by an all-powerful government…
Elizabeth: What, like Drivers licenses?
Pat: Drivers licenses?
Elizabeth: It’s illegal to operate a car without going through rigorous theoretical and practical assessments…You know, in Japan, chefs train for 7 years before they’re allowed to serve a poisonous blow-fish call Fugu.
Pat: What does any of this have to do with background checks?
Elizabeth: Does anyone in this room think that the government should abolish drivers licenses? That’s absurd. Why? They are a government incursion into individual liberty. We accept them because they make sense. The more dangerous the machinery, the more rigorous the test should be. I think we can extend our definition of dangerous machinery to semi-automatic firearms.
Pat: Except the Second Amendment to the Constitution doesn’t guarantee the right to drive cars… or operate machinery or serve blow-fish, for that matter. It guarantees the right to keep and bear arms. Perhaps you haven’t read it lately. The bill infringes the rights of the people to keep and bear arms!
Elizabeht: Nothing in the bill infringes on the rights of the people to keep and to bear arms. The Second Amendment was signed in a time when the average life expectancy was 38 and it was common practice for our Founding Fathers to resolve their differences at dawn, in a gunfight. What may have been perfectly sensible in those alien times, is wholly inadequate to solve the problems of the present…
Rodolfo [watching the debate on TV]: That’s not a rebuttal! What is she doing? [/b]

Then she really goes off the deep end. Straight from the heart and the gut.

[b]Elizabeth: If they could produce a rational winning argument, I’d gladly migrate to their side… but because it says so in the Constitution, the Bible or my horoscope…What? It’s not a winning argument. It’s a ripcord. An intellectual equivalent of a yellow, pant-pissing wimp cowering behind Mommy’s skirts.
Pat: Why don’t we bring this back…
Elizabeth: No, no, no! Let’s not! Why don’t we ask all the mothers out there who lost their children to an armed sociopath if they believe in his unimpeachable, constitutional right to bear arms. Why not ask a terrified girl who locked herself in a janitor’s closet at Bloomington High, forced to listen as her peers were massacred? Go ahead, ask her! Her name is Esme Manucharian. She’s standing right there!
[she points towards Esme]

Elizabeth: I won’t insult your intelligence by claiming that that came out in the heat of the moment.
Esme: How far back?
Elizabeth: Once I started getting used to all the media.
Esme: Ok. Day 1. Wow! That dinner that night, you asked me if I’d go public like if it was the difference between victory and defeat. What if I’d said no? Would you still have done it? Elizabeth: Probably. I was hired to win and I have a responsibility to use whatever resource I have. The press we’re gonna get from this, it’s practically a dereliction of duty not to…
Esme: That’s it? I’m a “resource”?
Elizabeth: Professionally, yes!

Rodolfo: You’re a piece of work, Elizabeth. If you want to set yourself on fire to service your need to win, I won’t protest… But Esme?
Elizabeth: The end is my concern…you liberal goodie-goodies can fret over the means. You need me. [/b]

Then she tells him why.

[b]Elizabeth: My God! I tell you we’re back in the game, and all you can say is that?
Rodolfo: You knew you were going to screw Esme tonight. So you kept this from me to blindside me before I had a chance to fire you…
Elizabeth: You have an unusual insight for a boutique lobbyist.
Rodolfo: You’ve been pulling all the strings all along.
Elizabeth: Lobbying’s about foresight, you anticipate your opponent’s moves, you devise countermeasures…
Rodolfo: I am not your fucking opponent! Were you ever normal? As a child? Or were the the twisted thought processes in your mind hardwired in the womb? Because I am having a really hard time understanding how somebody gets to this.
Elizabeth: I guess I’m just a piece of work.

Elizabeth: I didn’t know where the line was, Esme. I never, never know where the line is. Obviously, take all the time you want and when you’re ready, we’d love to have you back on the campaign. Your own terms. No media, you can work behind the scenes. If you don’t want to work with me, I’ll resign from the campaign. If that’s what you want.
Esme: Is that your move to get me back at my desk? You want me in front of a camera to counter Frank McGill? It even crossed my mind that this was all you. You just didn’t account for an armed civilian right behind me.
Elizabeth: Esme…
Esme: I’ll keep fighting, Elizabeth. Wherever I can make a difference. But as far as possible away from you. You crossed the line when you stopped treating people with respect. You’re smart enough to know that. You just don’t care.

Sen Sperling: I’m committed to Heaton-Harris. I can’t vote for it with one hand and choke it with the other.
George: Under cover of impartiality, sure you can. You’ve been a vocal critic of lobbyists in the past. You’ll begin an inquiry into Sloane’s affairs in response to growing media pressure regarding her litany of misdeeds.
Sen Sperling: The cost of hearings is paid from the public purse.
George: Ron, our clients have identified you as the man to pull this off. If you refuse, I can’t stop them from blitzing you with negative finance. They won’t stop until they annihilate you. You know the root of the word “annihilate”? It’s Latin. It means reduced to nothing.

Elizabeth [before the Senate committee]: I have been censored by the press and by this hearing as a parasite on American democracy. It’s insinuated that I led the fight for increased gun regulation in the interest of my career. Sometimes we act not for ourselves but because we believe, plainly and simply, it is the right thing to do. I believe the Heaton-Harris Bill is the right thing to do. But I also recognize that this wasn’t what motivated me. When I was offered a position on the campaign, I was enthralled at the challenge. My decision to accept was based on my desire to win and to win bigger than I ever had before. It’s clear that my behavior has fallen well short of acceptable ethical standards. I’ve crossed lines with devastating consequences in the service of my obsession. I have betrayed the people closest to me. I have endangered lives. I deserve censure for this far more than any filing irregularity. When they consider the Heaton-Harris Bill I wish that each member of Congress would follow the example set, not by me but by the group of people that sit behind me who have made great sacrifices in the name of doing what they believe is right. I wish that those members would use their votes not in the interests of their political advancement but for what they believe is right for their country. But I know my wishes are wasted and that this will never happen because our system is rotten. It doesn’t reward honest politicians who vote with their conscience it rewards rats who are willing to sell out their country to keep their noses in the trough. Make no mistake. These rats are the real parasites on American democracy. I anticipated, if we had sufficient success in lobbying for the Heaton-Harris Bill there may be an assault against me personally to stall our momentum and to damage our credibility…Lobbying is about foresight about anticipating your opponent’s moves and devising countermeasures. The winner plots one step ahead of the opposition and plays their trump card just after they play theirs.[/b]

The standard liberal agenda, isn’t? Maybe, but then she reveals her own trump card. Cue the cockroach.

[b]Jane: I’d like to discuss my future.
Pat: This is hardly the time, cookie.
Jane: Actually, it is the time.
[She hands him an envelope]
Pat: The fuck is this?
Jane: My resignation. Academia is more my scene.

Elizabeth [to the room]: Input the following address into your browser: 193.184.216.449. Download a file named: “earthquake”.[/b]

If only it could be like this in “reality”.

[b]Pat [visiting Elizabeth in prison]: You look good!
Elizabeth: Prison’s not so bad if you don’t have a penis. We don’t shank each other, we form self-help groups. There’s a black market in lip gloss.

Pat: Was this really worth your career?
Elizabeth: Career suicide’s not so bad when you consider the alternative is suicide by career. [/b]

I would imagine there are folks who react to films like this with a certain amount of ambivalence.

A few black folks for instance. For example, I had a black friend named Gregory when I was a member of DSOC. And I can just imagine his own reaction here. Yes, it is gratifying that a film was made highlighting the extraordinary achievement of these three women. Three black women. Three black women that I suspect only a tiny number of us are aware had existed.

But he was always flustered by the manner in which he imagined the motivation behind such films: liberal attempts to show the world that black folks actually did exist “back then” to accomplish these feats. As though, in his words, “to prove that black people really are the equal of white people”.

As, from a similar frame of mind, he hated “Black History Month”.

Here is the “unbelievably true story” of three women – three black women – and the role that they played as mathematicians/computers/engineers at NASA in the early days of the “space race”. Unbelievable [apparently] because they were both black and women.

Still, the reaction of most of us [black and white] will probably be one of amazement. Me, I never would have imagined that something like this had actually happened “back then”. No way. Whatever that says about me.

  1. Back when NASA still had the “colored computers” and the “white computers”. When they still had “white restrooms” and “colored restrooms”.

IMDb

When Taraji P. Henson signed on for the lead role, she met with the real-life Katherine Johnson, who was 98 years old, to discuss the character she was about to portray. Henson learned that Johnson had graduated from high school at age 14 and from college at age 18, and was still as lucid as anyone years younger. After the film was screened for Johnson, she expressed her genuine approval of Henson’s portrayal, but wondered why anybody would want to make a film about her life.

IMDb trivia: imdb.com/title/tt4846340/tri … =ttqu_sa_1
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_Figures
trailer: youtu.be/RK8xHq6dfAo

HIDDEN FIGURES [2016]
Written in part and directed by Theodore Melfi

[b]Katherine [as a sixth grader]: If the product of two terms is zero, then common sense says at least one of the two terms has to be zero to start with! So, if you move all the terms over to one side, you can put the quadratics into a form that can be factored, Allowing that side of the equation to equal zero. Once you’ve done that, it’s pretty straight forward from there…

Ms. Sumner: In all my years of teaching, I’ve never seen a mind like the one your daughter has.

Katherine: Were just on our way to work. At Langley. NASA, sir. We do a great deal of the calculating getting our rockets into space.
Cop: All three?
Katherine: Yes, sir. Yes, officer.
Cop: NASA! That’s somethin’! Had no idea they hired…
Katherine: There’re quite a few women, working in the Space Program.[/b]

One suspects it’s not women he had in mind.

[b]Al: I need a mathematician.
Ruth: Ill put in another request, sir.
Al: Another request. Jesus Christ! We dont have a single person, in this entire building, that can handle analytic geometry?
Ruth: Thats what I’ve been told.
Al: Well, tell me something else, Ruth. Like we’re going to find such a person before the Russians plant a flag on the damn moon.

Karl [to Mary]: No shoe is worth your life.

Karl: Mary, a person with an engineer’s mind should be an engineer. You can’t be a computer the rest of your life.
Mary: Mr. Zielinski, I’m a negro woman. I’m not gonna entertain the impossible.
Karl: And I’m a Polish Jew whose parents died in a Nazi prison camp. Now I’m standing beneath a spaceship that’s going to carry an astronaut to the stars. I think we can say we are living the impossible. Let me ask you, if you were a white male, would you wish to be an engineer?
Mary: I wouldn’t have to. I’d already be one.

Vivian: They’ve never had a colored in the Space Task Group before, Katherine. Don’t embarrass me.

Al: Do you think you can find me the Frenet frame for this data, using the GramSchmidt…
Katherine: With orthogonalization algorithm. Yes, sir. I prefer it over Euclidean coordinates.

Al: What I’m asking you to do…what I’m asking everyone one in that room, all my… geniuses, is to look beyond the numbers. To look around them. Through them. For answers to questions we don’t even know to ask. Math that doesn’t yet exist. Because without it, we’re not going anywhere. I mean, we’re staying on the ground.

Levi: A female engineer?
Mary: A female engineer.
Levi: We’re Negro, baby. Ain’t no such thing. Understand it.
Mary: It’s not like that there, Levi.
Levi: You can’t apply for freedom. Freedom is never granted to the oppressed. It’s got to be demanded. Taken.
Mary: Stop quoting your slogans at me. There’s more than one way to achieve something.

Mary: We go from being our father’s daughters, to our husband’s wives to our babies’ mothers…

Colonel Johnson: They let women handle that sort of…
[he sees Katherine looking offended]
Colonel Johnson: That’s not what I mean.
Katherine: What do you mean?
Colonel Johnson: I’m just surprised at something so taxing.
Katherine: Oh Mr. Johnson, if I were you, I’d quit talking right now.
Colonel Johnson: I don’t mean no disrespect.
Katherine: I will have you know, I was the first negro female student at West Virginia university graduate school. On any given day, I analyze the binomial levels air displacement, friction and velocity. And compute over ten thousand calculations by cosine, square root and lately analytic geometry. By hand. There are twenty, bright, highly capable negro women in the west computing group, and we’re proud to be doing our part for the country. So yes, they let women do some things at NASA, Mr. Johnson. And it’s not because we wear skirts. It’s because we wear glasses. Have a good day.

Vivian: You need somethin else?
Dorothy: Yes, ma’am. I was wondering if you knew what they’re building in the Tech Wing.
Vivian: It’s called an IBM. A mainframe computer. Apparently, it can do our calculations in a fraction-a the time.

Al: How did you know the Redstone couldn’t support orbital flight?! That’s classified information It’s top secret.
Katherine: Well, it’s no secret why the Redstone tests keep failing, for sub-orbital flight, but it can’t handle the weight of the capsule, and push it into space. Numbers don’t lie.
Al: And you figured out all that with this? Half the data is redacted!
Katherine: Whats there tells the story if you read between the lines. The distance from launch to orbit, we know. Then mass we know. The Mercury Capsule weight, we know. And the speeds are there…in the data.
Al: You did the math.
Katherine: Yes, sir. I looked beyond.

Vivian: NASA doesnt commission females for the Engineer Training Program.
Mary: That position is available to any qualified applicant.
Vivian: Right. Except you don’t have the educational requirements.
Mary: I have a Bachelors Degree in Mathematics and Physical Sciences. It’s the same degree as most engineers around here.
Vivian: Well, we now require advanced extension courses through the University of Virginia. It’s in the Employee Handbook. An addendum. Case you haven’t read it.
Mary: Every time we have a chance to get ahead, youll move the finish line.

Librarian: We don’t want any trouble in here.
Dorothy: Oh! I’m not here for any trouble, Ma’am.
Librarian: What are you here for?
Dorothy: A book.
Librarian: You have books in the colored section.
Dorothy: It doesn’t have what I’m looking for.
Librarian: Well, that’s just the way it is.

Dorothy [to the “colored computers”]: The IBM 7090 Data Processing System. It has a capability of solving of over 24,000 multiplications per second!
Woman: Holy Moses, that’s lightning fast! They’ll never get it to work.
Dorothy: It’ll run eventually. And when it does we have to know how to program it… Unless youd rather be out of a job?

Paul: Now, the Atlas Rocket…that can push us into orbit. It goes up and delivers the capsule into an elliptical orbit. Earth’s gravity keeps pulling it, but it’s going so fast that it keeps missing the Earth. That’s how it stays in orbit. Now, Getting it back down…that’s the math we don’t know. Yes, Katherine?
Katherine: So, the capsule will spin around the Earth forever, because there’s nothing to slow it down?
Paul: That’s right. Slowing it down at precisely the right moment, by precisely the right amount. That is the task.
Katherine: So, it needs to move from an elliptical orbit to a parabolic orbit?
Paul: Yes. Thats the Go/No Go. Now, this point is a pin head. We bring him in too soon he burns up on reentry. We bring him too late, and he’s pushed out of Earth’s gravity.
Katherine: Any changes in mass, weight, speed, time, distance, friction…or a puff of wind would alter the Go/No Go. And we start our calculations…over?
Paul: Yes. So, we need to be able to choose this re-entry point. This Go/No Go. This has to be exact.

Al: So where the hell do you go everyday?
Katherine: To the bathroom, sir.
Al: The bathroom! To the damn bathroom! For 40 minutes a day!? What do you do in there!? We are T-minus zero here. I put a lot of faith in you.
Katherine: There are no colored bathrooms in this building, or any building outside the West Campus, which is half a mile away. Did you know that? I have to walk to Timbuktu just to relieve myself! And I can’t use one of the handy bikes. Picture that, Mr. Harrisson. My uniform, skirt below the knees and my heels. And simple necklace pearls. Well, I don’t own pearls. Lord knows you don’t pay the colored enough to afford pearls! And I work like a dog day and night, living on coffee from a pot none of you want to touch! So, excuse me if I have to go to the restroom a few times a day.

Al [after knocking down the Colored Ladies Room sign]: There you have it! No more colored restrooms. No more white restrooms. Just plain old toilets. Go wherever you damn well please. Preferably closer to your desk. At NASA we all pee the same color!

Judge: Hampton High School is a white school, Mrs. Jackson.
Mary: Yes, your Honor. I’m aware of that.
Judge: Virginia is still a segregated state. Regardless of what the Federal Government says, or regardless of what the Supreme Court says our law is the law.

Mary: I plan on being an engineer at NASA, but I can’t do that without taking them classes at that all-white high school, and I can’t change the color of my skin. So I have no choice, but to be the first, which I can’t do without you, sir. Your honor, out of all the cases you gon hear today, which one is gon matter hundred years from now? Which one is gon make you the first?
Judge: Only the night classes, Mrs. Jackson.

Katherine: I’d like to get a jump on John Glenn’s trajectory.
Al: This isn’t about plugging in numbers, this is about inventing the math. I think we talked about that, right? It doesn’t exist.
Katherine: I can do it, sir.
Paul: Do you know any idea how exacting these calculations have to be?
Katherine: It’s like shooting a sawed-off shotgun from a thousand feet, and getting that one beebee through a hole so tiny, you can’t even see it. I’m an excellent shot, sir.

Katherine: Sir, if I could attend briefings I could stay current.
Paul: Katherine, we’ve been through this. It’s not possible. There’s no protocol for women attending.
Katherine: There’s no protocol for a man circling the Earth either, sir.
Paul: OK, but that’s just the way things are.

Al [handing her a stick of chalk]: Katherine. Have a go at it?
Katherine [at the blackboard]: The Go point for re-entry is 2,990 miles from where we want Colonel Glenn to land. If we assume that’s the Bahamas. At 17,544 miles per hour… upon reentry…370… at a descent angle of 46.56 degrees distance. So, that puts the landing zone at 25.0667 North, 77.3333 West. Which is here! Right here. Give or take 20 square miles.
John Glenn: I like her numbers.
Katherine: Thank you.
Jim: That of course is assuming the capsule hits the reentry point exactly. How do we insure that?
Al: That’s the math we don’t have yet, gentlemen. We’re working on it.

Dorothy: What about after now?
Vivian: After the Glenn launch, NASAs dissolving the Computing Groups.
Dorothy: I’m not accepting reassignment. Unless, I bring my ladies with me.
Vivian: Excuse me?
Dorothy: We’re going to need a lot of manpower to program that beast. I can’t do it alone. My girls are ready. They can do the work.
[later]
Dorothy [to the colored computers]: Ladies! We’ve been reassigned. Leave your calculators. You won’t need them where were going.

Night School Professor: Well, the curriculum is not designed for teaching a woman.
Mary: I imagine it’s the same as teaching a man.

Katherine: The problem is when the capsule moves from an elliptical orbit to a parabolic orbit. There’s no mathematical formula for that. As we can calculate launch, landing but without this conversion, the capsule stays in orbit, we can’t bring it home.
Al: Maybe we’re thinking about this all wrong.
Katherine: How’s that?
Al: Maybe it’s not new math at all.
Katherine: It could be old math. Something that looks at the problem numerically, and not theoretically Math is always dependable.
Al: For you it is.
Katherine [after staring at the chalkboard]: Eulers Method.
Paul: Eulers Method? But that’s ancient.
Katherine: But it works. It works numerically.

Vivian: You know Dorothy, despite what you may think, I have nothing against y’all.
Dorothy: I know. And I know you probably believe that.

Al: The thing is, the Cape is now insisting on doing all the backups down there. On site.
Katherine: I see.
Al: So, we won’t be running backups here. And truth be told, we can’t keep up with that IBM anyhow. Long story short, we no longer need a computer in this department. Progress is a double edged sword. Let’s have you report back to the West Group for now. I’ll see if we can find another assignment.

Al [on the phone with John Glenn]: The IBM has been spot on up to this point, John, but well run it again, to see what it comes up with. I’ll be back with you.
John: When I fly, I fly the machine. Right now, it seems like this machine is flying me.
Al: Were on the same page, John. The guys are working on it.
John: Let’s get the girl to check the numbers.
Al: The girl?
John: Yes, sir.
Al: You mean Katherine?
John: Yes, sir. The smart one. If she says they’re good, I’m ready to go.

Al [on the phone with Glenn]: We can confirm the Go/No Go point for re-entry is 16.11984 degrees latitude minus 165.2356 degrees longitude. The launch window is a go. The landing coordinates match.
John: That’s very good news, Al. It’s a little hard to trust something you can’t look in the eyes.
Al: That’s right, Colonel. Katherine did manage to calculate a few decimal points further than that hunk of metal.
John: Well, I’ll take every digit ya got. Be sure to thank her for me.

Al: So, er, do you think we’ll get to the moon?
Katherine: We’re already there, sir.

Title card: Mary Jackson became NASA’s – and America’s – first female African-American aeronautical engineer. In 1979, she was appointed Langley’s Woman’s Program Manager, where she fought to advance women of all colors.

Dorothy Vaughan became NASA’s first African-American supervisor. As a FORTRAN specialist, on the frontier of electronic computing, she was regarded as one of the most brilliant minds at NASA.

Katherine Johnson went on perform calculations for the Apollo II mission to the moon and Space Shuttle. In 2016, NASA dedicated the Katherine G. Johnson Computational Building in honor of her groundbreaking work in space travel. At the age of 97, Katherine was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and celebrated her 56th anniversary with Jim Johnson.[/b]

Let’s start here: youtu.be/FDjJpmt-wzg

Modern love can be a strain.

In particular, postmodern love. And this plays out over and over and over again in film. You’re a couple. You are more or less in love but you are ever out in the world interacting with others. Or you invite others into your world.

What could possible go wrong?

Well, the more often others come within your orbit the greater the likelihood that the variables will shift and the relationship may come into jeopardy. For men it often revolves around new sex. For women, new love. But there are so many possible combinations of the two that sustaining a loving relationship becomes increasingly more problematic in our modern world.

You do agree, right?

And, of course, if the couple sustain a high profile, glamorous, jet-set attachment because one of them is “a famous rock star” things just get that much more complicated. Or, as one reviewer put it, “not about or for ordinary people”.

On the other hand, how far removed are the ordinary people among us from these sort of tempestuous relationships?

Here we go back and forth in time. It allows us to speculate on how one particular present evolved uniquely from one particular past. But that just reminds us of how many other different paths that it might have gone on instead.

Look for the most obnoxious character to come along in years. Larger than life I think they call them.

IMDb

[b]Director Luca Guadagnino, screenwriter David Kajganich and actress Tilda Swinton revealed that Marianne Lane is a mix of David Bowie, Chrissie Hynde, Patti Smith, PJ Harvey, Peaches, Joan Jett and Roisin Murphy. Marianne’s look in the opening scene is similar to David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust era.

Initially, Tilda Swinton didn’t want to do this movie. Not this one nor others, due to the recent death of her mother, she ended up changing her mind and proposed the idea of this woman unable to speak into the established story of ancient histories and new lives thrown into relief by one another. Not only as a twist to ramp up the tensions between the characters, but also as a way of exploring the possibilities of silence in a portrait of a character surrounded by the noise of others and the legacy of the noise she had herself made in the past.[/b]

trivia at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt2056771/tri … =ttqu_sa_1
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Bigger_Splash_(film
trailer: youtu.be/3zC13ekq1Sk

A BIGGER SPLASH [2015]
Directed by Luca Guadagnino

Harry: Oh, Penny, Penny, come here! Right, Pen, meet Marianne and Paul.
Penny: Hi!
Paul: Oh, you brought a protege. Nice to meet you.
Penny: I’m his daughter.

Cue Lolita.

[b]Paul [watching Harry take a piss]: Harry, come on, that’s a grave.
Harry: Yeah, well, Europe is a grave.

Paul: Mm. You’re on your college break? On your Grand Tour?
Penelope: Yep. Normally I’d be spending the summer in Connecticut with my mother, but she gets sick of me. She gets sick of me and she just ships me off somewhere. This year, it was to Harry.

Harry [to Paul of Marianne’s laryngitus]: Is she like this when you fuck? I mean, how does it work? Does she write you a note when she cums?

Harry: I’ve been teaching myself some Italian finally.
Paul: Oh! 101 useful phrases?
Harry: Well, no, I’m not reading Boccaccio if that’s what you mean. Vaffanculo. Go fuck yourself. Go take it up the arse, in fact. Cacasentenze. Someone who pretends to be very smart, who won’t stop talking, one who shits sentences. And my favourite is vomitare I’anima. To puke your guts up. Literally, to vomit your soul.

Harry [to Paul on Marianne]: She’s the woman of the century. And I’m talking about her soul now.

Harry: And on top of all of that, Marianne’s a trumpets-of-Jericho, white-hot fuck.
Paul: I don’t want to hear it.
Harry: She fucks and she fucks and she fucks.

Harry: Now, frankly, it’s sentimental to think you can help Paul by not drinking in front of him, or not talking about it for that matter. Come on, it was a year ago. I mean, if he can’t even hear the subject mentioned, you don’t have to go kicking over glasses and it’s just ridiculous. And people talk about addiction, they talk about suicide. It happens. You know, I doubt he wanted to kill himself anyway. If you ask me, he wanted to kill the whole world, Marianne.

Penelope: My trouble is that I fall in love with every pretty thing.
Paul: That sounds paralyzing.

Harry: What’s the point of Paul in your life now? I was angry with you. Yeah, I know I was slutting around, but you took everything so hard and now look what I’ve done. I’ve…thrown you this square. Yeah, he’s square, Marianne. He’s a square bear. He’s all cuddly and built for hibernating with and he’s stuck.

Penelope: You must have been really desperate to crash your car like that.
Paul: Excuse me?
Penelope: He said you were shot out of it, really far…and you didn’t leave a note or anything.
Paul: That’s what he said?
Penelope: He thinks it’s the most interesting thing you’ve done. He thinks you’re too conceited to stand being addicted to anything. I’m guessing he’s talking about drinking. Paul: Are you waiting for a reaction or something? Don’t waste your time.

Marianne: He’d fuck everything.
Paul: That’s what I’m saying.
Marianne: He doesn’t believe in limits.
Paul: Well, if you’re talking about Penelope, I’ll tell you that whatever’s going on there, it’s mutual and it’s a great couple…Come on, look at them.

Penelope [to Marianne]: They both tell me yes, but I don’t think he really is my father. I mean, we don’t even really look, or act very much alike at all. I’m going to ask him to take the test. There are reasons I’d like to know. Private reasons.[/b]

Very private one suspects.

Harry: Anyway, you will find your way back to it. You just got to get your finance, good editor, some guts.
Paul: Just shut the fuck up, all right? Just stop talking and we’ll be fine. Can you do that?

Thanks Paul.

[b]Harry: Honesty is the greatest fidelity.
Paul: Yeah, well, the world is not ready for your honesty.

Marianne: It can look a bit full-on, a bit, you know, it could… in a situation like last night, it could be misconstrued.
Harry: What do you mean? What do you mean, Marianne?
Marianne: How you treat Penelope.
Harry: What shit! I’m too brash. I’m too impulsive. I’m too a lot of things, but Christ, I’m sound. I mean, look, if you asked me, do I find my daughter sexy? Have I caught myself enjoying the sight of her? Yeah, I have. I didn’t know her until a year ago, so yeah, it’s a little odd. I acknowledge and I deal with the shit that goes on in my head.

Harry: They used to process slaves on this island. Did you know that? I hate this fucking island. Matianne: Look, let’s not get things confused!
Harry [shouting with people all around]: I’m not fucking my daughter!

Paul: I did leave a note. But anyway we tore it apart when I, uh…when I got out of the hospital.
Penelope: You and Marianne?
Paul: Yeah.
Penelope: What did it say?
Paul: Uh, just her name. I wanted to write it down one last time.

Harry: Did you fuck her or not? Did you fuck her or not?!
Paul: Did you fuck Marianne?
Harry: It’s not the same, man. You know what the problem is…I gave you too much credit. We were friends. Better than brothers. Better than all those shits in their lofts talking about who the fuck cares what And now you just…you just tolerate me. Do you know how offensive that is to me? Think what you want, judge the hell out of me, but don’t fucking tolerate me. You don’t deserve either of them.
Paul: Neither do you.
Harry: You have no idea of the shit that I got her out of…off of.
Paul: Well, I got her off you.
Harry: What? I gave her to you.
Paul: You’re obscene.
Harry: We’re all obscene. Everyone’s obscene. That’s the whole fucking point. We see it and we love each other anyway.

Clara: Madam, madam, wake up. Mr Harry in the pool. Dead.

Paul [to Marianne sobbing]: I tried to save him. I tried, I tried, I tried. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.

Marianne: Why did you lie to us?
Penelope: I didn’t lie.
Marianne: You’re not 22, you’re 17. Christ, you’re still in high school. You speak Italian. And you sat there over and over with people struggling to communicate with one another. You like to watch people having a hard time. Is that it? Is that the kind of woman you want to be?
Penelope: I would just rather be left alone. It’s different.
Marianne: No! That’s not different. I wasn’t your enemy. None of us was.
Penelope [chuckling]: Don’t let it upset you, okay?
[Marianne slaps her – hard – across the face][/b]

Chesley Sullenberger. Sully. The all-American hero.

Or was he?

First it had to be established that he was in fact an actual hero. Sure, he brought the plane down in the Hudson and everyone – 155 souls – were safe. But what if the reason that he was forced to bring the plane down there in the first place was because of something that he had done. Or something that he should have done instead but didn’t. No one would have had to be saved if he himself hadn’t put them in danger.

Yes, the birds caused the initial calamity. But was it really as bad as Sully insisted? Were both engines out? And was it really necessary to drop the plane in the drink instead of landing it at LaGuardia?

Here things get all tangled up in the age-old conundrum: man vs. machine. Relying or not relying on computers to make the decisions. Or relying on them to judge the decisions that we mere mortals make. That ubiquitous “human factor”.

In turn, this is yet another peek into how, in a very short time, somebody that almost no one knew about, becomes somebody that almost everyone knows about. The making of a celebrity in our post-modern world. The parts that are the stuff of dreams and the parts that are the stuff of nightmares.

Also, look for the part where most of us won’t have a clue as to what they are talking about. The “technical” jargon involved in flying a jet liner “in crisis”.

And how hard is it to land a jet plane on the Hudson River? Most of us wouldn’t really have a clue.

IMDb

[b]Clint Eastwood deliberately filmed the escape onto the life raft without rehearsal to capture the physical difficulty of releasing the raft. Tom Hanks and Aaron Eckhart’s actions were unscripted.

Near the end of the movie, when Sully is before the NTSB, he tells them they forgot to use the human factor, when they used simulations to show he could have gotten to an airport. They relented and added 35 seconds to the simulation before the simulated pilots reacted to the problem. The actual time, from the bird strike, was 58 seconds…a 23-second difference.[/b]

IMDb trivia: imdb.com/title/tt3263904/tri … =ttqu_sa_1
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sully_(film
trailer: youtu.be/mjKEXxO2KNE

SULLY [2016]
Directed by Clint Eastwood

[b]Passenger [being interviewed]: You think you’re gonna die, that’s what you think. And then, miraculously you don’t! Thank you Captain, Thank you! Thank you! Thank you Captain Sullenberger for being here today…

Charles: For the record. We have an aircraft system investigation and also aircraft structures, MRT…aircraft perfomance, ATC, wide life factors, survival factors and emergency response. Today we begin with our operations, human performance and investigations. On the crash of US Flight 1549.
Sully: The water landing.
Charles: Captain?
Sully: This was not a crash, it was a water landing. We knew what we were trying to execute here. It was not a crash, it was a forced water landing.
Charles: Why didn’t you attempt to return to LaGuardia?
Sully: There simply was not enough altitude. The Hudson was the only place long enough and smooth enough and wide enough to even attempt a landing.[/b]

Is he telling the truth? Or is it enough that he thinks he is telling the truth? Then this part:

[b]Charles: Let’s get into how you calculated all those parameters.
Sully: There was no time for calculating. I had relied on my experience of managing the altitude and speed of thousands of flights over four decades.
Charles: You’re saying you didn’t do it…
Sully: I eyeballed it.
Charles: You eyeballed it?
Sully: Yes. The best chance those passengers had was on that River. And I bet my life on it. In fact, I did. And I would do it again.

Ben: Aviation engineers are theorizing that you had enough energy to make it back to the runway.
Sully: Well, engineers are not pilots. They’re wrong. And they weren’t there.
Ben: Regardless, we have to follow up on all implications as part of our investigation.
Charles: Our computers will run retrun scenario algorthms thriving scenario. It will generate simulations with your exact parameters… the engine loss, the altitude, everything you faced when you made your decision.
Sully: I would like to oversee those computer simulations.
Ben: Not possible during the investigation.

Ben: You stated there was a dual engine failure due to multiple bird strikes? That would be unprecedented!
Sully: Everything is unprecedented, until it happens for the first time.

Lorrie [Sully’s wife on the phone]: There are reporters who would give an update. Inside the mind of Sully. What should I tell them?

Lorrie [to Sully on the phone while watching a news report on TV]: The whole world is talking about you. My Sully.

Katie Couric [as Sully imagines/dreams her on TV]: Why Captain Sullenberger made that faithful decision to turn the Hudson into a runway? Well, only he can answer. But we now know, it was the wrong choice. A choice that endangered the lives of all of those on board. So, while much of the country hails him as a hero… this new information will certainly change everyone’s understanding of the so called Miracle on the Hudson…Sully Sullenberger, are you a hero, or a fraud?

Sully: I don’t like not being in control of the process.
Jeff: Yeah! Well, 6 months from now, we’ll just be laughing about how we got to meet David Letterman.
Sully: We’re doing David Letterman?
Jeff: Yeah, right after next NTSB interview.

Official: Arnie Gentile called. He has the ACARS data. The left engine was still operating at idle.
Sully: Not possible, I felt it go. It was like we were stopped in mid-air.
Official: Arnie said there was a chance it was sub-idle. That it still could get thrust. I’m just letting you know, since the NTSB already does.

Jeff: Look, I just finished training on the AR320 and I can tell you the only reason the plane operated as well as it did…that the aircraft could land anywhere…is because Captain Sullenberger turned on the auxiliary power unit.
Elizabeth: He was simply following the QRH.
Jeff: No, no he wasn’t. He wasn’t following proper procedure at all. And I know because I had the QRH in my hands. He switched on the APU immediately after engine blowback. According to the Airbus that’s the 15th thing on the list to do. 15th! If he had followed the damn rules, we’d all be dead.

Elizabeth: The evidence shows that the left engine was at idle or sub-idle immediately following the bird strike.
Sully: You show me the left engine, I’ll show you dead birds and no power.
Elizabeth: The left engine was lost in the crash, due to excessive damage on touchdown.

Charles: We were able to run the all algorithms and the resulting…the computer simulations of US Airways Flight 1549 showed that the Aviation Engineers were correct. There was enough altitude and speed after the bird strike for a successful return to LaGuardia.
Sully: Successful?
Charles: The plane landed at LaGuardia intact, undamaged.
Jeff: You got that from one computer simulation?
Ben: No, 20. Including attempts made for Teterboro runways 19 and LaGuardia runways 22 and 13. Every Computer simulation with the exact flight parameters demonstrated… that return to LaGuardia was possible. And not just possible, probable.

Jeff: They’re playing Pac-Man, and we were flying a plane full of human beings.
Sully: Somehow this…that’s not how I’ll remember it. It just doesn’t seem right.

Sully [on the phone]: Worst case scenario: The NTSB lists me as the probable cause. That’s immediate retirement, no pension. My life work gone.
Lorrie: Ok you’re scaring me now, Sully. What is going on?
Sully: The left engine might have still been idle-ing…and the AirBus simulations say I could have made it back to LaGuardia safely.

Sully: Birds!!!
Jeff: Oh shit!

Sully [to the passengers]: This is the Captain, brace for impact.
Passenger: What?!
Flight attendants [in unison]: Brace, brace, brace…heads down, stay down! Brace, brace, brace…heads down, stay down! Brace, brace, brace…heads down, stay down! Brace, brace, brace…heads down, stay down! Brace, brace, brace…heads down, stay down!

Bartender [after Sully walks into a pub and sits at the bar]: Hey, is that you? Are you the pilot, Sully? that is you, right?
Sully: Yeah.
Bartender: Hey, it’s a pleasure to meet you. That was unreal what you did the other day, that was really something. It’s a real pleasure to meet you. You know, we invented a drink after you as soon as that happened, ain’t that right, Johnny?
Johnny: Yeah, yeah, you did.
Bartender: The Sully: It’s a shot of Grey Goose with a splash of water.

Jeff [to Sully]: I’ve never been so happy to be in New York in my life!

Sully [on phone]: I know that AirBus has simulations scheduled for the S42 center at the factory. But that’s next week, in Toulouse. Can you get them to reschedule?
Larry: It’s 1:30 in the morning.
Sully: I need you to make it happen, before we listen to the CVR. Before our testimony is complete.
Larry: Why?
Sully: I have a right to see the simulations, and I have a feeling that with human pilots and not a computer, the results are going to be different.
Larry: What if they show the exact same result?
Sully: If they do, then I’ll hand in my wings myself.

Sully: Can we get serious now?
Charles: Captain?
Sully: We’ve all heard about the computer simulations and now we are watching actual sims but I can’t quite believe that you still have not taken into account the human factor.
Charles: Human pilot simulations show that you could have made it back to the airport.
Sully: No, they don’t. These pilots were not behaving like human beings. Like people who were experiencing this for the first time.
Charles: Well, they may not be reacting like you did.
Sully: Immediately after the bird strike they are turning back for the airport. Just as in the computer sims, correct?
Charles: That is correct.
Sully: They obviously knew the turn and exactly which heading to fly. They did not run a check, they did not switch on the APU.
Charles: They had all the same paremeters that you faced.
Sully: No one warned us. No one said: “You are going to lose both engines at a lower altitude than any jet in history. But be cool. Just make a left turn for LaGuardia like you’re going back to pick up the milk”. This was a dual engine loss at 2800 feet followed by immediate water landing…155 souls on board. No one has ever trained for an incident like that. No one…You’ve allowed no time for analysis or decision making. In these simulations, you’re taking all of the humanity out of the cockpit. How much time did the pilots spent planning… for this event. For these simulations? You are looking for human error. Then make it human.
Jeff: This wasn’t a videogame. It was life and death.

Sully: Please ask how many practice runs they had.
Elizabeth: 17. The pilot who landed at Teterboro had 17 practice attempts before the simulation we just witnessed.

Sully [at the CVR]: Does anyone need to see more simulations?
Jeff: Now that we’ve seen what could have happened, can we listen to what actually did?[/b]

Then they listen to the cockpit recordings.

[b]Sully [looking at Jeff 10 seconds before ditching and asks]: You got any ideas?

Elizabeth: Gentlemen, I want to inform you that the left engine has been recovered. We just received the comprehensive report. There was extensive damage to both the guide vanes and fan blades blades at the engine…5 compressor blades were fractured…and 8 variable guide vanes, missing.
Sully: So no thrust.
Elizabeth: As you testified, it was completely destroyed.

Elizabeth: I’d like to add something on a personal note: I can say with confidence, that after speaking with the rest of the flight crew, with bird experts and airplane engineers, after running all the scenarios and talking to each of the players there is an X in this result. It’s you, Captain Sullenberger. Take you out of the equation and the math just fails.
Sully: I disagree. It wasn’t just me, it was all of us. Jeff, Donna, Sheila, Doreen. The passengers, rescue workers. Air traffic control, ferry boat crews and scuba cops. We all did it. We survived.

Elizabeth: First Officer Skiles, is there anything you’d like to add? Anything, you would have done differently, if you, had to do it again?
Jeff: Yes. I would have done it in July.[/b]

Here’s a film that follows a man and his girlfriend around for a week. That’s it.

The man drives a bus and writes poetry. The girlfriend, bursting at the seams with creativity, dreams of owning a business that sells cupcakes. In Paterson, New Jersey. Nothing really extraordinary about them. Well, unless you count those folk who are able to create something extraordinary out of the more or less ordinary lives that they live. If that is what they do.

You either like them or you don’t. And if you don’t you stop watching the film and move on to something else. Or, as one reviewer griped: “Paterson focuses on the ordinary, meaningless tasks of everyday life and the audience waits patiently for something to happen. It becomes painfully obvious that the overall point is in the ‘beauty’ of seemingly ordinary instances and observations.”

Me? Not the sort of folks I would choose to be around. Interesting pair, sure, but not with respect to the things that I find interesting.

About the only thing out of the ordinary that happens here is when, one day, out of the blue, the bus breaks down. Paterson has “a situation”. Unless you count Marie, Everett and his toy gun.

Or Marvin and the shredded book of poems.

Some will get this more than others.

Still, over at Rotten Tomatoes, 200 film critics got it enough for the film to garner a 96% fresh rating.

IMDb

[b]The poems in the film came from Ron Padgett, one of Jim Jarmusch’s favorite contemporary poets, who agreed to write the poems for the film and who let Jarmusch use some of his pre-existing poems.

Adam Driver went to bus driving school for his role in the film. Production crew was arranging for Driver to get a bus license, and while they were trying to organize it, he on his own figured it out and was already in the school.[/b]

trivia at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt5247022/tri … =ttqu_sa_1
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paterson_(film
trailer: youtu.be/m8pGJBgiiDU

PATERSON [2016]
Written and directed by Jim Jarmusch

[b]Laura: I had a beautiful dream. We had two little children. Twins.
Paterson: Hmm.
Laura: If we had children, would you like it if they where twins?
Paterson: Mmm… Mmm-hmm. Yeah. Twins. Sure, why not?
[pause]
Paterson: One for each of us.

Laura: You know darling… I really think you should do something about those beautiful poems. They should belong to the world, you know?
Paterson: The world…Well now you’re trying to scare me.

Doc [staring down at a chessboard]: I’m gettin’ my ass kicked today.
Paterson: Who are you playin’?
Doc: Myself.

Laura: I was dreaming that we were in ancient Persia. And you were riding on an elephant. A big, silver elephant.
Paterson: A silver elephant?
Laura: Yeah. You looked so beautiful.
Paterson: Do they have elephants in ancient Persia?
Laura: I don’t think so. Not silver ones, anyway.

Paterson: Morning, Donny.
Donny: Ready to roll, Paterson?
Paterson: Yeah.
[pause]
Paterson: Everything OK?
Donny: Now that you ask, no, not really. My kid needs braces on her teeth, my car needs a transmission job, my wife wants me to take her to Florida but I’m behind on the mortgage payments, my uncle called from India and he needs money for my neice’s wedding, and I got this strange rash on my back. You name it, brother. How 'bout you?
Paterson: I’m OK.

Laura: Get any new writing done?
Paterson: I did a little, yeah. Working on a poem for you.
Laura: A love poem?
Paterson: Yeah, I guess if it’s for you, it’s a love poem. It’s kind of inspired by our Ohio Blue Tip Matches.
Laura: Really? Does it mention the little megaphone shape the letters make?
Paterson [taken aback]: Yeah, actually it does.
Laura: How beautiful. I can’t wait to read it when it’s done.

Student [on bus]: Do you think there are any other anarchists still around in Paterson?
Student: You mean besides us? Not likely.

Paterson: You okay?
Donny: Well, since you asked…no, not really. My mother-in-law’s moving in…My cat got diagnosed with cat diabetes and, the medicine you know… it’s also expensive and now my daughter started taking violin lessons…and I’m losing my mind with the sound of that. What can I say Paterson?
Paterson: Ya know, sorry.
Donny: Well, it’s just my burden I guess, my particular burden.
Paterson: Well, see ya tomorrow.

Laura: You’re up late, honey. Your silent magic watch didn’t wake you up.
Paterson: Yeah, it was a little late today.
Laura: Well, somedays something inside just doesn’t want to get up. Ever feel like that?
Paterson: Today.

Laura: You look a little drained. You were home a little late. Was your day okay?
Paterson: Well, it was until the bus broke down.
Laura: The bus broke down? Was it dangerous?
Paterson: No, it was just… it sputtered out. It was an electrical problem.
Laura: Electrical problem? Could it have exploded into a fireball?
Paterson: No, no. It’s just an old bus.
Laura: Well, I think they should get their best driver who’s also a great poet a brand new bus. It’s the least they could do.
Paterson: City of Paterson? Not likely.

Marie: Thanks Paterson. That was very heroic.
Paterson: Yeah, wow, okay, I dunno…
Doc: If it wasn’t for you that crazy motherfucker might have shot himself to death with a piece of foam.

Everett [in the bar]: You love somebody, more than anything in the whole damn world. You… worship her. You don’t wanna be alive without her, and…and she says she doesn’t want you. You’re just…dirt.

Laura [staring down at the mess on the floor]: Marvin? Marvin…Did you do this? Oh my god! It’s your notebook.
Paterson: It’s what?
Laura: Your poems. Honey I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to even say. You usually keep your notebook down in the basement.
Paterson: I guess I… left it up here on the sofa.

Laura: I wish you would have read me some of your most recent poems. Maybe I could have remembered them.
Paterson: It’s okay. They were just words. Written on water.
Layra: Baby I’m so sorry. I saved all the pieces. Maybe somehow they could be puzzled back together…with a computer program or something.

Paterson: I guess you really like poetry then?
Japanese Poet: I breathe poetry.
[pause]
Paterson: So you write poetry?
Japanese Poet: Yes.
[pause]
Japanese Poet: My notebooks.
Paterson: Oh, yeah.
Japanese Poet: My poetry only in Japanese. No translation.
[pause]
Japanese Poet: Poetry in translations is like taking a shower with a raincoat on.[/b]

Billions and billions served. Or is it in the trillions by now?

And it all had to start somewhere. It had to be founded. And that means someone had to be the founder.

An all-American founder: Ray Kroc.

Only it turns out that before he owned McDonalds he got the idea from Mac and Dick McDonald. And then he had to “maneuver himself into a position” to pull the company out from under the brothers and go on to create his billion-dollar empire.

Ray sold milk-shake machines. One day he gets an order from the McDonald brothers for 8 of them. That prompts him to travel to California to check them out. And then the rest is history.

Mac and Dick. And [later] Harry.

McDonalds. Loved by some, hated by others. It has for all practical purposes become a legendary fixture in the narratives of those who look around them and see one big gigantic “McWorld”.

That’s how it works. Some think of McDonald’s as everything that is encompassed in the American dream. The very embodiment of it. While others think of it as everything that is encompassed instead in the crass, mass-market, mindless consumption mentality that America has basically succeeded in transporting around the globe.

This one takes us all the way back to the days when a hamburger, french fries and a coke would cost you 35 cents.

Good news: Ronald McDonald is no where to be found.

IMDb

[b]The original McDonalds, as depicted in the film, is actually located at 1398 North E St., San Bernardino, CA 92405. The owner of Juan Pollo Chicken purchased the site and has restored it to a McDonalds museum. The oldest remaining Golden Arches-styled McDonalds (1953) is still in operation at 10207 Lakewood Blvd., Downey, California 90241.

The company Kroc worked for prior to founding McDonalds, Prince Castle, still exists and supplies McDonalds with much of its equipment

The McDonald’s restaurants depicted were built from scratch in parking lots, as the crew was unable to locate suitable existing restaurants in locations which matched the desired look of the film.

To play his character Michael Keaton watched Glengarry Glen Ross , Michael Douglas in Wall Street, Leonardo DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street and Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire. [/b]

trivia at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt4276820/tri … =ttqu_sa_1
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Founder
trailer: youtu.be/AX2uz2XYkbo

THE FOUNDER [2016]
Directed by John Lee Hancock

[b]Ray: I know what you’re thinkin’…What the heck do I need a 5-spindle for… when I barely sell enough milkshakes to justify my single-spindle. Right? Wrong. Are you familiar with the notion of the chicken or the egg Mr. Griffith, I mentioned that there’d be costs. Well, I think it applies here. Do you not need the multimixer because, well heck, you’re not selling enough milkshakes. Or are you not selling enough milkshakes because you don’t have a multimixer? I firmly believe it’s the latter. Because your customer comes in here and he knows if he orders a shake from your establishment… that well, he’s in for a terrific wait. He’s done it before and he thinks to himself, well by golly, I’m not gonna make that mistake again. But if ya had the Prince Castle, 5-spindle, multimixer… with patented direct-drive electric motor we’d greatly increase your ability to produce… delicious, frosty milkshakes, FAST. Mark my words. Dollars to donuts, you’ll be sellin’ more of those sons of bitches… then you can shake a stick at. You increase the supply, and the demand will follow… Increase supply, demand follows. Chicken, egg. Do you follow my logic?I know you do because you’re a bright, forward thinking guy who… knows a good idea when he hears one. So… What do you say?
Restaurant owner: Nah. But thanks anyway.

Ray puts on a self-help record: “Persistence. Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent won’t. Nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius won’t. Unrewarded genius is practically a clich. Education won’t. The world is full of educated fools. Persistence and determination alone are all powerful.”[/b]

Then he gets that fateful order from McDonalds.

[b]Employee: Hi, welcome to McDonalds. May I take your order?
Ray: Yeah, I’ll have a hamburger, french fries, and a Coca-Cola.
Employee: That’ll be 35 cents please.
Ray: All right.
[Gives him 50 cents]
Employee: Fifteen cents is your change.
[Gives it to him, then turns around and grabs a bag and a drink with a straw in it, and sets it in front of him]
Employee: Here you are.
Ray: What’s this?
Employee: Your food.
Ray: No, no, no, I just ordered.
Employee: And now it’s here.
Ray [seems hesitant]: You sure?
[the employee nods]
Ray: Where’s the umm… the silverware and plates and everything?
Employee: You just eat it straight out of the wrapper, and then you throw it all out.
Ray: Really? Okay.
[Grabs the order, turns to go, but turns back again]
Ray: Where do I eat it?
Employee: Your car, at the park, at home. Wherever you like.

Mac [giving Ray a tour of the business]: The first stop for every McDonald’s hamburger is the grill… manned by 2 cooks whose soul job it is to grill those all beef beauties to perfection. Meanwhile, as the patty cooks our dressers get the buns ready. Every McDonald’s burger has 2 pickles a pinch of onions and a precise shot of ketchup and mustard.
Ray: Now where’d ya get those gadgets?
Mac: We made 'em.
Ray: Made them?!
Mac: Yeah, custom built. Whole kitchen is.

Dick: The fries…
Mac: What about 'em?
Dick: They’re 5% too crisp.
Mac: No, they’re perfect.
Dick: I think we should drop to 2 minutes, 50 seconds.
Mac: Wasn’t that what we were at before?
Dick: 400, not 375. Higher temp, shorter cook.

Ray: I’m gonna take you out to dinner. You and your brother.
Dick: What for?
Ray: This is the most remarkable food restaurant I’ve ever seen in all my years in this industry… and I’ve seen it all. I wanna hear your story.

Mac: The drive-in model as we’ve learned has a few built in problems.
Ray: Tell me about it.
Mac: For starters, there’s the customer issue. Drive-in’s tend to attract, shall we say, a less than desirable clientele. Teenagers. Hot-rodders and hooligans and juvenile deliquents in blue jeans. And then there’s the service. It takes forever and a day for your food to arrive, and when it finally does…
Ray: It’s usually wrong.
Dick: Yeah. The car hops are too busy dodging gropes to remember that you wanted strawberry phosphate, not cherry.
Mac: And then there’s the expenses. The huge payroll due to the large staff required dishes constantly getting broken or stolen. Tremendous overhead. So one day Dick has a realization. He sees that the bulk of our sales are in only 3 items. Hamburgers, french fries, soft-drinks.
Dick: 87%.
Mac: So we say to ourselves let’s focus on what sells and that’s exactly what we do…Brisket gone, tamales gone, but we don’t stop there. We look at everything. What else don’t we need? Turns out quite a lot. Car hops. Walk up to a window, get your food yourself. Dishes. All paper packaging, disposable. Cigarette machines, jukeboxes, drive out the riff raff. Creating a family friendly environment here…We wanted something that wasn’t just different. It had to be better. It needed to be ours. And that’s what brings us to the biggest cut of all.
Ray: Which was?
Mac: The wait.
Ray: Orders ready in 30 seconds, not 30 minutes[/b]

You won’t believe what comes next. On the tennis court.

[b]Mac: We take the layout to a builder, custom build the kitchen to our exact specs. Ta dah! The speedy system is born. The world’s first ever system to deliver food fast. It is totally revolutionary…
Dick: …and a complete disaster.
Ray: Why?
Mac: Opening day, cars pull up onto the lot and they start honking immediately because no car-hop comes up…We try to explain to them the walk up window and they are uh… bewildered? No, furious.
Customer: “What do you mean I gotta get out of my car?”
Mac: Most of 'em just cuss us out and drive off…and the few that stay are mad as heck because they are eating off paper and they’ve gotta discard their own trash…We may have underestimated the learning curve. So by 5 o’clock, Dick is calculating how much it’s gonna cost to go back to drive-in…

Ray [the next morning]: Franchise!
Mac: Beg pardon?
Ray: Franchise. Franchise the damn thing. It’s too damn good for just one location. There should be McDonald’s everywhere. Coast to coast, sea to shining sea.
Dick: Mr. Kroc…
Ray: Hey, I got a confession I wanna make to you boys… I’m not out here in California for any kind of business meetings. I came out here for you. Franchise. Franchise, franchise, franchise. Franchise.
Dick: We already tried. Three in Southern California, one in Sacramento and one in Phoenix. And that’s all there will ever be.
Ray: Why?
Dick: Two words: Quality Control. It’s almost impossible to enforce standards from afar. Places were a mess. Filthy kitchens, inconsistent menus…Sacramento was selling burritos.

Ray [looking at a framed illustration on the wall]: Wuh…what is that?
Mac: A concept.
Ray: Huh. What are those?
Mac: Oh, it’s a way to make the place stand out when you’re driving by. The “golden arches”, I call 'em.
Ray: The golden arches… Who thought of that?
Mac: Oh that’s some pure Dick magic right there.

Mac: Hey Dick…What is it with this guy?
Ray: Do it for your country.
Mac: What?
Ray: If you boys don’t want to franchise for yourselves, that’s fine…Do it for your country. Do it for America.

Ray [to Dick and Mac]: Ya know what, I drove through a lot of towns. A lot of small towns. And they all had two things in common…They had a courthouse and they had a church. On top of the church, got a cross and on top of the courthouse they have a flag. Flags, crosses, crosses flags. Driving around I just cannot stop thinking about this tremendous restaurant. Now at the risk of sounding blasphemous forgive me. Those arches have a lot in common with those buildings. A building with a cross on top, what is that? It’s a gathering place where decent wholesome people come together and they share values protected by that American flag. It could be said that that beautiful building flanked by those arches signifies more or less the same thing. It doesn’t just say, “Delicious hamburgers inside”. They signify family. It signifies community. It’s a place where Americans come together to break bread. I am telling you…McDonald’s can be… the new American church. Feeding bodies and feeding souls and it ain’t just open on Sundays, boys.

Dick [on the phone about Coke sponsership]: We’re just not comfortable with the notion of turning our menu into an advertisement.
Ray: See, it’s not an ad, it’s sponsorship.
Dick: It’s distasteful.
Ray: It’s free money! Loads of restaurants do this.
Dick: Well we don’t.
Ray: Why not?
Dick: Because I have no interest in indulging in that sort of crass commercialism. It’s not McDonald’s.
Ray: I didn’t realize I was parterning with a beatnik.
Dick: I’ll have you know I’m a card carrying Republican!

Ray: What’s your name?
Leonard: Leonard. Leonard Rosenblatt.
Ray: Rosenblatt? What’s a Jew doing selling Catholic bibles?
Leonard: Making a living.

Ray [recruiting folks to run the restaurants]: I’m looking for a few good men…and women. Who aren’t afraid of hard work. Aren’t afraid to roll up their sleeves. I’m looking for scrappers, hustlers, guys that are willing to roll up their sleeves. They’re livin’ on drive, they got a little fire in their belly. I stand right here before you today, I’m gonna offer you something as precious as gold. And you know what that is? Anybody? Anybody? Opportunity. It’s opportunity. Opportunity. Opportunity to advance, to move forward, to move up, to advance… To succeed. To win. To step up. The sky’s the limit. The sky is the limit. Grab the brass ring. To give yourself a shot at the American dream. Put your arms around the American dream. Opportunity. Cause I’ll tell ya somethin… At McDonald’s? It’s like this great nation of ours… Some of that elbow grease. I guarantee ya, if you got the guts… the gumption, the desire… I guarantee ya you can succeed. There’s gold to be had. At the end of… those Golden Arches… Golden Arches. Golden Arches. Now who’s with me? Who wants to jump on that ladder to success? Be part of the McDonald’s “mishpokhe”. Now who’s with me? Come on, lemme see some hands.

Ray: Everything’s changed. Ya want a drink?
Ethel: No, changed how?
Ray: Forget the Chicago suburbs, think bigger.
Ethel: Bigger…
Ray: I’m not chasing them anymore. They’re chasing me now.
Ethel: The trip. How was it?
Ray: Triumphant. They were rolling out the red carpet. And kissing this ring. They’re begging me for McDonald’s now.

Dick [on the phone]: Ray, we have no interest in a milkshake that contains no milk.

Harry [to Ray]: Mr. Kroc, if you’re not making money hand over fist, something’s terribly wrong.

Harry: You don’t seem to realize what business you’re in. You’re not in the burger business, you’re in the real estate business. You don’t build an empire off a 1.4% cut of a $0.15 hamburger. You build it by owning the land upon which that burger is cooked. What you ought to be doing is buying up plots of land…then turning around and leasing said plots to franchisees. Who as a condition of their deal should be permitted to lease from you, and you alone. This will provide you with two things. 1. A steady up front revenue stream…money flows in before the first stake is in the ground. 2. Greater capital for expansion. Which in turn fuels further land aquisition…which in turn fuels further expansion…and so on, and so on. Land. That’s where the money is. And more than that, control. Control over the franchisee. Fail to uphold quality standards, you cancel their lease. Control over Dick and Mac. End result, you’ll have the banks and the franchisees in the palm of your hand.

Ray [on the phone]: Look, if you don’t wanna make a profit, that’s fine.But don’t stop the rest of us.
Dick: Us?
Ray: Us, as in everyone but you.
Dick: Who did you send them to?
Ray: Everyone but you.
Dick: You have no right. You are to stop this instant, is that clear?
Ray: Nah…
Dick: What the hell does that mean, nah? You will abide by the terms of your deal.
Ray: I am through taking marching orders from you… You and your endless parade of NOs. Constantly cowering in the face of progress.
Dick: If phony powdered milkshakes is your idea of progress you have a profound misunderstand of what McDonald’s is about.
Ray: I have a far greater understanding of McDonald’s than you two yokels.
Dick: What? You will do as we say.
Ray: Nope.
Dick: You have a contract!
Ray: You know, contracts are like hearts… they’re made to be broken.

Ray Kroc [on the phone]: While you two boys were content to sit back and become a couple of also-rans…I wanna take the future. I wanna win. And you don’t get there by being some “aw shucks” guy sap. There’s no place in business for people like that. Business is war. It’s dog eat dog, rat eat rat. If my competitor were drowning, I’d walk over and put a hose right in his mouth. Can you say the same?
Mac: I can’t. Nor would I want to.
Ray: Hence, your single location.
Mac: We want you out of this company, Ray.
Ray: Mac, how do you propose we do that?
Mac: We will sue you, whatever it takes.
Ray: And you’d probably win. But you can’t afford to sue me. I’d bury you in court costs alone. Mac, I’m the president and C.E.O. of a major corporation with land holdings in 17 states…You run a burger stand in the desert. I’m national. You’re fucking local.
[Mac collapses to the floor]

Mac [to Dick]: We will never beat him. We will never be rid of him.

Ray [on the phone]: Let me explain something to you Dick…You boys have full say over what goes on inside the restaurants. But outside, above, below… your authority stops at the door. And at the floor. Alright?
Mac: What is he saying?
Dick: He’s buying the land.
Mac: Our land?

Dick: I just have to ask you one thing. Something I’ve never understood.
Ray: Alright.
Dick: That day we met, when we gave you the tour…
Ray: Uh huh. What about it?
Dick: We showed you everything. The whole system, all of our secrets. We were an open book. So why didn’t you just…
Ray: Steal it? Just, grab your ideas and run off, start my own business…using all those ideas of yours. It would have failed.
Dick: How do you know?
Ray: Am I the only one who got the kitchen tour? You must have invited lots of people back there, huh?
Dick: And?
Ray: How many of them succeeded?
Dick: Lots of people started restaurants.
Ray Kroc: As big as McDonald’s?
Dick: Of course not.
Ray: No one ever has and no one ever will because they all lacked that one thing that makes McDonald’s special.
Dick: Which is?
Ray: Even you don’t know what it is.
Dick: Enlighten me.
Ray: It’s not just the system, Dick. It’s the name. That glorious name, McDonald’s. It could be, anything you want it to be…it’s limitless, it’s wide open…it sounds, uh…it sounds like it sounds like America. That’s compared to Kroc. What a crock. What a load of crock. Would you eat at a place named Kroc’s? Kroc’s has that blunt, Slavic sound. Kroc’s. But McDonald’s, oh boy. That’s a beauty. A guy named McDonald? He’s never gonna get pushed around in life.
Dick: That’s clearly not the case.
Ray: So, you don’t have a check for 1.35 million dollars in your pocket? Bye Dick.
Dick: So if you can’t beat’em, buy’em.
Ray: I remember the first time I saw that name stretched across your stand out there. It was love at first sight. I knew right then and there…I had to have it. And now I do.
Dick: You don’t have it.
Ray: You sure about that? Bye Dick. [/b]

I was watching this and wondering: Could this be based on a true story?

The part about autism. The plot itself is completely unbelievable. Or so it certainly seemed to me. Unless of course “behind the scenes” this sort of thing actually does unfold.

In other words, not just in Hollywood.

Is it possible for someone with just the right combination of gifts and afflictions to pursue a life – a career – in this manner? We’ve come across characters like this before. They aren’t quite like all the rest of us but there is something extraordinary about them ---- “gifts” – that most of us could never even imagine. They have an extraordinary mental acuity but emotionally they don’t react to the world [and the folks in it] as a “normal” person does.

In other words, “a high-functioning autistic”. Think, for example, Rain Man or Temple Grandin. Only this guy works as a “forensic accountant” for some rather unsavory characters. At least that’s how most will perceive them. On the other hand, he also helps the “little guy” fuck over the IRS.

On the other other hand, however, what does he know between right and wrong behavior? He doesn’t think about that like we’re supposed to. Or, rather, the way we think that he doesn’t think about that like we think we are supposed to.

A whole other way of looking at the world “amorally”? That murky “behind the curtain” world of organized and unorganized crime. The role of a sort of secret government and the part that big business – corporate culture – plays in so many aspects of our lives. All those shadowy interactions between folks that aren’t like you and I.

Anyway, around numbers, the guy is invincible. Around people, however, well, that’s another thing altogether. But then there are all those folks diagnosed with austism who do not [apparently] possess these “special skills”. How might they react to films of this sort?

And you can’t help but wonder: How does “the law” deal with folks like him? And do they really exist?

Anyone know?

Basically, this is one of those films where you spend most of the time trying to figure out how all the pieces [and characters] fit together. That and who to root for.

IMDb

[b]While for movie effect the script calls out the repeated use of the number ‘3’ as an indicator of fraudulent numbers, the theory behind fraudulent number detection is known as Benford’s law. The law states that in numbers such as account transactions the probability of a number occurring naturally drops as one moves from smaller numbers to the larger numbers following a logarithmic scale. This law has been successfully used to detect fraudulent accounting transactions.

While it might seem odd for a strong box filled with gold and other valuables to include a copy of “Action Comics #1” (1938) comic book, in fact this issue is valued at over $4 million dollars in mint condition.[/b]

IMDb trivia: imdb.com/title/tt2140479/tri … =ttqu_sa_1
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Accountant_(2016_film
trailer: youtu.be/DBfsgcswlYQ

THE ACCOUNTANT [2016]
Directed by Gavin O’Connor

[b]Neurologist: Your son is a remarkable young man.
Mother: Who goes crazy when you turn the vacuum on. He wears one T-shirt, won’t let you hug him.
Neurologist: Loud noises, bright lights can be especially difficult for someone like your son. The shirt, most likely fabric sensitivity. Hugging, closeness, touching…That can be a challenge, yes.
Mother: When it’s somebody else’s child, it’s a challenge. When it’s yours, it’s a problem.

Ray: Why haven’t you applied for promotion to agent? You’re already doing the work.
Marybeth: Analyst is a good fit. And I enjoy the work, so…
Ray: Well, you’re a liar, Medina.
[he looks at the computer screen]
Ray: Ward of the state of Maryland’s foster care and juvenile detention systems from age 11 to 18. Weapons charges, assault and battery. Ouch. Attempted murder.
Marybeth: Those records were sealed.
Ray: Is that a nine millimeter?
Marybeth: .45.

Ray: This is a big moment for you. Make a good choice. Lying on a federal employment application is a felony. So right now, I’m the only thing standing between you and significant prison time.
Marybeth: What do you want?
Ray: Do you like puzzles, Marybeth Medina?

Marybeth [looking at photographs]: It’s the same man.
Ray: “Lou Carroll.” For what it’s worth, it’s an alias. The Hong Kong photo goes back about five years. In that one, he’s “Carl Gauss.” Tokyo, Tel Aviv, Naples. There was a sighting in Tehran. All describing the same man. “An accountant.” “Our accountant.” “The accountant.”
Marybeth: The accountant, like CPA accountant?
Ray: Okay. Say you’re the head of the Sinaloa Cartel. Now the cartels count their money in eighteen wheelers. But one sunny Mexican day, your in-house money scrubber comes to you and says you’re 30 million light. Who can you trust to do the forensic accounting to track your stolen cash? Deloitte & Touche? H & R Block? [/b]

Nope.

[b]Christian [to Dana]: I like Dogs Playing Poker…because dogs would never bet on things; so it’s incongruous. I like incongruity.

Dana: Do you think that’s true? That Mr. Chilton killed himself…I mean, do you think we’re responsible?
Chris: It’s very hard for me to interpret why people do what they do.

Chris [to Dana cowering in the tub]: We should go.

Brax [on the phone]: Since when are accountants difficult to ventilate? Dead? Christ! What’d he do, hit him over the head with an adding machine?

Dana: Running isn’t an option for me. I can’t just walk out on my life! We have to go to the police. That’s what normal, taxpaying people do!
Chris: Police can’t protect you from someone who can afford to return $61 million.
Dana: Return? What are you talking about, “return”?
Chris: The money was being put back.

Dana [to Chris after poking around in his “stuff”]: Who are you? What is this place?

Dana: This is where you live?
Chrtis: No, I don’t live here. This is a storage unit. That would be weird.
Dana: That’s what would be weird?
Chris: I’d like to spend more time here. However, I’m afraid some of my clients might follow me.
Dana: Why would your clients follow you? You’re an accountant!

Gordon [on the phone]: It’s an unusual audio file. Solomon Grundy is a nursery rhyme circa mid-1800s. Your voice has four of the six intonation patterns we use to define American English. That’s difficult to confirm with a rhyme. Out of curiosity, was your subject a trauma victim?
Marybeth: Um, why do you ask that?
Gordon: Well, you indicated on your submission that this event occurred in a high-stress environment?
Marybeth: Yeah. Exceptionally.
Gordon: That’s interesting. The verse was repeated a total of four and a halftimes with zero variation in pitch, span, tempo, volume, or articulatory precision.
Marybeth: So, what does that mean, exactly?
Gordon: Well, we often see this type of repetitive chanting in children who have been exposed to trauma or persons with neurodevelopmental disorders. Neurodevelopmental disorders? Fragile-X syndrome, autism.

Dana: Your life is unique.
Chris: It’s not unique. I have a high-functioning form of autism, which means I have an extremely narrow focus and a hard time abandoning tasks once I’ve taken them up. I have difficulty socializing with other people, even though I want to.

Chris [as a boy]: They’re only glasses.
Father: You think if you don’t fight back, then maybe they’ll like you. Stop picking on you, calling you “freak.” Well, here’s what it is. They don’t like you, they don’t dislike you. They’re afraid of you. You’re different. Sooner or later, “different” scares people.

Ray [to Marybeth]: I’ve given up trying to figure out when I’ll get a call. The “why” though, that I’ve got. Someone breaks his moral code.

Marybeth: He’s a criminal, Ray. He aids and abets drug cartels, money launderers. He’s a fucking killer.
Ray: Believe me, I wrestled with the same decision.

Brax: Did you ever see a match-grade round travelling three thousand feet per second go through a window?
[guard standing near window drops dead as shot shatters glass]
Brax: Nobody does.

Chris: Hello, Braxton.

Lamar: Why in God’s name did I ever hire you?
Chris: To leak-proof your books. Dana found a mistake, and you wanted to be sure it was safe to go public. And now you want to kill her.
Lamar: I’m fond of Dana. But I restore lives, not Dana! Me! Men, women, children, I give them hope. Make them whole. Do you even know what that’s like?
Chris: Yes, I do.

Neurologist: 1 in 68 children in this country are diagnosed with a form of autism. But if you can put aside for a moment what your pediatrician and all the other NT’s have said about your son…
Autistic Boy’s Father: “NTs?”
Neurologist: Neuro-typicals. The rest of us. What if we’re wrong? What if we’ve been using the wrong tests to quantify intelligence in children with autism? Your son’s not less-than. He’s different. Now, your expectations for your son may change over time, they might include marriage, children, self-sufficiency. They might not. But I guarantee you, if we let the world set expectations for our children, they’ll start low, and they’ll stay there. And maybe… Just maybe… He doesn’t understand how to tell us. Or… we haven’t yet learned how to listen.[/b]

What’s a father to do?

We live in a world where sooner or later, one way or another dads and daughters – like moms and daughters, fathers and sons, mothers and sons – tend to go their own way.

That’s just the nature of the “modern world”. The “global” contraptions that entangle and then disentangle us. It’s a world where folks have to go where the money is – where the opportunity to make it is. Consequently, there are so many different paths folks in the family can take which inevitably yank them apart. Then the only alternative may well be technology: the family that Skypes together stays together.

Sort of.

Only that won’t do for Winfried. Instead, he sets out to create an actual alter-ego – Toni Erdmann – in order to reenter his daughter’s life.

And that’s when films of this sort have to [more or less] ingeniously intertwine comedic parts with the actual dramatic dynamics embedded in a relationship that may or may not be worth saving.

Clearly, many folks in the modern world wallow in an increasingly pervasive sense of loneliness. Of alienation. Thus, how to bridge the gaps when there are so many tentacles out there intent only on pulling us ever farther apart. Also, with money always hovering over everything, human interactions begin to revolve more and more around it in turn. Games must be played and disguises must be worn. You are always forced to play one or another character. Everything is distorted so that “who you really are” is always woven into the plasticity of an increasingly scripted world.

In other words, given how the modern fabrication that is the global economy isn’t going away any time soon, you have to meet it [or maybe even beat it] on its own terms. And then “who you really are” may not even matter.

IMDb

[b]Toni Erdmann was one of the the best-reviewed and most popular films at the 69th Cannes International Film Festival, but it didn’t receive any awards by the ‘Official Competition’ jury. Major critics like Justin Chang, Manohla Dargis, Kenneth Turan, Peter Bradshaw and Guy Lodge wrote that the decisions of the jury were “baffling”. There was nearly a consensus, that “Toni Erdmann” would have been a deserving Palme d’Or winner and that a rare opportunity to give the top award to a female filmmaker was missed at Cannes.

According to writer/director Maren Ade one inspiration for Winfried’s special brand of irritating humor was late comedian Andy Kaufman.

The naked party scene has been deemed Nude Scene of the Year by Vulture. [/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toni_Erdmann
trailer: youtu.be/j0uwi5EPnpA

TONI ERDMANN [2016]
Written and directed by Maren Ade

[b]Mother [of Winfried’s dog]: Why don’t you put him to sleep? He’s only suffering.
Winfried: I won’t put you to sleep either…

Mother: The Dombrechts are cutting your hedges tomorrow. You are blocking their sun.
Winfried: Good. At last, I’ll be able to shoot right into their living room.

Winfried: Her flight was ok?
Friend: She was tired. But apparently things went really well in Shanghai.
Winfried [bewildered]: Isn’t she in Bucarest anymore?
Friend: Sure, but she had meetings. She wants to go there next. Yes, it all went really well. They’re opening a new branch there. So she was meeting managers from Siemens. New clients. And executives too.

Winfried: I’ll call Inge.
Ines: Who?
Winfried: I’ve hired a substitute daughter.
Ines: Perfect. She will call on your birthday instead of me.
Winfried: That was a joke, right?

Winfried: And what’s most important when dealing with the clients?
Anca [Ines’s assistant]: That no concept makes sense if the client doesn’t want it. The art is to tell the client what he actually wants.
Winfried: I’m sure my daughter is very good at that.

Winfried [to Titus]: Hello, I’m only the father.

Winfried: Actually I came to negotiate. She’s hardly at home anymore, so I hired a substitute daughter. Now the question is, who pays her.
Titus: It’s a modern solution.
Winfried: Yes.
Titus: And is the other daughter better?
Winfried: The cakes are better.

Winfried: What would you be responsible for?
Ines: Dad, these processes mean hundreds of employees being transferred and later laid off. These decisions are unpopular, so he would need to blame someone else. Then you can read in the paper that some consulting firm has ruined something.

Winfried: Are you a bit happy here, at least?
Ines: What do you mean by happiness"? It’s such a strong word…
Winfried: I mean do you have a bit of a life, too?
Ines: Like going to the movies or something?
Winfried: Well, yes…just doing something you enjoy.
Ines: Lots of words buzzing around here: “fun”, “happiness”, “life”…We should sort it out. What do you think it’s worth living for? If you want to discuss the big topics…
Winfried: I can’t say that off the top of my head. I really just wanted to know how you’re doing.
Ines: I know that. But then you should have your own answers.

Winfried: Sorry for my stupid comment earlier.
Ines: What comment?
Winfried: About whether you are even a human being.
Ines: It’s OK… It’s obvious you’d think that.

Ines: Do you have any plans in life other than slipping fart cushions under people’s seats?
Winfried: I don’t own a fart cushion.
Ines: I know men your age who still have ambitions.

Gerald: This will annoy the feminist in you but to quote Henneberg: “Ms. Conradi has enough charm to manage Illiescu by herself.”
Ines: I’m not a feminist or I wouldn’t tolerate guys like you, Gerald.

Gerald [after “Toni” sits on his cushion]: Did he just fart?

Ines: Dad, are you insane?! Are you trying to ruin me or what? Dad, I’m talking to you.
Toni: Well, if this is about your father, I’m not the right man. But if you want to work on your charisma…or if you notice you’re talking to no-one on the phone, you’re welcome to contact me at any time.
[he hands her his “card”]
Toni: Oh, there’s my man.

Toni [who pops out of Ines’s closet]: Sorry, I was just checking in on you.
Ines [hitting him on the chest]: You are completely insane?!!

Toni [approaching Ines with handcuffs]: I have to arrest you…because of the drugs.
[he puts the handcuffs on…Ines stares at them and then at him]
Ines: And now unlock them please.
Toni: No, no, no. I cannot risk that…Where did I put the key?
Ines [trying to remain calm]: Let me go, I have an appointment. I’m about to be picked up.
Toni: I can’t find it. I really can’t find it!

Toni: Hey, can you tell him not to fire that guy?
Ines: He can fire who he wants. And the more he fires, the fewer I have to fire.

Ines: I couldn’t believe you told them not to lose their humor. That’s really bitter.
Toni [now back as Winfired]: It wasn’t about that. It was a nice encounter.
Ines: How can we modernize if you pee your pants when only one of them is fired?
Winfried: Take a short break, please.
Ines: In every step you make I can tell you your economic connection to these people. Your “green” attitude won’t help you.
Winfried: Sure. You’re doing just great. Fantastic.

Winfried: Give up your applause to the fabulous Whitney Schnuck!

Toni: You know I’m not the German Ambassador?
Flavia: Yes. I know the German ambassador.
Toni: It’s so stupid of me. I’m so sorry. It was all for fun. I’m here for holidays. Visiting Ms. Schnuck, who is my daughter. And I came to see how it is here and how she lives…and it’s very complicated.

Ines [opening the door naked]: There’s nothing wrong, Gerald, I just have nothing on.
Gerald [bewildered]: Okay…
Ines: It’s a naked reception.

Ines [still naked]: So, what are we gonna do with you now?
Stephanie [stammering]: Well…uh…I’m definitely not getting undressed. It’s not my deal, you know.
Ines: Sorry, but then you have to go.
Stephanie: Really?
Ines: Yeah.
Stephanie: Okay…

Inca [to Ines at the door naked]: Oh…uh…Tim said you won’t answer unless we’re naked…But it has nothing to do with sex, right?

Winfried: You know…your question there in Bucharest…about life…about what I find worth living for. The problem is…it is so often about getting things done. You have to do this or that, but in the meanwhile life is just passing by. How are we supposed to hang on to moments? Now I just sit sometimes and remember hiow you learned to ride your bike…how I once found you at a bus stop…But you only realize that afterwards. In the moment itself it’s not possible.[/b]

That [apparently] is “the message” here. It either sinks in or it doesn’t.

Fences.

We build them to keep things in. We build them to keep things out. And that has certainly been the case with respect to race. There was once a time in America when there were any number of fences – some constructed de facto, others constructed de jure – that kept the whites at a safe distance from the “colored” people.

This film takes us back to a time when that was considerably more the case. The 1950s. Pittsburg. Fences constructed not on the level of “the South” but still imposing rather formidable barriers with regard to the hopes and the dreams of any particular “colored” man or woman.

The focus here is less on the overtly political and more on the considerably more complex and convoluted personal interactions between men and women who had to actually live with the reality of being “second class citizens”. Of being born that way.

Troy Maxson is hauling garbage. But he dreamed of being a professional baseball player. Unfortunately, by the time the Jackie Robinsons were starting to break down that “color line”, he was deemed too old to be among them.

The rest [for thousand upons thousands just like him] is history.

The film revolves by and large around someone who recognizes that while “things have changed” for his son’s generation, his own generation wasn’t around at the right time. And he has to live with the consequences of that. The bitter consequences in particular. And others are often around only for him to take it out on.

And then on top of all that there are the trials and the tribulations that any one us may well have to endure just in the course of being human all too human.

IMDb

[b]Fences opened on Broadway in 1987, winning the Tony Awards for Best Play, Best Actor (James Earl Jones), and Best Featured Actress (Mary Alice). A revival of “Fences” opened in 2010, winning the Tony Awards for Best Revival of a Play, Best Actor Denzel Washington, and Best Actress (Viola Davis). All five adult actors reprise their roles in this film adaptation, with Washington also directing.

Denzel Washington has said that after having performed the play 114 times at the Cort Theatre in New York City in 2010, directing the film adaptation became quite a simple readjustment.

In the film’s opening shot, the most prominent building on the left side of the street is lettered PITTSBURGH COURIER. The Courier was Pittsburgh’s African-American newspaper, among the country’s most respected. One of its sportswriters, Wendell Smith, advocated for ending the color line in major league baseball and traveled in 1947 with Jackie Robinson through his inaugural season with the Brooklyn Dodgers.[/b]

trivia at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt2671706/tri … =ttqu_sa_1
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fences_(film
trailer: youtu.be/jj-ZYPVRQbc

FENCES [2016]
Directed by Denzel Washington

[b]Troy [to Bono]: They’re going to fire me, just because I asked? That’s all I did. I went to Mr. Rand and asked why only white people drive and the coloured collect. What’s the problem? I don’t count? They think only white people have the good sense to drive? You don’t need a degree. Anyone drives. Why only white drive and the coloured collect?

Troy: I spend my money where I’m treated right. I go down to Bella, say, I need a loaf of bread, I’ll pay you Friday, she gives it to me. What sense that make when I got money to spend it somewhere else and ignore the person who done right by me? That ain’t in the Bible.
Rose: Don’t come with the Bible. Why buy from somebody who charges more?
Troy: You buy where you want, I buy from people who been good to me.

Rose: Cory was recruited by a college football team.
Troy: I told that boy about that college football stuff. The white man will never let him get nowhere with that football. I told you the first time you came to talk…He ought to be recruited in fixin’ cars or some way to make a living.

Bono: Only two men played baseball better than you. Babe Ruth and Josh Gibson. The only ones who did more home runs than you.
Troy: And what does that get me? I don’t have a pot to piss in, not even a window to throw it out of.
Rose: Times have changed since you were playing, Troy…Times have changed a lot.
Troy: How the hell they changed?
Rose: A lot of colored boys playing ball now. Baseball and football.
Bono: You right about that, Ro. Times have changed, Troy. You just come along too early.
Troy: There ought not never have been no time called “too early”.

Rose: They got a lot of colored baseball players now. Folks had to wait for Jackie Robinson.
Troy: I done seen a 100 niggers play baseball better than Jackie Robinson. Hell, I seen some temas Jackie Robinson couldn’t even make!..I talkin’ about if you could play ball then they ought to let you play. Don’t matter what color you are.

Troy: That’s what death is for me: a fastball on the outside corner.
Rose: I don’t know why you want to start talking about death.
Troy: Death’s no problem, it’s part of life. Everyone dies. I, you, Bono. We’re all going to die. But no, you don’t like to talk about it.

Troy: I reached down, I grabbed that sickle from Mr. Death. I threw it as far as I could throw it. And me and Mr. Death commensed to wrestling. We wrestled for three days and three nights!

Rose [to Lyons]: Anything your Pop can’t understand, he want to call it the devil.

Troy: Why ain’t you working?
Lyons: Pop, you know I can’t find no decent job. Where can I find one? You know that I can’t find.
Troy: I told you I know people. I can get you on the rubbish work. I told you that last time you come back here asking for something.
Lyons: No thanks, Pop, that ain’t for me. I don’t want to be carrying nobody’s rubbish. I don’t want to be punchin’ nobody’s time clock.
Troy: What’s the matter, you too good to be carrying people’s rubbish? Where you think that $10 you talking about comes from?

Lyons: You got your way of dealing with the world, I got mine. The only thing that matters to me is the music.
Troy: Yeah, I can see that. Don’t matter how you gonna eat, don’t matter where your next dollar comin’ from. Yeah, you tellin’ the truth there.
Lyons: I know I gotta eat. But I gotta live too. I need something that’s gonna help me get out of bed in the morning. Something to make me feel like I belong in the world. I don’t bother nobody. I just stay with my music 'cause that’s the only way I can find to live in the world. Otherwise, there ain’t no telling what I might do. I don’t come by critizing you and how you live. I just come by to ask you for tewn dollars. I don’t want to hear all that about how I live.
Troy: Boy, your mama did a hell of a job rasining you.
Lyons: You can’t change me, Pop. I’m 34 years old. If you wanted to change me, you should have been there when I was growing up. I come by to see you and ask for ten dollars and you want to talk about how I was raised? You don’t know nothing about how I was raised.

Rose: Now I hit the numberssometimes…that makes up for it. It always come in handy when I do hit. I don’t hear you complaining then.
Troy: I ain’t complaining now. I just say it’s foolish. Trying to guess out of six hundred ways which way the number gonna come. If I had all the money niggers — these Negroes — throw away on numbers for one week—just one week—I’d be a rich man.

Troy: Don’t nobody wanna be locked up, Rose. What you wanna lock him up for? Man go over there and fight the war messin’ around with them Japs, get half his head blown off and they give him a lousy three thousand dollars. And I had to swoop down on that…That’s the only way I got a roof over my head ’cause of that metal plate.
Rse: Ain’t no sense you blaming yourself for nothing. Gabe wasn’t in no condition to manage that money. You done what was right by him. Can’t nobody say you ain’t done what was right by him. Look how long you took care of him till he wanted to have his own place and moved over there with Miss Pearl.
Troy: That ain’t what I’m saying, woman! I’m just stating the facts. If my brother didn’t have that metal plate in his head…I wouldn’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. And I’m fifty-three years old! Now see if you can understand that!!

Cory: I’m gonna be working weekends.
Troy: You damn right you are! And ain’t no need for nobody coming around here to talk to me about signing nothing.
Cory: Hey, Pop…you can’t do that. He’s coming all the way from North Carolina.
Troy: I don’t care where he coming from. The white man ain’t gonna let you get nowhere with that football no way. You go on and get your book- learning so you can work yourself up in that A&P or learn how to fix cars or build houses or something, get you a trade. That way you have something can’t nobody take away from you. You go on and learn how to put your hands to some good use. Besides hauling people’s garbage.

Cory: Hey pa!
Troy: Hmm?
Cory: Can I ask you a question? How come you ain’t never liked me?
Troy: Like you? What law is there sayin’ I got to like you?
Cory: None.
Troy: All right then. Don’t you eat every day? Answer me when I talk to you! Don’t you eat every day?
Cory: Yeah…
Troy: As long as you’re in my house you put a “Sir” on the end of it when you talk to me.
Cory: Yes, Sir.
Troy: You eat every day?
Cory: Yes, Sir.
Troy: You got a roof over you head?
Cory: Yes, Sir.
Troy: Got clothes on your back?
Cory: Yes, Sir.
Troy: Why you think that is?
Cory: 'Cause of you?
Troy: Hell, I know it’s 'cause of me. But why do you think that is?
Cory: 'Cause you like me?
Troy: Like you? I go out of here every morning bust my butt putting up with them crackers every day ’cause I like you? You about the biggest fool I ever saw. It’s my job. It’s my responsibility! You understand that? A man got to take care of his family. You live in my house sleep your behind on my bedclothes fill you belly up with my food ’cause you my son. You my flesh and blood. Not ’cause I like you! ’Cause it’s my duty to take care of you. I owe a responsibility to you! Let’s get this straight right here before it go along any further…I ain’t got to like you. Mr. Rand don’t give me my money come payday ’cause he likes me. He gives me ’cause he owe me. I done give you everything I had to give you. I gave you your life! Me and your mama worked that out between us. And liking your black ass wasn’t part of the bargain. Don’t you try and go through life worrying about if somebody like you or not. You best be making sure they doing right by you. You understand what I’m saying, boy?
Cory: Yes sir.

Rose: Why don’t you let the boy go ahead and play football, Troy? Ain’t no harm in that. He’s just trying to be like you with the sports.
Troy: I don’t want him to be like me! I want him to move as far away from my life as he can get. You the only decent thing that ever happened to me. I wish him that. But I don’t wish him a thing else from my life.

Troy: Rose, I ain’t got time for that. He’s alive. He’s healthy. He’s got to make his own way. I made mine. Ain’t nobody gonna hold his hand when he get out there in that world.
Rose: Times have changed from when you was young, Troy. People change. The world’s changing around you and you can’t even see it.

Troy: Woman, I do the best I can do. I come in here every Friday. I carry a sack of potatoes and a bucket of lard. You all line up at the door with your hands out. I give you the lint from my pockets. I give you my sweat and my blood. I ain’t got no tears. I done spent them. We go upstairs in that room at night and I fall down on you and try to blast a hole into forever. I get up Monday morning find my lunch on the table. I go out. Make my way. Find my strength to carry me through to the next Friday. That’s all I got, Rose. That’s all I got to give. I can’t give nothing else!

Bono: Your daddy got a promotion on the rubbish. He gonna be the first colored driver. Ain’t got to do nothin’ but sit up there and read the paper, like them white fellas.
Lyons: Hey, Pop, if you knew how to read, you’d be all right.
Bono: Nah, nah. You mean if the nigger knew how to drive, he’d be all right.Been fighting with them people about driving and ain’t even got a license.

Bono [to Troy and Lyons]: Just moving on through. Searching out the New Land.That’s what the old folks used to call it. See a fella moving around from place to place, woman to woman, they call it, Searching out the New Land…They walk out their front door and take off down one road or another and just keep on walkin’. Just keep on walking till they come to something else. Ain’t you never heard of nobody having the walking blues? Now, that’s what you call it when you just take off like that.

Troy [of his father]: When he turned to face me, I knew why the devil never come and get him 'cause he was the devil himself. I don’t know what happened. I woke up, laying there by the creek, and Blue, this old dog we had, he was licking my face. Both my eyes were swoll shut. I thought I was blind, I couldn’t see nothing. I just laid there and cried. And I didn’t know what I was gonna do. But I knew the time had come for me to leave my daddy’s house. Suddenly, the world got big, and it was a long time before I could cut it down to where I could handle it. Part of that cutting down was where I got to the place where I could feel him kicking in my blood, and I knew the only thing that separated us was a matter of a few years.I hope he’s dead. I hope he found some peace.

Troy: Now you tell me who you ever heard of gonna pull their own teeth with a pair of rusty pliers?
Bono: They’re old folks. My granddaddy used to pull his teeth with pliers. They ain’t had no dentists for colored folk back then.
Troy: Well, get clean pliers. You understand? Clean pliers.

Cory: I don’t see why Mama want a fence around the yard noways.
Troy: Damn if I know either. What the hell she keeping out with it? She ain’t got nothing nobody want.
Bono: Some people build fences to keep people out and other people build fences to keep people in. Rose wants to hold on to you all. She loves you.

Troy: I’m talking, woman, let me talk. I’m trying to find a way to tell you I’m gonna be a daddy. I’m gonna be somebody’s daddy.
Rose: Troy you’re not telling me this? You’re gonna be…what?
Troy: Rose…now…see…
Rose: You telling me you gonna be somebody’s daddy? You telling your wife this? I have to wait eighteen years to hear something like this.

Rose [to Troy]: I done tried to be everything a wife should be. Everything a wife could be. Been married eighteen years and I got to live to see the day you tell me you been seeing another woman and done fathered a child by her.

Rose [to Troy]: We’re not talking about baseball! We’re talking about you going off to lay in bed with another woman and then bring it home to me. That’s what we’re talking about. We ain’t talking about no baseball!!
Troy: Rose, you’re not listening to me. I’m trying the best I can to explain it to you. It’s not easy for me to admit that I been standing in the same place for eighteen years.
Rose: I been standing with you! I been right here with you, Troy. I got a life too. I gave eighteen years of my life to stand in the same spot with you. Don’t you think I ever wanted other things? Don’t you think I had dreams and hopes? What about my life? What about me? Don’t you think it ever crossed my mind to want to know other men? That I wanted to lay up somewhere and forget about my responsibilities? That I wanted someone to make me laugh so I could feel good? You not the only one who’s got wants and needs. But I held on to you, Troy. I took all my feelings, my wants and needs, my dreams . . . and I buried them inside you. I planted a seed and watched and prayed over it. I planted myself inside you and waited to bloom. And it didn’t take me no eighteen years to find out the soil was hard and rocky and it wasn’t never gonna bloom.

Troy [to Cory after Cory shoves him against the fence for hurting Rose]: All right. That’s strike two. You stay away from around me, boy. Don’t you strike out. You living with a full count. DON’T YOU STRIKE OUT!

Rose: Troy that was the hospital. Alberta had the baby.
Troy: What she have? What is it?
Rose: It’s a girl.
Troy: I better get on down to the hospital to see her.
Rose: Troy…
Troy: Rose I got to go see her now. That’s only right…what’s the matter…the baby’s all right, ain’t it?
Rose: Alberta died having the baby.

Troy [aloud to himself]: All right, Mr. Death. I tell you what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna take and build me a fence around this yard, see? I’m gonna build me a fence around what belongs to me. And then I want you to stay on the other side. You stay over there till you’re ready for me, then you come on. Bring your army, bring your sickle, bring your wrestling clothes. I ain’t gonna fall down on my vigilance this time. You ain’t gonna sneak up on me no more. When you ready for me, when the top of your list say Troy Maxson, then you come on up and knock on the front door. Ain’t nobody else got nothing to do with this. This between you and me. Man to man! You stay on the other side of that fence till you ready for me!

Troy: She’s my daughter, Rose. My own flesh and blood. I can’t deny her no more than I can deny them boys. You and them boys is my family. You and them and this child is all I got in the world. So I guess what I’m saying is I’d appreciate it if you’d help me take care of her.
Rose: Okay, Troy you’re right. I’ll take care of your baby for you ’cause like you say she’s innocent…and you can’t visit the sins of the father upon the child. A motherless child has got a hard time. From right now this child got a mother. But you a womanless man.

Troy: I guess you got someplace to sleep and something to put in your belly. You got that, huh? You got that? That’s what you need. You got that, huh?
Cory: You don’t know what I got. You ain’t got to worry about what I got.
Troy: You right! You one hundred percent right! I done spent the last seventeen years worrying about what you got. Now it’s your turn, see? I’ll tell you what to do. You grown…we done established that. You a man. Now, let’s see you act like one. Turn your behind around and walk out this yard. And when you get out there in the alley . . . you can forget about this house. See? ’Cause this is my house. You go on and be a man and get your own house. You can forget about this. ’Cause this is mine. You go on and get yours ’cause I’m through with doing for you.

Cory: Tell Mama I’ll be back for my things.
Troy: They’ll be on the other side of that fence!

Rose [to Cory, now a Marine, six years later]: Ain’t too much changed. He still got that piece of rag tied to that tree. He was out here swinging that bat. I was just ready to go back in the house. He swung that bat and then he just fell over. Seem like he swung it and stood there with this grin on his face and then he just fell over. They carried him on down to the hospital but I knew there wasn’t no need…

Rose [to Cory]: Your daddy wanted you to be everything he wasn’t, and at the same time, he wanted you to be everything he was.

Rose [to Cory]: When your daddy walked through the house he was so big he filled it up. That was my first mistake. Not to make him leave some room for me. But I wanted a house that I could sing in, and that’s what your daddy gave me. I didn’t know to keep up his strength I had to give up little pieces of mine. I took on his life as mine and mixed up the pieces so that you couldn’t hardly tell which was which anymore. It was my choice. It was my life and I didn’t have to live it like that. But that’s what life offered me in the way of being a woman and I took it.[/b]

Edward Snowden.

Saint or sinner? Hero or traitor?

Let’s follow the actual trajectory of his life. Down the road to notoriety. Hailed by some, hated by others, let’s see if we can determine which reaction we ought to have.

Well, depending of course on where you reside along the political spectrum that marks the critical juncture between embracing national security at all cost and loathing big brother.

After all, in this day and age, one in which the terrorists have become the new bogeyman – the new Commies – can there really ever be too much government snooping?

Against the bad guys.

And now, with increasingly intrusive technology that comes straight out of the brave new world, the government has the capacity to know practically everything there is to know about practically anyone who needs to be kept track of.

Again, if they’re bad guys.

Some of course will view all of this from from a considerably more radical point of view than others. They will see the national secuity state as part and parcel of a political economy that is owned and operated by those who sustain the military industrial complex, the war economy, a corporate media and a crony capitalism that intertwines Wall Street, the Congress and the White House. And in a way that even folks like Rachel Madow won’t examine.

One more peek into how the world is really run.

In a sense though this story is much like the Trump/Putin story today. It outrages those who will always be outraged by the folks who run governments from behind the curtains. But for the preponderance of those citizens who reside out in the “Heartland”, they really don’t see what the fuss is all about.

And for what it’s worth: "This [film] is a dramatization of actual events that occured between 2004 and 2013. "

IMDb

[b]To make sure the screenplay was not hacked or leaked, Oliver Stone wrote the script on a single computer with no Internet connection.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt pledged to donate his entire salary from the film to “help facilitate the conversation” about the relationship between technology and democracy.

The real Edward Snowden advised Oliver Stone that the NSA’s command centers are actually run on tight budgets and are far less glamorous than they appear in movies and TV shows. [/b]

trivia at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt3774114/tri … =ttqu_sa_1
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowden_(film
trailer: youtu.be/QlSAiI3xMh4

SNOWDEN [2016]
Written in part and directed by Oliver Stone

[b]Doctor [to Snowden: If you ever again land on your feet again, airborne or not, your bones will turn to powder. I’m going to authorize an administrative discharge. Plenty of other ways to serve your country.

Examiner: Have you committed a crime that you have not been caught?
Snowden: No.
Examiner: Have you ever cheated on an exam?
Snowden: No.
Examiner: Do you believe the United States is the greatest country in the world?
Snowden: Yes.
Examiner: Why do you want to join the CIA?

Interviewer [Corbin O’brian]: What has been the most important day of your life?
Snowden: 9/11. We thought my grandfather was inside the Pentagon. Turned out he was off-site that day.
Interviewer: You wanted to be Special Forces?
Snowden: Yes, sir. I loved their motto: De Oppresso Liber.
Interviewer: Is that what you hope to do with us? Free people from oppression?
Snowden: I’d like to help my country make a difference in the world.

Interviewer: Any other influences?
Snowden: I’d say Joseph Campbell, Star Wars, Thoreau, Ayn Rand…
Interviewer: One man can stop the motor of the world. Atlas Shrugged.
Snowden: Yes, sir. I believe that.

Snowden: Is that a Cray-1?
Hank: Why, yes. Yes, it is. The first supercomputer. You can get all of this on a cell phone now.
Snowden: So, you’re, um, an engineer?
Hank: Am I an engineer? Instructor and counselor, too. I’m supposed to keep an eye on you CTs, make sure you don’t buckle under the pressure. Turn to drugs and booze.
Snowden: Well, you won’t have that problem with me. I don’t drink or do drugs.
Hank: What is your sin of choice?
Snowden: Uh, computers.
Hank: Well, then, Snowden, you’ve come to the right little whorehouse.

Snowden: Mr. O’brian. I’m done.
O’brian: You don’t have to tell me when you’ve completed a stage.
Snowden: No, I finished the whole thing.
O’brian: It’s been 40 minutes.
Snowden: 38. 38 minutes.
O’brian: Okay, let’s see where you screwed up.
[O’brian walks to Snowden’s computer to confirm it…only to confirm Snowden’s accomplishment instead]
Snowden: You didn’t say we had to do it in order, sir. So I, uh, broke the sequence to save time, and I automated the backup processes to run as I built the site.

Lindsay: I’m not talking about the troops. I’m talking about the moron sending them to war.
Snowden: Moron? Do you mean our Commander-in-Chief?
Lindsay: Yeah, whatever you want to call him, he’s still wrong.
Snowden: How do you know he’s wrong? You’re just lashing out…How about questioning the liberal media? I mean, you’re just buying into what one side is saying.
Lindsay: Maybe I am, 'cause my side is right.
Snowden: You see that’s funny 'cause my side’s right.
Lindsay: Why is it that smart conservatives make me so mad?
Snowden: Probably because you don’t like hearing the truth. [/b]

Of course, that’s where I come in. Snowden meets Lindsay, has discussions with folks like Hank and Gabriel. His frame of mind begins shifting…

[b]Hank: Do you want to know what really sets the agenda. Military Industrial happiness management. You keep the coffers open in Congress, you keep the money flowing to the contractors. Efficiency? Results? They go out the window.
Snowden: Did you ever say anything to anybody?
Hank: Yeah. I went to legal. We filed complaints. Now here I am, tucked away, teaching you.

O’Brian [to Snowden]: In 20 years, Iraq will be a hellhole nobody cares about. Terrorism’s a short-term threat. The real threats will come from China, Russia, Iran. And they’ll come as SQL injections and malware. Without minds like yours, this country will be torn apart in cyberspace. I don’t want to risk losing you for some horseshit war over sand and oil.[/b]

Cue [among others] Vladimir Putin.

[b]Ewen MacAskill [of the Guardian newspaper]: You want to tell people your identity. How do you think the government will react?
Snowden: The government will charge me under the Espionage Act. They’ll say I endangered national security, and they’ll demonize me, and my friends and family. And they’ll throw me in jail. That’s the best case scenario.
Ewen: And the worst?
Snowden: Well, if I don’t have any media cover, then I’ll be rendered by the CIA and interrogate “outside” the law…Mr MacAskill, this isn’t about money or anything for me. There’s no hidden agenda. I just want to get this data to established journalists like yourselves, so that you can present it to the world, and people can decide either I’m wrong or there’s something going on inside the government that’s really wrong.

Snowden [first becoming aware of the breadth of the NSA program]: How is all of this possible?
Gabriel: Keyboard selectors…“attack” “take out Bush”. Think of it as a Google search except instead of searching only what people make public, we’re also looking at everything they don’t. Emails, chats, SMS, whatever.
Snowden: Yeah, but which people?
Gabriel: The whole kingdom, Snow White.

Snowden: You don’t have to get a FISA court order?
Gabriel: No, not here. XKeyscore’s under 702 authority, which mean no warrants.
Snowden: Okay, but for U.S. targets then, you’d have to get the court order?
Gabriel: You mean FISA? Yeah, but they’re just a big-ass rubber stamp, dude. I mean, FISA judges are all appointed by the Chief Justice, who’s like, you know, Darth Vader when it comes to national security.[/b]

You watch this and can’t help but wonder if your own bedroom is in the loop. In fact, there’s a scene where Snowden and Lindsay are having sex. Snowden notes the laptop on the table. He knows that “big brother” may well be watching them on some screen on “the hill”.

[b]Snowden [to Laura]: You know, I thought things were actually going to be better with Obama. I was wrong.

Snowden [to Laura]: The Japanese were not as thrilled to learn that we wanted them to help us spy on the Japanese population. They said it was against their laws. Of course we tapped the entire country anyway. And we didn’t stop there 'cause once we owned their communications systems, we started going after their physical infrastructure. We’d slip these little sleeper programs into power grids, dams, hospitals…the idea was if the day came when Japan was no longer an ally, it would be lights out. And it wasn’t just the Japanese. We were planting malware in Mexico, Germany, Brazil, Austria. I mean China I can understand, or Russia, or Iran, or Venezuala…but Austria? We’re also being ordered to follow most world leaders and heads of industry. You know, we’re tracking trade deals, sex scandals, diplomatic cables…or leverage over Brazilian oil companies, or helping to oust some third-world leader who is not playing ball. And ultimately the truth sinks in that no matter what justification you’re selling yourself, this is not about terrorism. Terrorism is the excuse. This is anout econimic and social control. And the only thing you are really protecting is the supremacy of your government.

Snowden [to Laura]: There’s that moment when you’re sitting there and the scale of it hits you. The NSA is really tracking every cell phone in the world. No matter who you are every day of your life, you’re sitting in a database just ready to be looked at. Not just terrorists, or countries, or corporations but you.

Corbin: Is there something you do hold against me?
Snowden: You didn’t tell me we were running a dragnet on the whole world, Corbin.

Snowden: So we should catalog billions of people’s lives?
Corbin: Most people already catalogue their lives for public consumption.
Snowden: Well, they catalogue part of their lives, and they do it by choice. We’re not giving them a choice. We’re just taking everything.
Corbin: Most Americans don’t want freedom, they want security. It’s a simple bargain. If you want to play with all the new toys and be safe, you pay the price of admission.
Snowden: Yeah, but the people, they don’t even know they’ve made that bargain.

Snowden: So, this is data collection for the month of March worldwide, emails and Skype calls. So France, 70 million. Germany, 500 million. Brazil, two billion. Inside the U.S., 3.1 billion emails and calls. That’s not including any of the telecom company data.
Patrick: Okay, so what’s the collection in Russia?
Snowden: Russia is 1.5 billion.
Patrick: Wait, so we’re collecting twice as much in the U.S. as we are in Russia?

Catfish: We all knew that it was a kid. Poof. He’s gone. But same village, two, three days later. We see the funeral party. We knew it was a kid that they were burying. Moms and dads wailing. And then the order comes down. Hit 'em. Poof. And they are gone in a cloud of dust.

Trevor [after Catfish discloses the consequence of a drone strike that killed the child and then an entire family]: You make it sound criminal, man. It’s war. It’s a job.
Catfish: I don’t know, man, you saying jobs can’t be criminal?
Trevor: Not if you’re working for the government.
Snowden: You ever hear about the Nuremberg trials, Trev? They weren’t that long ago.
Trevor: Yeah, and we hung the Nazi big shots, right?
Snowden: Yeah, well, the big shots were the first trial, but then the next trial were just the judges, and lawyers, and policemen, and guards, and ordinary people just doing their jobs, following orders. That’s where we got the Nuremberg principles, which then the UN made into international law, just in case ordinary jobs become criminal again.

Snowden: I’m grateful for you looking after me.
Corbin: Or after you omitted the truth in your last polygraph. What was it you were withholding exactly?
Snowden: Remember that day in class you were talking about the FISA court? You said they approved Bush’s wiretapping programs.
Corbin: Sometimes we’re restricted from tellng the whole truth. Doesn’t give us permission to lie.
Snowden: Come on, Corbin, the director of National Intelligence just lied to Congress!

Corbin [to Snowden]: If it will give you any peace of mind, I can assure you Lindsay is not sleeping with that photographer friend of hers.[/b]

Snowden’s expression tells us that he knows all that Corbin telling him this implies.

[b]Snowden: Your email is being monitored.
Lindsay: So?
Snowden: It’s different now. It’s not passive collection, it’s full-take surveillance. It’s all your emails, calls, texts, social media, everything. It’s also possible the house is bugged. I’m not sure.
Lindsay: By who?
Snowden: By a senior officer in the C.I.A.

Newsman [on TV]: Breaking news tonight. Reports that through a secret court order, the Obama administration is collecting the phone records of millions of Verizon customers…The specific court order shows that all of the information is going to the National Security Agency.

Wolf Blitzer [on TV]: The Washington Post and the Guardian in London reporting that the NSA and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading Internet companies, including Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, AOL, Skype, YouTube, and Apple. The Post says they are extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time.

Snowden listens to Obama on TV: In the abstract, you can complain about Big Brother and how this is a potential program run amok. But when you actually look at the details, I think we struck the right balance.

Hank [watching Snowden on TV]: He did it. The kid did it.[/b]

It doesn’t take much – and it can come from any direction – to bring about an implosion in any particular life. We go about the business of living a life that allows us to sustain a more or less reasonable sense of equanimity. All is well and [for some] that is only as it ever should have been.

And then it happens. One or another calamity. One or another crisis. A whole string of them maybe. The rest then becomes embedded in options. Or in one’s capacity to weather the storms.

Perhaps even in one’s capacity to actually prevail…and to move on triumphantly.

And if you are a philosophy professor? How does it change things when you have spent your entire life in search of, among other things, truth and wisdom? You may well have even discovered [existentially] the limitations of truth and wisdom.

Or it may be thrust upon you instead.

The world of intellectuals. More or less radical. But only more or less in touch with what others call “reality”. And there, lurking in the background, are the protestors…the anarchists. The folks hell-bent on connecting the dots between the personal and the political. The part that is all the murkier still.

But here one size almost never fits all.

Based on a true story: The writer/director’s mother.

IMDb

As Mia Hansen-Løve was basing the film on her mother’s life she asked her mother to approve the script before she began filming. The one thing her mother had her change was the name of the cat. In the original script it was called Desdemona, after the cat it was based on, but her mother had her change it to Pandora to respect the cat’s privacy.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Things_to_Come_(2016_film
trailer: youtu.be/UhErAqJ8HGE

THINGS TO COME [L’Avenir] 2016
Written and directed by Mia Hansen-Løve

[b]Nathalie reads a plaque on a stone wall by the seashore: “A great French writer wanted to rest here to hear only the sea and wind. Passerby, respect his last wish.”

Nathalie [to her class]: Consider this quotation of Rousseau’s. “If there were a nations of gods, it would govern itself democratically. A government so perfect is not suited to me.” Think it over. Then we’ll discuss it.[/b]

This while political protests and strikes swirl about the school over any number of issues.

[b]Nathalie [looking out the window at the protesters]: Remember, Rousseau wrote “The Social Contract”, inspiring the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. His ideas formed the Revolution.

Nathalie: You’re changing my collection of essays?
Amélie: It’s the most costly and least profitable collection.
Nathalie: And the most prestigious.
Amélie: No doubt, but we can’t just sit back and watch sales plummet.
Daniel [handing her the changed format]: Just a proposal.
[Nathalie leafs through it]
Daniel: If you don’t like it…
Nathalie: It’s bad beyond belief. Like an ad for M&M’s. What I’ve always fought against.
Amélie: The original cover is classy but very plain. The new one is modern, aggressive and catchy. We did tests. It’s really hard to miss.
Nathalie: A real eyesore![/b]

Just as religion has to accomodate itself to capitalism so too must philosophy.

[b]Heinz [to his son and daughter]: When we met, your mom was handing out Commie tracts. A real terror!
Nathalie: Okay, I was a Communist, three years. No shame. Just like most intellectuals then.
Heinz: Not me.
Nathalie: Not you.
Heinz: She was even in the USSR.
Nathalie: So what? I came back disenchanted. I read Solzhenitsyn, end of story.

Nathalie [of Fabien]: You could have made an effort. You were like ice.
Heinz: I don’t like him much.
Nathalie: What don’t you like?
Heinz: Expert on everything, a real know-it-all.
Nathalie: You don’t know him.
Heinz: He fawns when he needs you but walks over you when you’re in his way.
Nathalie: You’re crazy. The sweetest, kindest student I’ve ever had. And he’s brave.
Heinz: Because he’s Mr. Protestor?
Nathalie: Jealous?
Heinz: Jealous? Please.

Chole [to Heinz]: I know you are seeing someone.
Heinz: Does Mom know?
Chole: No. I won’t tell her. But Johann and I want you to choose. Quickly, Dad.

Nathalie [to the class being held outdoors]: Can the truth be debated?
Student: I don’t get it. Why couldn’t it be debated?
Nathalie: Really? What about areas where it’s established?
Student: It’s always contestable.
Nathalie: No one still says the Sun revolves around the Earth. In science, there are established truths. Is that the only area?
Student: In history too.
Nathalie: Exactly. The storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, or Nazi exterminatiom of Jews leave no room for debate. Be careful. Debating truth is one thing, contesting it another.
Student: When can we say truth is established?
Nathalie: That’s the question. In the end, the problem is less the existence of truth than the criteria for establishing it. Distinguish between the areas where truth can be proved from those concerned with belief, conviction, faith, but not established truths.
Student: Like art. We can’t speak of truth in art.
Nathalie: Really? We still question the genius of Homer and Shakespeare?
Student: A recent movie said that Shakespeare’s a sham.
Nathalie: It’s too late. Mozart, Proust, Van Gogh: time decided. There’s truth in art, established over time.
Student: Why can’t time get it wrong?[/b]

Here again the “general description” arguments. Wrong about what particular things or behaviors in what particular context?

[b]Yvette [Nathalie’s mother on the phone]: Nathalie, it’s me. I turned on the gas. I’m going to die.

Nathalie [after Heinz announces his choice]: I thought you would love me forever.
[pause]
Nathalie: I’m a goddamn idiot!

Nathalie: That fucking smell…the smell of death.

Nathalie: After 40, women are fit for the trash.
Fabien: How can you say that? Especially you!
Nathalie: It’s the plain truth. Do many women my age leave their husbands?
Fabien: There are tons of them.
Nathalie: In movies.

Nathalie: Deep down I was prepared. No reason to pity me. I’m lucky to be fulfilled intellectually. It’s enough to be happy.
Fabien: Really?
Nathalie: Yes, really.

Nathalie [to Fabien about what she will miss now that her marriage is over]: My house in Brittaney saddens me…Every vacation there ever since our wedding. It means so much to me. The love I put into it. The garden I planted, designed from A to Z. To think I have to give it all up. All my memories. The beach where I saw my kids grow up…

Nathalie: I’m going back to Paris. My mother hasn’t eaten in 3 days.
Heinz: It’s not a ploy to get you back?
Nathalie: Of course it is. What should I do, let her die?

Nathalie [reading from Pascal’s Pensees]: “This is what I see and what troubles me. I look on all sides and see only darkness everywhere. Nature presents me with only doubt and concern. If I saw nothing there which revealed a Divinity, I would come to a negative conclusion. If I saw everywhere the signs of a Creator, I would remain peacefully in faith. But, seeing too much to deny and too little to be sure, I am in a state to be pitied. I have 100 times wished that if God maintains nature, it should testify to Him unequivocally. If the signs that nature gives are deceptive, He should suppress them fully. Nature should say everything or nothing so I see which cause to follow. But in my present state, ignorant of what I am or of what I must do, I know neither my condition nor my duty. My heart inclines to know where is the true good in order to follow it. Nothing would be too dear to me for eternity.”

Nathalie: All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.

Nathalie: So, what is your book about?
Fabien: Finding the way out of the concept of disaster. But while refusing political compromise, Creating a real countervailing power, alternate lifestyles.
Nathalie: Quite an agenda.

Nathalie: I didn’t know Zizek was among your references. Isn’t he fishy?
Fabien: I have lots of books. I don’t agree with all of them.
Nathalie: And the Unabomber wrote a book? I hope you place more value on human life.
Fabien: I want action to be compatible with thought. It isn’t what you teach.
Nathalie: Why do you say that? I always insisted on making actions and thoughts compatible. I try to practice it myself.
Fabien: Yeah, okay. But only in the private sphere.
Nathalie: How so?
Fabien: You don’t let everyday behavior betray your values. You don’t envision a thought system requiring a change in your lifestyle.
Nathalie: Meaning?
Fabien: You think demonstrations and petitions make you a committed intellectual. Clear conscience, same lifestyle.
Nathalie: You mean my bourgeois lifesytle? Why not outgrow these schemes? I think they’re sterile.
Fabien: Because it suits you.
Nathalie: Revolution is not my goal. It’s true. Mine is more humble. To help kids think for themselves. We may disagree but I thought I taught you that.[/b]

This never ever gets resolved.

Nathalie [to the class regarding a Rousseau novel]: Julie is recalling her former passion, unrequited with Saint-Preux. She had hope to know true bliss with him and this hope made her happy, Julie can then be happy substituting dream for reality. “That state sufficed unto itself”. This is the power of imagination. It compensates for the absence of the loved one with a pleasure that is purely mental, unreal in a way, yet nevertheless effective. For people with a lot of imagination, like Julie, but probably Rousseau as well, phantasmagorical satisfaction is a real comfort that supplants, replaces carnal pleasure.

Trust me: This is true. But only for those very, very few.

One particularly disturbing aspect of our postmodern world is this: Who can you trust?

Modern relationships in particular are increasingly embedded in a world in which we don’t know – really know – any number of men and women we might bump into in any particular context. And the nature of the contexts themselves can become increasingly more problematic.

After all, there was once a time when, by and large, we lived in communities where we could be reasonably confident that the man or woman that we chose to become involved with would only behave within a range of behaviors that almost everyone accepted as “the norm.”

Sure, there might be the occasional psycho-sexual monster like Jack the Ripper about, but that was still rather remote.

Not so much anymore. We just never know – really know – how wide the gap might be between the charming persona we interact with on the first date and the demonic creep that is embedded deeper, more viscerally in someone’s motivations and intentions.

And what makes men like this particularly ominous is the manner in which they can intertwine so many conflicting and contradictory personas on cue. You try to put all the pieces together but they never really fit. And, more to the point, they may not fit from the other end either. You are never sure – really sure – what it must be like to look at things from his point of view.

Indeed, that’s why there will probably never be a lack of new episodes for true crime programs like Dateline or 48 hours.

Think The Collector. Only all the more monstrous.

Next up: the Stockholm Syndrome. Or is it?

IMDb

The apartment that Clare is trapped in is based on a real one, in the Prenzlauer Berg neighbourhood of Berlin. Director Cate Shortland: “It was a 50- or 60-apartment building with [only] about eight apartments occupied. But all of our young people are flocking there. It’s kind of a beautiful idea, wanting to get out and explore, and hoping the artistic and cultural dynamic of the city will rub off on you. It’s a place with a lot of community feeling, but in winter it’s also an incredibly monstrous, grey, miserable place.”

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Syndrome_(film
trailer: youtu.be/tbq44I_nSRg

BERLIN SYNDROME [2017]
Directed by Cate Shortland

[b]Clare: I was working for a real estate company…taking photos and, you know, those life experiences that people talk about all the time? I wanted to do that, so, I…I booked a ticket and put my stuff in storage and came here. Pretty predictable.
Andi: I don’t know. Maybe brave.

Andi [to Clare]: I thought you wanted to leave.

Clare: So quiet.
Andi: Berlin is full of these empty places.[/b]

Creepy empty places.

[b]Clare [after discovering she is locked in the apartment]: What the fuck…?

Clare [after Andi finally gets home]: Couldn’t find the key. Did you leave me a key?
Andi: Yeah. Sure.
[he fishes about for the key in his pocket]
Andi: I thought I’d left it on the table. No. I didn’t…
Clare: I didn’t think I would be able to get back in. And then I realized that I couldn’t even leave.
Andi: You can leave now. I’ll take a shower.
Clare: Did you lock me in?
Andi [in seeming joking manner]: Yes, sure. But next time, I’ll tie you to the bed.

Andi: I have to go.
Clare: Hey. The key.
Andi: It’s on the dresser.
Clare [looking at a key on the dresser]: Okay.

Clare: Andi, what is going on?
Andi: “What is going on?” You could have gone to Dresden. You said you want to stay.
Clare: We had sex. People…people say all sorts of things in bed. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Please, dear god.
Andi [matter-of-factly]: Do you like Pesto?

Clare [finally exploding]: OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR!
Andi: No one can hear you…

Father: You were late today.
Andi: Yes. I met someone, Papa.
Father: What about Natalie?
Andi: I’ve told you. She’s gone back to Canada.

Father [to Andi]: Why do you always choose tourists?

Andi [to Clare bound to the bed]: I told my father about us…I texted your mother for you. You told her you are okay.

Clare: I miss my mom.
Andi: There’s no point in missing something you can’t have back. You have me.

Clare: You could do so many things.
Andi: But I just want to so this.

Andi [to Clare]: What would be the worst thing I could ever do to you?
[she looks at him with trepidation]
Andi: Don’t worry…I would never do it. We are a team.

Andi: Clare? The door won’t open. Clare? Did you touch this door? Clare?

Andi: My father’s dead.
Clare: I thought you weren’t gonna come back.

Clare: How did you choose me?
Andi: You paused on the street.
Clare: What was I looking at? And what about the other girl before me? How did you choose her?
Andi: There was no other girl.
Clare: You’re lying. Do you still think about her?
Andi: No.
Clare: How come? [/b]

Three guesses.

[b]Clare [desperately to a child in the forest]: You need to help me. You need to help me. You need to call the police. Please, he’s a bad man. He will hurt us.
Child: What?
Clare: No. You need to help me. Call the police. I need you to. He’s a bad man.

Andi: How do you think this is going, from one to ten?
Clare: From one to ten?
Andi: Us.
Clare: Maybe…er…seven.

Clare: Where’s Lotte?
Andi: She ran away.[/b]

Some might find it hard to imagine a production of Arthur Miller’s Death Of a Salesman in Tehran. The first thing that pops into their head is this: What is and what is not permitted when you are citizen residing in an Islamic theocracy?

What might offend Allah, in other words.

Well, we know that Allah is offended by any number of female behaviors. Or at least the rendition of Allah that seems to prevail in many Muslim countries today. This film recounts one particular context, one particular sequence of events in which others may or may not gain insights into what it might be like to be of the female gender in a world where, if you are a woman, your behaviors may will be scrutinized…religiously

And here it is the behaviors of a woman who has been assaulted. And the behaviors of those around her. In particular her husband. Which then takes us into an exploration of male pride. And the existential parameters of “honor”.

But some things are the same for all of us. We go about the business of living our life when, out of the blue, Something Happens. Something traumatic. And our lives can never be the same.

And all over a simple misunderstanding. And a very foolish mistake. And yet the circumstances here are to say the least problematic. Was she really assulted? What actually happened? This film speaks volumes regarding just how convoluted these close encounters of the existential kind can be.

The Saleman won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. It garnered a 97% fresh rating at RT on 154 reviews and a 7.9 rating at IMDb. So, both the “critics” and the “people” liked it.

trivia at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt5186714/tri … =ttqu_sa_1
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Salesman_(2016_film
trailer: youtu.be/WlKN5PBVLN8

THE SALESMAN [Forušande‎] 2016
Written and directed by Asghar Farhadi

[b]Emad: What a disaster this town. If only we could level it all and start again.
Babak: They did, and look at the result.

Amin: You know, that she said she wants to sit in the front seat. Sir, after you got out of the car, I told her that you were my teacher. And that we all liked you a lot.
Emad: What was your first name again?
Amin: Amin.
Emad: Amin, you can be sure that some man behaved badly in a taxi to that woman, and now she thinks they’re all the same. But nobody died, so off you go.

Rana: Emad, they’re coming back after the performance. Three passages might still be censored. Can you stay and talk to them?..Otherwise, the show risks a suspension.

Emad [at the hospital after his wife had been attacked]: Who was it then?
Neighbor: A client of that woman.
Emad: What woman?
Neighbor: The one in the apartment before you. She lived a wild life. I think the guy came for her.

Rana: Who was he?
Emad: The neighbors say the old tenant was promiscuous. That man must have been a client of hers.

Emad: How did he get in?
Rana: I let him in. I was waiting for you. I came out of the bathroom, buzzed the door open and went back in. I was washing my hair. I felt someone had come in. He stroked my hair, I thought it was you. Then I saw his hands, and can’t remember anything else.

Babak: What happened?
Emad: Go and see Rana, you’ll know what happened.
Babak: They told me she slipped in the shower.

Mrs Shahnazari [a neighbor]: I thought you would go to the police.
Emad: Nothing serious happened.
Mrs Shahnazari: It’s obvious you’re not the one who found your wife the other day, otherwise you wouldn’t say that. When Mr. Alimoradi opened the door, he thought your wife was dead.

Emad: Go take a shower, I’ll wait here.
Rana: I don’t want to go in that bathroom.
Emad: I’ll drop you off at a friend’s place. Use theirs.
Rana: Go and tell them we’ve come to take a shower?
Emad: What do you want me to do? You keep changing your mind. At night you tell me not to come near you, then in the morning you tell me not to leave you. Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.

Emad: Tell yourself it could’ve been worse. If you’d injured your eye, or hit your head harder, what would I have done?
Ran: I wish I had hit myself harder.

Neighbor: My wife said you’re not going to report it.
Rana: No.
Neighbor: You’re doing the right thing. They won’t do anything, even if they catch him. And you’ll have to explain over and over why you opened the door.

Emad: Can you arrange a meeting with your tenant?
Babak: Why?
Emad: I want to speak to her. I want to know why she did it.
Babak: Did what?
Emad: What she did. She sent that guy to us.
Babak: Why would she do that?

Emad: Did you find the card?
Rana: No.
Emad: How did you pay?
Rana: With the money you left.
Emad: What money?
Rana: In the drawer.

Rana: Why did you open her letters? That’s private.
Emad: I want to know who he was.
Rana: What for? He’ll say it was a mistake.
Emad: A mistake?
Rana: He buzzed, I opened. He must have thought it was her.
Emad: And when he realized it was a mistake, why did he stay? Because there was a woman in the shower?
Rana: How would he know?..If only I’d answered the damn intercom and asked who it was he wouldn’t have come up.

Father [of Majid]: The door is locked.
Emad: Wait for a bit. Could you take off your shoes?
Father: What for?
Emad: I want to see your feet.

Majid’s father: It happened really fast. I came in, there was no one. And your wife had just let me in. Why did she open the door?
Emad: She thought it was me.
Majid’s father: I’m telling you straight. I went to the bathroom door and called the kid. Then she started screaming. I took off.
Emad: You went in.
Majid’s father: I didn’t.
Emad: How did you cut your foot then?
Majid’s father: No idea. Downstairs, my foot hurt, I guess I cut myself on the stairs.
Emad: So my wife is lying?
Majid’s father: She said I went in?
Emad: If she’d not flung herself at the glass in fear, what would you have done to her, bastard?
Majid’s father: I swear, when I realized my mistake, I fled. Ask your wife. I’ll stay here, bring her.

Majid’s father [to Emad]: Don’t humiliate me in front of my family.

Emad: There’s my wife. Are you still saying you didn’t go in?
Majid’s father: Forgive me.
Emad: Answer me.
Majid’s father: I behaved badly.
Emad: Why did you go into the bathroom?
Majid’s father: I was tempted.

Rana: Emad. What are you going to do to him?
Emad: His family is on the way. I want his wife to know.
Rana: Emad…you are taking revenge. Let him go.
Emad: I know what I’m doing. Just stay there.

Emad: They’re coming. Your son-in-law called. I told him to come with your wife. They’re coming. Sit down.
Majid’s father: Please let me go.
Emad: Repeat it to them and you can go
Majid’s father: I’m begging you.

Majid’s father [turning in the direction of the room that Rana is in]: Madam, forgive me. Let me go before they arrive.

Rana [entering the room]: Go on sir, go.
Emad: Sit down.
Rana: Let him go.
Emad: He’s going. He’ll leave with his family.
[he turns to Majid’s father]
Emad: Stay seated.
Majid’s father: Pity…
Rana: Go…
Emad: Stay seated.
Majid’s father: My children…
Rana: Let him go.
Emad: Don’t interfere.

Emad: Don’t be scared. He’s better.
Rana: You didn’t call an ambulance?
Emad: No, I was afraid he was dead.

Rana [to Emad after the intercom buzzes]: Wait…If you talk to his family, it’s over between us.

Majid’s mother [to Rana]: Thank you so much madam. Excuse us. This man is my whole life. Thank you very much. You’ve given me back my life. He’s everything to me.

Emad [to Majid’s father]: Come with me. We have an account to settle.
Majid’s mother: What account?

Emad [alone in the room with Majid’s father]: How much money did you leave the other night? How much?
Majid’s father: I didn’t count it.
[he puts the money in the bg, walks over to Majid’s father and slaps him hard across the face][/b]