Corporations (Juristic Persons) vs. Real People (under American law)

I’ve been discussing the Supreme Court’s recent ruling, in the “Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission” case with some friends. I’m eager to understand how this could possible be a good thing. The only “pro” argument I’ve heard is that spending money is free speech and corporations are citizens of the United States with free speech protections. (but I have problems with both halves of that sentence).

Last night, a friend noted Adam Liptak’s article in defense of the decision: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/us/politics/04scotus.html?hp
I’m eager to better understand this situation. So please do comment if you have any sort of opinion or insight.
Here is my reply (reformatted for blog):

* Character:
Clarence Thomas was Monsanto’s Corporate lawyer from ‘76 to ‘79. (I hold Monsanto to be the most evil corporation ever)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Thomas#Early_career
Monsanto presents a weak argument that this doesn’t mean they’re in bed together.
http://www.monsanto.com/foodinc/government_influence.asp

I don’t buy it. I think he’s probably a swell smart guy, doing great things in some arenas. But I also think he’s clearly connected with the people inside Monsanto (A stooge for corporations, despite his merits).

- I would be thrilled to hear about anything that made corporations more powerful which he did NOT support. (anyone? I’m not saying it never happened, just that I can’t find it)

* 14th Amendment:
The whole concept of Corporations being juristic persons comes from a perversion of the 14th amendment (which was meant to protect slaves and native americans).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clara_County_v._Southern_Pacific_Railroad
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

So mixing any defense of corporations with racism makes me very nervous.
Thus…

* Tillman Act (1907)
The best thing Thomas could come up with is that a racist may have been involved in drafting the Tillman Act – when many GROUPS of people, including the president, put their weight behind it. (Irony? that a corporate supporter would single out an individual rather than acknowledge the group around him?)

Here’s a random historical perspective on Tillman Act, which I think adds more important context, from http://www.polisci.ccsu.edu/trieb/turn.htm :
“Roosevelt used his Presidential stature to influence public opinion and to persuade Congress. The NPLA and other grassroots organizations also pushed for reform. The result of their efforts was the enactment of the Tillman Act of 1907. The act specifically prohibited direct contributions from corporations and businesses to political parties and election committees. It was the first law on the books to specifically address campaign funding on the federal level.
Unfortunately for those who wished for an incorrupt government, this law was easily circumvented. Businesses and corporations would give their employees large bonuses with the understanding that the bonus would be given to a company “endorsed” candidate. The corporations thus found a loophole, gained political access, and received an additional tax deduction for “employee benefits.”
” (I couldn’t find anything on wikipedia).

* Are Corporations People?
Thomas makes some weird implication that as individuals we have a right to free speech, so somehow when we form a corporation (so we can take risks necessary to make money – why else do we form coporations?) – we then expect this new juristic person (created purely to seek profits) to enjoy free speech. why? what?

To me this is like saying if we are all protected under the constitution, and then we build this big shield robot that eats money – don’t we expect it to be protected under the constitution? NO! WTF?!?!?! That is insane.

And I think it’s telling that Thomas couldn’t bring himself to come out and say it directly. He has to make a wink-nod joke out of it, where you fill int he blank. Because IT IS IN FACT SO INSANE. Maybe he doesn’t want to be quoted, or maybe he’s just a joker. Makes me uneasy, because of the importance of his position.
…
ok, now i’m messing with dramatic all-caps text formating to express exasperation. sorry.

* Please Answer This!
Here is the key for me (since I doubt we’ll change my mind about corporations being people, I’m seeking to change the subject):

Are people within this “juristic person” considered to BE the juristic person?
Can someone explain this to me definitively?
- Doesn’t the law allow individuals to break off from the corporation and do their own thing, without then representing the corporation?
Couldn’t Hugh Grant, the CEO of Monsanto, write a book called “Don’t vote for Obama,” and as long as Monsanto didn’t spend a dime on it – there would be no problem under the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act?
There’d be a stink, sure, but isn’t he legally able to act separately from his Company???

- Or is the issue that Barnes & Noble couldn’t print it (because they’re a corp)?
(people could still review it, due to the McCain-Feingold law’s exemptions for reports, commentaries and editorials.)
Because if publishing is the issue, we’d have a whole ‘nother weird modern can-o-worms, thanks to the internet. When I self publish something on the internet, would they go after the internet service provider (corporation) who allow me access to internet?

- I mention this because the Justices seemed to latch onto this idea of banning books during their talking pony show. I think comparing “spending money to support or oppose political candidates” with epressing ideas/thoughts in a book is INSANE.

Soooo,
the only point I can see where I may be drastically out of line: is the question of whether individuals are separate from the corporations they are a part of (either by forming them, investing in them, or being employed by them).

I’ve typed to much. I’ll stop here.

The Wages of Fear (Le salaire de la peur, 1953 (out of 1955))

Finally watched this picture last night.
Over the years I’ve rented it from two different libraries, and netflix – only to find the disc so scratched, each time, that it wouldn’t play past the 50 minute mark. This, and the fact that I find it hard to take pre-color movies seriously, has kind of built the movie up in my mind into a great white whale. I didn’t like the first fifty minutes enough to buy it. So it’s just plagued me for years.
But, At last, the delightful Corvallis Librarians purchased a brand new edition.

Sooo, I’ve been anticipating this movie for so long, and re-watched the first 20 to 45 minutes so many times (before disc hangs) that it’s hard to review. I’ve since watched William Friedkin’s spicy remake (Sorcerer, 1977). I’ve since learned to better appreciate/adore the merits of classic cinema. So now my thoughts on this flic are more muddled than the oil pit in the penultimate climax.

Maybe it’s one of the greatest movies ever made? Or maybe it’s bloated-overlong trash with some astonishing ideas that history has already forgotten? eh. hmm.

Is the main character – Mario, (a sweaty frenchman with a constant little neck kerchief) – the coolest French stereotype ever? or a bad joke? When i learned that he was being played by a pop singer of the time, Yves Montand, it further complicates the evaluation. This explains why he’s kind of a shitty actor, smiling too much and failing to match intensities with on-location actors, while he’s against a rear projection screen. But he certainly has the perfect look. And there are moments where he totally blows me away with grim intensity. Maybe this is all due to the director’s skill.

Heri-Georges Clouzot just gets better and better the more I read about him. An angry mood swinging perfectionist who supposedly lifted german expressionist techniques during his time there writing French-language versions of German films (he was fired in 1934 for having jewish friends). After 5 years in a sanitorium in switzerland, fighting tuberculosis, he returns to Nazi-occupied france and starts writing for the Nazis (“for the money”. He writes screenplays, and finally directs one, that fill the void left by Nazi’s banning all American Cinema at the time). The second film he directs, La Corbeau (the Raven) seriously pisses off just about everybody (the right-wing Vichy regime, the left-wing Resistance press, and the catholic church). Clouzot is fired 2 days before it’s release, and later (after the liberation of France) is banned from filmmaking for life. Other french filmmakers/artists protest (Sartre, Cocteau, Carné), and this is reduced to 2 years.
He goes on to make 3 ok movies, and a dark short film about a concentration camp survivor torturing a nazi, before Wages of Fear. He also maries this hot lady, and takes a film crew along on their honeymoon to Brazil, where he gets in trouble with the Brazilian government for documenting the suffering of the poor. When he comes back, he settles in to make Wages of Fear and then Diabolique – the two movies for which he will be best known. He fucks around until French New Wave becomes the new french fad, and film critics basically piss on his work. His final film, La Prisonnière (1968) is about a photographer who takes masochistic submissive pictures of young women, and finds a woman who really likes being in them. He’s planning to make a big pornographic movie next, but dies.

When you learn that Clouzot was blacklisted for working with the Nazis, does Wages stand out as an awesome thumbing of the nose at those who said he had no value as an artist? This movie’s tagline could easily be “Stress Fear and money can destroy even the hardest men.”

Apparently there was some controversy over the edits made for it’s 1955 American release. Are these realllllly an attempt to tone down anti-american sentiments? and the arguably may-be-gay man affection? I’d say no, as the movie was already pretty damned long, and these are both secondary plot lines to main characters. Who still get damned intimate (glose?) in their doomed slaving for the American oil corporation. but who knows.

http://www.blancscreencinema.com/redlettermedia/dudebros.html

And the final shot. WTF. To my modern eyes this last sequence is totally awesome and makes no damned sense. Feels like the director just smoked a bag of crack and decided to crap on the audience for bothering to sit through his entire 147 minute epic. instead of abruptly saying “fin” it should have just say “fuck you”.

…but does this weird ending make it even more awesome? Like a 1950s era punk rock?

Damn. I can’t stop thinking about it.

Uh anywho. I’m rambling. Ebert wrote a fine review.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19920306/REVIEWS/203060303/1023

I would argue that the epic oil pit scene is actually the tense scene to end all tense scenes. Though several of these “tensequences” left me leaning forward an gritting my teeth. … which kind of blows me away. … That this flick from almost 60 years ago is more hardcore and poignantly political than anything we’ve seen in the last decade. To me this movie seems to say “Casablanca was for pussies.”

Legion : 1 big fail out of 4 medium stars…

Legion:
whoa-hooooooo. Turns out Legion SUCCCCKed. do not go see Legion. ugh. uhhhh.
(if you loved “The Prophecy”… maybe you should just rent this one. If you loved 300… know that this movie was also made for trucker rednecks, but didn’t bother to steal decent one-liners from other movies. Also this one mysteriously had zero naked men. so, sorry bout that.)
My brain is still kind of hurting. i guess it had some fun bad CGI moments. the good ones ruined by the trailer. My mom actually turned to me at one point and said “oh i remember this from the trailer.”
something seriously wrong about that, and modern trailers. I wonder if the ruinous trailer actually made the movie less interesting. maybe if it had all been a complete surprise…
no. no.
*SPOILERS*
this movie was ruined by:
* the inexplicable amount of quiet time between Bettany showing up, and Quaid finally delivering the cliche “you better start talking!” demand. Why was everyone content to just take his guns from his stolen cop car and ignore the dead lady – UNTIL AFTER NIGHT FELL? Hours passed? seriously? He said “you really don’t know what’s happened?” and then everyone was like “should we ask? I don’t think we should ask…” for at least 4 hours?
* Quaid’s weird bad acting. Maybe he was trying something. but his weird smeared face contortions didn’t convey the character he was broadcasting.
* I guess I can’t help but dig Dutton. His manly crying moment seemed to come without proper buildup though. His hook hand seemed about as necessary as an eyepatch or fake leg. I’d guess hook hand was either his invention, or an excuse to show him holding his SMG steady with it. huh.
* that fucking guy who played the lead retarded hick. he really succeeded in conveying a slack jawed lack of intelligence, I guess. date rapist or innocent idjit. either way, I couldn’t stand his screen time. If you really want to loathe every second of his performance, as I did, try to count how many times he swallows and flexes his jaw muscles, accompanied by bizarre wet sounds. perhaps this is more the sound mixers fault. but. seemed like our lead had some sort of throat infection.

… I did like the scene with the (inexplicable) upside down crucifixion and exploding acid pustules. Just because it was so left field. I also kinda liked how Bettany noted “they were just testing our strengths, next they’ll test our weaknesses.” I was on board that this meant they’d be testing relationships and character flaws. but to what end? so a big monster could fly in and kill everyone? doesn’t match it’s own logic. I thought Bettany was maybe just judging them (old angel habits?), because he kept missing chances to tell people “don’t do that. it’s an obvious test of your character.” but then – he finally does come out and say “don’t open the door. it’s a trick. we’ll all die,” which is immediately followed by him telling them to open the door so he can go out and save the girl. Apparently the writer just wanted the nice guy to die there first, for doing the right thing. sighhhhh. Or maybe we’re supposed to think he’s got it coming, because he’s a shitty dad. Maybe this is a b-movie trick to engage you in the movie by breaking stupid rules it has just laid out. “we can’t save her. accept it.” … “ok, i’ll save her. all by my lonesome. easily.”

…
Tyrese was actually probably better in this than anything else I’ve ever seen him in. He was maybe halfway to the level of a DMX performance of fucked-up-gangster. I really found myself thinking he was probably a good man, screwed over. Weird that they felt the need to have a crackhead-looking gangster with a heart of gold show up in the middle of nowhere. Was there even a hint that he was once in the army? hmm. oh well.

I also liked the way the blown out guns/toy store in the beginning had a (inexplicable) squat cross design. like something Frank Miller would draw. that got my hopes up.

In fact, I should probably blame the first half of the movie for getting my hopes up, so that everything could be dropped and crapped on by the other half.

… i feel stupid ranting on and on about a failure. so much negativity. wasted.
Eh. anywho.

this movie would have been a lot cooler if they’d just stuck with the weird “god is just an asshole that wants to kill us all” angle. the heavy handed moral to the story, that soldiers should disobey orders if they don’t agree emotionally, just reminds me how bizarrely stupid modern American society has become.

There were several “big one liners” that made me kind of gasp at how bad they were. All I can remember at the moment is Quaid’s big “Sorry, we’re closed.” Maybe if they’d gone for a more manic cult peformance that would have been a joyous moment. But Quaid has just enough tough old man in him to make you wince.
Oh yeah, i thought it was more painful when the retard’s delivered his big movie ending comeback – when he’s about to die during “the Big Final Fight”, after the angel has asked him why he still fights, and all he can think of is to scream/grunt “… Fuck You!” ooooohhh my god. thank goodness he’s the savior of humanity. ohhhh mannnnn…

it’s the kind of movie where: if you were to find out it only cost 500,000 dollars you’d be like “ooohhhh, it was actually kind of amazing then. Because it looked more like you burned more than 50 million dollars on it; then still cut out most of the big action scenes it wanted to have; and then had to cut out and around most of the few special effects you did try, anyway, because they just looked like shit.” (i’m thinking of that weird half-shot of Bettany leaning into the burning mini-van to grab the girl. maybe they used a few frames just to make the CGI guys feel better about their lives).

blah blah. Ending with the same tacky line about god getting tired of all the bullshit was also horrible. Like they just ran out of ideas. but they wanted a big Terminator Sarah connor moment. Buuuuuut they just can’t think of anything else to say. ugh. So they replay this depressing out-of-context narration again, but this time over a big sweeping heroic movie-ending shot. As our heroes drive off into the sunset. weee! It would have been better to just come out and say “y’know, maybe ol’ god’s just a big drunken redneck, and he wants us fukkin’ shoot some shiiiit with this pile o’ guns in this beatup ol’ car we just took from some militia. N’stufffff. … eh. YEEE HAWWWW!”
…

more like Lesion, am i rite?

Oregon Measure (66 and) 67: You $%@ing with me?

I started SolidFuelStudios LLC to experiment with starting a small publishing business (comics, movies, and video games). I made a couple grand off of contract artwork I did last year, but have more than blown it on business crap (computer purchases and comicbook printing costs) (yay, tax write offs). I have not turned a single dollar of real gross profit for my business.

As far as I can tell, Measure 67 will raise my minimum flat payment from $10 to $150 each year. This is a change made for every business type that isn’t a “sole proprietor”.

Soooo, This would kill my experiment. Maybe i’ll change over to being a sole proprietor. Not excited. (Am I reading this wrong, somehow?)

I’m not concerned with the “when profits pass $250k, there are more taxes” stuff. I am just focused on this flat tax increase, which appears to be a big middle finger to anyone who wanted to start a small business in Oregon.

If they really want to fuck the rich a bit more, why not make this $150 flat tax start at $250k profit along with the extra taxes? Or maybe start it at $150 profit?

Lot of other factors here, sure.

But i’m lightly offended by the idea that this is being promoted as the only way to save our schools.
“tax those damned dirty faceless corporations and rich folks more! Otherwise poor kids will suffer!” sounds delightful of course.

But I haven’t yet seen my perspective addressed.
I’m guessing nobody really gives a shit about those who want to start small businesses. We’re all freaky losers anyways. how many can there be? hmm. … I’m writing this to try and gather my thoughts. Terribly worried that I just don’t yet “get” why it’s great for me to pay more for my learning experiment. I assume the common answer to my troubles will be “start a real business or shut up.”

game idea: ChessBall

pawns(7): guards
Rooks: wide receivers
Knight(1): tight end
Bishop(1): tail back
Queen: full back
King: quarterback.

white is offense (goes first), black is defense.

white “snaps” to start round, thus king has ball (picture placing a penny under the piece).

you can either move (all peices not tackled must move, and guards must tackle if ever possible) or pass.

If a tackle happens, both peices fill the space, so you can’t move through it. Players may choose to tackle an already tackled square (so as to leave gaps in the line).

At any time you can pass – using the movement patterns of the pieces. You move the penny. You can pass the ball over/through opponents. If the ball holder is ever tackled, the play is over.

? – Perhaps the king can ignore his one square throw limitation and “throw a completion” to far end of board if a piece ever makes it there (for instant pass completion). … or maybe there needs to be a chain of pieces (throw patterns) connecting them. (need to test how easy it is to get a piece across the whole board.

Offense only keeps possession if they get a ball holder to opposite end of the board.

? – Maybe you can initiate a “kick”, if you can ever get all other pieces 3 squares away from the king and queen. (making it hard to do without opponent fucking it up?)

* picture this all as a video game, where:
- the standard 8-wide chess-board represents just a square portion of a longer rectangle (8×24).
If ball carrier is ever tackled, that line becomes the center of the board for the opposing team.

- you have to remove one pawn, one knight and one bishop before each play begins. (video game formatmakes this easier to hide from opponent).

- being a video game would help you keep track of which pieces you still have to moved on your turn (really, this should back and forth between players, so that the line of pawns isn’t dominated by whoever gets there second? Or maybe it’s good that it’s very hard to avoid a long line of tackle?).

? – maybe just 4 pawns have to move? so you can stagger them out if opponent maneuvers his entire line to be one square away (so he can’t wipe you out on his turn)… need to test this. maybe it’s best to let this happen.

Top 5 trailers of 2009 (now with tasty embedded clips!)

So, here are the best short promotions that knocked my socks off this year. (heh, music videos basically?!?!). Regardless of the final product, these bad boys got under my skin.

5. Terminator Trailer (#3)
Painful to note this, but I was “nervous” about Terminator4 – until i saw this deceptively awesome concoction:

It poses so many interesting questions. It was the first promotional material to “PROVE” that there were a lot of things in this movie you weren’t expecting (giant robots! bikenators! skynet is manufacturing humans now?!? water squid terminators! and … maybe a change in how john conner’s story will play out? Maybe the future is not written and we could all die before the time travel happens?!?!). Plus it ends with the charming Google Maps Terminator.
Of course I love that it uses NIN’s weird “The day the whole world went away” song to great effect. Buildings crash as this guybot-thing realizes the horrific truth about his being. Which segues nicely into retro terminators shooting crap with big guns and tattered flesh left around their ankles like booties. At this point the trailer has you, and is just piling it on.
Who did they hire to cut this trailer!?!?!?
Of course it turns out this clip was way better than the movie (just as 300’s nin music trailer was better than that final movie. same ad agency?).

4. Left 4 dead 2 tv spot (2)
Reintroduced me to Clutch’s music (electric worry), and now we’re in love and having babies.

Note that no shots are fired. They just yell “bang! bang! bang!” and tap into Crazy-Energy, with tons of unexpected imagery piled on (jet bombing runs, clowns, thrown cars, gas tanks tossed off concert stage to zombie audience – things you don’t expect from a zombie invasion).

I was kinda of let down by the scattered nature of the full game intro movie that all this footage is taken from. But this grabs the weirder highlights, streamlines it all, and slams you with better energy. Though… it kinda seems similar to my #2 pick below… (same agency? Or does valve do all their own trailers? did Valve rip off the #2 pick?)

3. Daybreakers trailer (warning: spectacle spoilers?)

Maybe it’s just my deep love for Placebo’s music (Running Up That Hill), but this trailer patted me in the crotch bits. Maybe it just struck me as acceptably hip to contrast zany vampire army violence with an old sorta alternative music hit. Sadly, it’s probably ruining every single spectacle shot in the movie. but i was both moved and thrilled.

2. Borderlands Comic-Con Trailer (2)

Hippest trailer ever. !!! I could probably just watch this in a loop for days. Introduced me to DJ Champion’s cool single “No Heaven“, which in turn introduced me to the great band “Beast.” It’d be my number one pick, if not for childhood geek conditioning behind my #1…

1. Tron Legacy teaser

what can you say?
this pushed all my tron love buttons.
I can barely speak of it, it is so exciting and stylish and awesome.
In fact, i know I’m going to hate the movie, because there’s no way it can live up to the perfect cinema that this trailer has promised. …
Uh. Well. Suffice to say, this trailer makes it clear that your childhood is not over, and has in fact been playing its heart out on hidden servers for the past 25+ years. Add on the fact that this movie will be in 3D and I can’t help but … sigh and smile.

…
honorable mention: Fringe tv promo featuring Trent Reznor

He voluntary re-recorded the lyrics to his lil’ song, substituting lines from the show. And he did it for free, just to be supportive. How cool is that! (maybe I’m drinking in the PR kool-aid here… He probably did it to make some friends in Tha Biz). Apologies for being a grotesque NIN fan.
Anywho. Despite the show kind of proving to be a retarded mess this season, this is still a pretty great stylish promo.

…
I dunno. maybe i should also mention…
Tokyo?

and maybe Franklyn?

i dunno. i guessss i shouldid.
they were certainly effective at getting me excited.
I didn’t really like Tokyo (booorrrrring). Trailer basically has all the best visuals. much more hip and energetic than the movie’s stories turn out to be.
But I did buy Franklyn, sight unseen, just because I was so eager to see the damn thing. Thanks to this trailer, and positive reviews on Amazon. (Although I still haven’t put in the bluray, my roommates have watched it and offered high praise). Nice and confusing stylish trailer. delicious. despite ryan phillippe’s weird cock throat voice.
…

Guilty Pleasure Award:
Give ‘em Hell, Malone

If they could just cut out “the meaning of love” I would be so triple scoop psyched to see this. Whyyy?! WHYYYY!!!!??? Why can’t they cut it out!?!?!? oh, because it’s probably drenched all over the movie like chocolate sauce. I guess. ugh. Still, despite that cheezy indie “forced poetry” bullshit, this is still a pretty enticing promo. Despite hating that core idea with all my … heart? with all my balls? Despite thinking it’s pretentious weak shit, i will still be watching this movie. thanks to this trailer being pretty good.

---

annd. that is all. It is more fun to think about which trailer rocked hardest, than which movie. Like picking your favorite candy bar, rather than your favorite restaurant.
more people should list trailers.!
(though it is also kind of weirdly sick to dell on which sleazy marketing tactics best inserted itself their products into your day. hmm. ohhh, i’m so confused about my love of entertainment)

Top 11 movies of 2009: (with complaints and annoyances on one side / and the highlights and personal-reasons-I-loved-it on the right)

1. Fantastic Mr. Fox ( … / perfect film on all levels)
2. Moon (not sure about the cheesynister intro commercial / powerfully moved by the rest, loved the genuine retro style and pacing, loved that technology was never the bad guy, sam rockwell gives the best “interacting performances” ever?, this was a first time director?!?!?! david bowie’s son is another sort of entertainment genius?)
3. Star Trek (lacked any good science really / powerfully thrilling and emotional, incredible pacing and camera movement, loved how spock-was-sorta-the-bad-guy-really, dug the purposeful “fate” contrivances that many mistook for bad writing, loved how it offered dark characters but still promoted an optimistic future “the human race can grow into”)(I think star trek is literally about “striving for the stars”)
4. Inglourious Basterds (wish the basterds could have had more screen time / incredible dialogue from the other characters, had a 30 minute scene that was never boring, had undeniable historical importance regarding film and how we perceive WWII)
5. Coraline (“a bored city girl” is not one of my preferred themes, slightly bored by low key pacing at start / otherwise perfect. especially visuals and characterization, better than novel)

6) Avatar (i just can’t pretend to enjoy realD’s stereoscopic 3D effect, wasn’t that interested in the fakey kitty faces acting or design, some of the lines were annoyingly unnapproachable / loved how the story joined spirituality with science to make a concrete point about modern culture’s biggest flaw, and of course it had incredible design and innovation that i’d never remotely seen on film before) (I’d place it higher if one could say “and we’ll never see visuals like this again.” that’s the problem with CGI. And hollywood’s obsession with “spectacle” in general.)
7) The Box (i completely hate cameron diaz / i love James Marsden, was the best thematically-complimentary “second half that wasn’t in the book” movie ever, weird symbolic philosophizing equals: my kind of movie)
8 ) Watchmen (the bullshit “energy cures all” ending was a retarded devation from the original story’s whole point, ozymandias was miscast / loved everything else)
9) Pandorum (paul w.s. anderson’s dreaded name merely appeared during the end credits, some of the editing seemed rough / paid tribute to ‘deadly cannibal mutants, and hommade arena of death’ movies i adored as a kid, lot of great plot twists between the start and finish, Ben Foster was the lead)
10) Food, Inc. (some sections and facts were rehash for me / serves as a well done, easy to digest, appetizer to many important under-reported issues).
11) The Road (the more i read about the director’s intent, the more i realized i took all the wrong ideas from this picture / to hell with it I still really liked the left-field-themes which I mistakenly thought were driving this movie, probably the most gratifying experience I’ve ever had completely misunderstanding a picture)

Most underrated:
Ninja Assassin (some shitty camera work, overediting the fight scenes was a crime / incredibly great tribute to cheesy ninja action movies from the 80s, great original plot with epic subtle twist in the title)

Guiltiest pleasure:
Halloween II (bizarrely stupid and vulgar characters / fascinating dream psychology and symbolism. felt like he was actually saying something about the series and horror movies in general)

Wish I’d Seen:
Tetro (did this really come out? really? damnitall, i want to see this right now. Fuck you, Netflix, for not having this available)

…

feel like i should mention (since this is a personal blog, really), the most watched movies from this list:
star trek (5)
watchmen (5)
inglourious basterds (4)
Avatar (2, with IMAX viewing in the cards asahp)
Food, Inc. (2, though i don’t plan to watch it again anytime soon)

this probably speaks volumes about my true “top 5″ list. or maybe just that the first four were the height of hollywood spectacle this year?

Demon’s Souls (1%) – 10/10!

(The idea of this title is to mention how much of the game I’ve played before giving this rating. So i could go back at 50% and say “shit/10″, and again at whatever point I give up on ever playing it again).

So I basically got through the training levels last night. Which might even be less than 1% of the game?
But I’m totally psyched to go on, so I feel a need to rant it out.

* I’m still avidly addicted to watching Zero Punc. (which I think would be a charming new name/spelling for the show, implying both punk rock and a disdain for explaining your abbreviations through the use of proper punctuation).

Yesterday’s installment is what convinced me to go buy Demon’s Souls (PS3).
Indeed, the game is hilariously difficult. like, imagine a slower paced hack and slash (same dude, every 20 feet) except every dude you run into is very likely to kill you. This is super tense. You’re constantly like “oh fuck! oh fuck. fuck. FUCK! that fucking guy destroyed me. I have no health left. why are all these crates empty? shit. i need health. WHERE IS MORE HEALTH! AHHHHH! ohhhhHHHHH SHIT ANOTHER GUY AHHHH!!!”.

* Maybe it is more enjoyable due to all the complaints I’ve read about it. … The opening cinematic was so confusing I really doubt you are expected to follow it. Maybe a poor translation or something. but. Just seems like a rambling rant full of strange names and characters. like, lots of them. That left me thinking “uh, was i supposed to follow all that?” Maybe they fancy themselves serious writers, and it’s a blind spot of theirs to recognize the different between: dense text on a page – and – that same dense narration over beautiful swirling visuals you can only watch once. The way that each loading screen highlights some random dude from the intro animation makes me nervous. Do they want me to memorize all these names? maybe bring them up in conversation? “So you know how MacDuff is like this weird androgynous warrior? No? well, what about Sir Richtegawin the theiving squire of Gondarlorkinan? You know, the 7th warrior lost to the great black mysts of Mignanoeo in Demon’s Souls? He was on some of the load screens. I mean come on. Geesh”

Anywho. I guess this is a mystery for me with most RPG things. Maybe it’s an artifact of being a japanese RPG making company. they can’t let this trick go (too much character detail for a video game).

-I should probably just say : go watch this specific Zero Punc, and I agree pretty much with all his points. Except i think the game is “hilariously difficult” not “Frustratingly difficult”. I derive enjoyment from wondering what the fuck was wrong with the game designers. plus, there are a couple minor spoilers in that review, which I wish I hadn’t heard about before playing (regarding the end of the tutorial levels).

* Hmm, i should rant more about the game’s unique “ghost” device:
it is a trip the first time some random ghost of another player just wanders through your game. Supposedly that’s some dude playing somewhere else in the world, totally oblivious to you. Really? Somehow it feels like a real ghost. You’re like “oh Shit what is thing that’s gonna kill me… oh it’s just a ghost. where’s it going? huh. why would it do that…? well whatever.”

it is cool, mostly because I’ve never felt the same from any other game. Though I’d imagine if you could share your “ghost tracks” from f-zero with other players, it would be similar (time challenges? is that what they call it?). But i don’t think you can. ehhh. Has any game done this besides racing? … surely. hmm. HMM. I’m failing as a reviewer here…

FAIL! CEASE REVIEW IMMEDIA-

Macbeth (2006)- -8/2000

The Short:
This was a horrible failure at making: movies, plays, and entertainment in general.

The Long:
I queued this thinking :

• I’d like to see some earlier sam worthington, before Avatar.
  
• I need to brush up on Macbeth anyway, for this Blood/Sugar2016 project.
  
• This guy (Geoffrey Wright) directed Romper Stomper, which everyone loves, so it’ll probably be interesting.
  
• you can’t fuck up Macbeth! Whatta play!
  
  
  wrong. This was a poorly shot camera test for some squibs, loosely based around a cliff notes approach to macbeth.
  ugh.

  if it had just tried some direction, any direction, it would have been better. more dialogue. or more violence. more zany street gang costumes. or more sex. or more weird arty (smoke and lighting) bullshit. more forest. (heh. ok, no. more running around in the trees wouldn’t have been a good move.)

  instead it was just a brief mishmash of half hearted crap. Not bad enough to be enjoyably funny. just something you end up wanting to fastforward, despite yourself. Because life is too short.
  It’s the kind of movie that isn’t redeemable in any way. It purely exists to waste 1 hour and 49 minutes of your life. Embarassing everyone involved, and you for watching it.

  let me sum up the good parts, which are likely the elements of a conversation that convinced them to make the movie. They just never latched onto anything more, which would flesh it out from a brief daydream to a full fledged entertainment endeavor. Ahem, the interesting bits:
  - Sam Worthington is a good looking leading man (though rather short it turns out. and he tends to walk goofishly, with his arms dead at his sides)
  - They open with a drug turned shootout, with some weird asian kabooki makeup street gang (though no crazy ethnic makeup will return.)
  - they had some hot chicks, and got them to take off their clothes (with tiny lil tits. Why you’d want to replace the wormy foul witches with some hot little school girls is beyond me. but, ok, sex is sex. Cept there was no real titillating sex. just some brief nudity while people ran off camera, or laid around dead. There was also a gratuitous shot of a fat ugly dude humping the back of a kinda old/ugly lady’s head while he garroted her. It felt like “creep improv.” sexayyyy.)
  - macbeth turns up in a black leather kilt for the end shootout. (whatever. he also hams it up with a gratuitous jig. Worthington seemed to be strengthening his “wacky walks” acting in this movie.)
  - there were big guns (there were also little daggers. why mix it up? it felt like they wanted to relocate the story to a modern time and setting, but then just kinda gave up. At one point they’re all standing around two victims holding these giant guns , straight out of predator, and then one guy walks forward and lowers his big gun so he can pull out a wee gun and shoot them in the legs. weird.)(weird how they couldn’t stick to the GUNS about being a matrix style gun-porn movie).
  - there were a couple hot cars at the beginning (but in the end they solved the birnam wood issue by having the gunmen hide out in a logging truck).
  - in the end they solved the birnam wood issue by having the gunmen hide out in a logging truck (creative i guess. it just seemed totally out of sync to have dirty lumberjack semi featured after their “we’re all rich drug dealers” beginning. bizarre.
  - they shot a kid. (not on camera. but i’d guess they thought they were pretty badass for how they handled it).

  blah blah. I am done writing about this failure. I hope that it was held back by production issues, or the director developing a big drug habit. But i’ve little interest in seeing his other movies now. blah. (I feel a strong need to rent the orson welles Macbeth asap, and wash this one from my brain).

The Road – 27.65345241 / 29.937517

I really got into this movie. Saw it with about 5 other people, and am not sure what they thought. Perhaps because it left me in a very glum private place, thinking about personal things. I haven’t read the book. But i feel like the director did what he wanted. And I applaud the story for not bothering with details of the apocalypse. In a way, I think it is the story of a second apocalypse (or “the real apocalypse”).

maybe?
hmm.
Basically, the acting was very nuanced. The settings and tones were very consistent. I was totally sucked in. (Except I kind of hate Charlize Theron, for inexplicable reasons. But that worked with her role in the movie pretty well, probably).

eh. I was suprised to read that they only used CGI to remove some green plants, blue sky, and airplane trails. There’s several “big shots” in the movie that were apparently genuine. One “big shot” in particular, of some beached tankers and some big black smoke, was apparently real. Taken from a 70mm print, it was captured in New Orleans after Katrina. And the black smoke was from the twin towers. eek. It’s weird that I enjoyed this as spectacle at the time (not sure I “keyed into the imagery, subconciously” as the filmmaker notes in one of the promotional interviews that exposed this fx/non-fx moment).
…I don’t think of this as spoilers, because I feel it’s just a reminder of what’s going on from the first moment our characters wake up.
Brief FX shots are trivial in a movie about very base human interaction.

I’m not big on poetry, but the film got under my skin a bit and pushed many buttons.

(i didn’t like the last movie this director, John Hillcoat, made. Which was “The Proposition.” In retrospect, that flic strikes me as similarly bleak. but much more boring. and concerned with characters I cared much less about. And a lot of its acting felt forced. to me. But now I have read that THAT movie was heavily inspired by another Cormac McCarthy book, Blood Meridian. soo. that is interesting. … I think the Road was wayyyyy better.)

Uh, eh. How to wrap this rambling up…

If you’re a faint heart, you should know that The Road is mostly a big bleak downer, full of suffering and struggle, that is very hard to watch. It is up to you to draw a cathartic enjoyment from it. (and i think everyone I saw it with felt uplifted as the credits rolled, despite all the darkness). In other words, you might not be able to enjoy it. (because: you suck).

SPOILERS:

this idea of “keeping the flame alive” is directly mentioned in the final scene of No Country For Old Men. right? weird. hmm. It’s weird how this is noted as a universal theme that transcends religion in some of the promotional interviews. hmm. I feel like I understand the symbol, but am not sure how to explain it. I feel like those that don’t like this movie are dismissing this symbol (and missing the whole point).

* I thought the ending was clearly “the kid went insane”. they set up dog scratching earlier, and the kid seeing other kids which the dad couldn’t see. I was SURE of this as the credits rolled, and was deeply moved.

My friends thought it was tacked on hollywood cop out bullshit.
but apparently the book ends this way too. huh.
…
This makes me maybe it is ultimately symbolic of the father’s driving mission to keep the child from his new (crappy) life for as along as possible. Maybe the other homeless people his kid was reaching out too wouldn’t have proved to be that bad? Maybe the dad was holding him too close?
I’m still processing the movie i guess…
I feel there is a strong message that the story is more horrific from the father’s perspective. The kid seems much more at home in this new world. So if the kid gets this idealized family with a little girl and dog, in the end, maybe that’s the intent. Maybe it isn’t all hopeless. It feels like the “writing voice” of a father. He never gets to see it, but he did right by his son. All isn’t lost.

or maybe it’s a sign that if he’d just given up earlier, his kid would have been better off to be rid of him. hmmf. not sure.

to me, the kid went nuts and made up imaginary family. fuck you. It’s the Brazil ending, and couldn’t be more depressing.
heh?

* I also felt this strong idea that the whole movie might be a parable about homelessness. Like maybe there is no clear apocalypse because the mother’s death drove the dad insane. So he’s wandering the streets with his son, starving, and it’s just the story of many a crazed homeless person. I felt the imagery of plastic bags and shopping carts and leathery stained fingers was spot on “homeless people chic.” But again, interviews seem to suggest I was wrong. the director was just pulling imagery that we could recognize, so that it would be more unsettling and “local.” Hit closer to home.

* In my heart I can’t believe I got either of these points so wrong. I wonder if it’s there in the book and everyone (maybe even the director) is misinterpreting it. I’d like to think Cormac Macarthy is just waiting for me to post this ramble so he can give me a big high five. heh. but probably not.

I’m afraid to read the book in case I’m dead wrong.

* Part of me thinks this whole story is a parable about “what death really is.” That is: It’s about stubbornly dragging your kids along even though you have no idea what you’re doing or where you’re going, until you ultimately have to give up and fail them by dying – at which point they move on to a new family of their own.

* and this is why i like the movie and basically think it a 9 out of 10. because I was able to read a lot into it, even if nobody saw the same things.
I only knock it for being so bleak and poetic that i’m not really interested in suffering it again. maybe once. or twice. but that’s it. I feel like a 10 out of 10 movie is one you have to own, and could watch at any moment. I’m not sure this movie fits that mold. (plus the fear that I am stubbornly misinterpreting it makes think I shouldn’t be too quick to embrace it).

I hear they cut out a disturbing “baby eating” scene. probably just a shot in the cannibal house? Ultimately i don’t think this movie showed me any scene so jaw dropping that I’d have to have it. Maybe that scene would have been the scene that forever made this the most fucked up cannibal movie ever. But it was cut, apparently because they didn’t want to scare people. So that should also probably knock points off the review. but that’s also just rumor so fuck it. Wish some part of this movie had just floored me though, so I could justify wanting to own it and study it further. Maybe its just a brilliant movie – that wasn’t made for me. (note: i buy movies the deeply disturb me, like Irreversible and Gummo, so I can better understand how and why).

blah blah, but it worked for me on a very personal level. I’d highly recommend it.