MOVIE: "Delicatessen"

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Technically and artistically, the film is perfect, except for the script. I was left with so many questions about back story, I could barely concentrate on precocious shenanigans and Rube Goldberg machinations. It is all extremely clever and everyone associated with it is professional, creative and amusing. But, for it to be a dark comedy, to me, I need more reason to accept the circumstances. I guess I need to see beyond the bombed street and crumbling apartments. The mail carrier, taxi driver and new tenant are our only real clues to the world beyond, but they reveal too little. If I had the talent, production $, professional stature and access to such talented crew & cast, I think I may have created something with a bit more substance? I would not want anything polemic or soap box, but something to help my viewers feel something beyond mild amusement, being impressed with how clever I am and thinking the universe is only a patchwork collection of individual experiences and ignorance. This does not enlighten, inspire or amuse me and that is a fundamental requirement I hold for true art. This is very proficient craftsmanship, but not art.

MOVIE: "Howard Zinn: You Can't Be Neutral"

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Why, when progressives make it out of working class backgrounds and become academics, they turn their backs on us, using us only for rhetorical purposes? Someone states it was the idea of soldiers to round up & execute village men & relocate women & children in Viet Nam/ this was called Operation County Fair. It was the idea of commanders. Soldiers are factory workers: do as told, produce the product for which paid. The ONLY difference is that, if they refuse to produce, they do not just get fired; they can be put in prison &, in advanced cases, executed. That is a lot of pressure to put on a working class person who is just trying to feed a family & keep buddies on the field alive. This is an example of how the working class is exploited as a tool by the academic intelligentsia: they forget we are watching occasionally, & a statement like that slips out. They do not care about, associate with or TANGIBLY support those of us outside their rarefied atmosphere. So, Boston is prissy enough to make Dunkin Donuts call their shop something else? THAT is a metaphor: do not get too close to Harvard & Unitarian Universalism unless you cloak your crass capitalism as something trendy. Zinn likes Dunkin Donuts coffee. It is not free trade coffee, nor are the workers unionized. With his financial privilege, he could drink any coffee in the world. Where is the peace movement now? Am I supposed to really believe it is just coincidence that Bush is replaced by Obama & Not In Our Name is silent about the wars? Zinn seems like a nice fellow, if what he says is sincere. But we cannot fall into the reactionary trap of turning cultural workers into saints. It is no more honest, & as much revisionist history as the film, Molokai: The Story of Father Damien. I reviews that film on Nutflox, too. I affirm here what I said there, I like pagans a whole lot more than saints. Just cuz u can sing Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? does not mean you can relate to us.

MOVIE: "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"

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This garbage is still going on in so called mental "health" facilities. Now days, they rely more heavily on drugs as chemical rather than physical restraints. Also, thanks to big PhRMA, now everybody gets a diagnosis, so they can sell more drugs. Abuse is rampant. Mac is no antihero; he is a hero. He tried to comply. He was polite, calm and cheerful. But he thought for himself and showed compassion for the other inmates. That made him a complete threat to a brittle and nonfunctional system of abuse, control and repression. He had to be stopped. If behavioral health were treated using dignity, actual listening, respect, encouraging a sense of accomplishment, honest sexuality and just plain fun, more people would ahve fulfilling, productive lives, rather than wandering the streets, jails and wards in hell on Earth.

MOVIE: "Life as a House"

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Everything I thought this movie would be, as I began to watch it, turned out not to be true. I saw an arrogant, willful, repressed, selfish and impulsive jackass, tearing through the people around him with no regard for their safety or well being. Then, I saw his son and knew I was right. His son was even worse: raging, drowning his soul in mind altering chemicals and high risk behavior. This man had destroyed his child. I hated this man. Even as he started tearing down the old house, I thought, the materians should be recycled, not thrown in a dumpster. He needs to control his dog. He needs not to urinate where children can see him. He thought he was going to teach his son to be a man that summer: working on that project together. What really happened was that HE learned how to be a man: to be intimate, to listen, to protect, to open up and be honest. He made a multi-generational ammends for sins of the father. And his son? Well, that still makes me smile. I wish I had a parent who would have done this for me. I wish I had a child I could give this gift.

MOVIE: "Munyurangabo"

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Well, I cannot speak for you, but I am a pretty intelligent, resourceful, creative person, and I KNOW I could never make a film this poignant in eleven days, with no professional actors, nearly completely improvised, with no money or proficiency in the language in which it was spoken. Technically, I suppose there is a lot that could be better. But I did not come to this film to have Spielberg obfuscate reality with clever tricks bought with corporate dollars to dazzle the dullards. I came here to visit Rwanda, to learn what is happening since the genocide, to meet some people, to hear some stories, to share some porridge. This film let me do that. At least, in Rwanda, when they sling mud, it does some good: not like here in the US, where it is applied so harshly in a continually failing attempt to make ourselves not look so bad by making others look worse. Just because Edison of the USA invented the motion picture camera and whites of European descent decided what the standards are of the motion picture INDUSTRY (not arts), decided how it MUST be used, by everyone, everywhere in the world, does not mean that, in the hands of dedicated, indigenous students the camera cannot be a tool of real change. This may not be film school genius, but it is soul genius. When did we movie watchers forget the value of that? And I am thrilled to see that young men can embrace each other so easily, and are not ashamed to cry.

MOVIE: "Son of Man"

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From Mexican Pastorales to Michegan Sunday school pageants, humans try to portray what the stories of Jesus mean for them. None is historically accurate; none are literal interpretations of the four contradictory Gospels. All are, potentially, poignant, heart felt metaphors and allegories. All renditions are incomplete and imperfect, including the King James version of the Bible. So, let us get over that, please. No film about Jesus goes uncriticized, usually by those steeped in religious traditions that have, tragically, taken poetry, allegory, metaphor and symbolism out of faith and replaced them with rigid doctrines, literalist interpretations, fear and hatred of The Other. SOM is not ths story of Jesus. It is a question: if Jesus were born on the African continent now, what might happen and how would it look? This is liberation theology: we are all sons of man. God is supposed to be love. We are made in the likeness of God. So, where is the love? Yes, Jesus is, finally, Black, strong and virile. He espouses non-violence, justice and personal dignity for everyone, women included. Everybody is Black African; this is not about racism, but oppression & liberation. I will never call myself a Christian, because of cultural abuses of that word. I am agnostic. If I had lived in such a vivid interpretation of spirituality, rather than rigid, dogmatic repression, this might not have been true for me. Liberation, salvation, redemption are for everyone. I loved this film.

http://www.southafrica.info/what_happening/arts_entertainment/son-of-man-250106.htm