Daily Archive for March 23rd, 2006

V For Vendetta

Published on March 23, 2006 in ..The Dude, Films, Reviews and The Ill-Literates. 3 Comments

[image:115:l] It’s such a rare thing to go to the movies and see something that challenges you to think or act. Few movies are about ideas as much as they are about actors, images, and technology. Still fewer are those movies that can combine good acting startling images, fx, and ideas. When that happens it tends to make for a movie that gets under my skin and becomes a favorite of mine. I’m happy to report that it’s happened again with V For Vandetta.

I’m not familiar with the 80′s comic by Alan Moore that this is based on, nor do I know Moore’s reasons for taking his name off the movies credits and disassociating himself from it. Obviously the original was not an allegory for the Bush administration while this certainly has Patriot Act era undertones. Taking place in the 2020′s we even see old news footage of anti-Bush demonstrations that are protesting events including Iraq that are alluded to as being part of the chain of events leading to the authoritarian Britain of the film’s present. Exposing and avenging a long running government conspiracy is at the root of the actions of the masked lead nicknamed V and played by a Hugo Weaving. We never see Weaving who is not so much a hero but the welcome villain the governemnt has created and that they and the people deserve. It’s a bit annoying to try and listen to a man speak who’s mouth I can’t see move, but on some level it works as a symbol of V’s status as the voice of the oppressed speaking from a collective muffled silence so that all may speak freely again. Fortunately for this theory it is backed up by later imagery of the film in which V’s role as everyman and his plan for the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot of 4 centuries ago, come together. I found the visuals of the movies culminating actions epic and exillarating for both the cinematic scope of them and their kinship to the themes that they gave visual representation for.

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There’s alot of dialogue to sift through and wax philosophic about in V and I’m not sure I agree with all of it; but it’s certainly all interesting and worthy of debate. V believes for instance that the people should not be afraid of their government but rather governments should be afraid of the people. While being an inspiring line that appeals to the anarchist in me I’m not sure I want to live in a world where average citizens run amok causing chaos when they’re not happy. Of course if the choice is one or the other I might waiver and I certainly want politicians fearing for their jobs. Preferably they’d lose them through voting rather than beheading though. Otherwise were in Robespeirre country and watching revolutions eat their young.

But much of what V stands for, says, and does is operating on that higher level of genius that is beyond simple black and white colorations. While he kills alot of innocent people he is admittedly a product of system, a sort of Frankenstein’s monster turning on it’s creator with all that creatures ill-fashioned clumsiness and lack of subtlety. And yet he is still charming, brilliant, heroic, and human. Natalie Portman becomes his connection to humanity and the relationship between the two is genuinely interesting and meaningful. At his core V may just be a vulnerable and rejected man just looking for a little acceptance and connection. Just feeling as if he’s understood by someone he respects and gets him makes a world of difference in the end.

The whole segment that leads to Portman shaving her hair is interesting in and of itself. I can’t mention much about it here due to its spoiler potential, but I will say that it connected with something I’d been thinking about alot lately regarding froth coming through hardship, and becoming free by losing one’s self and ego. [image:116:l]

I really liked the movie and don’t discount my bias towards its political message as being part of the reason. It’s probably not a non-partisan movie or one that conservatives would find as truly disturbing and incendiary as I did. At least not in a good way. The mask V hides behind is intended to look like the Gunpowder Plot mastermind Guy Fawkes and after the movie I wanted to don me a John Hinckley mask and take to the streets in the name of the ever decreasing abstractions freedom, justice, and liberty. This is probably one of the reasons many will dislike this film and I certainly don’t advocate a bloodspree. But in a country where the media is owned by corporations that own the politicians, a country where 1% control 90% of the wealth, and one in which the President makes laws and breaks them at will with no ramifications we might soon be at the point where we have nothing to lose but our chains.

More Daily Stuff

Published on March 23, 2006 in ..The Dude, Irritations, Politics and The Ill-Literates. 0 Comments

Some politics and South Park stuff all god fearing people should care about.

The Washington Post hired a guy to do an opinion column who has called Coretta Scott King a commie and has a family tied to the GOP and even the Abramoff bribes. The online column is called Red States and they claim this was done to bring balance to the paper. Daily Kos We’re in the looking glass here people and Orwell is staring in from the outside at us and shaking his head sadly.

Knight Ridder is reporting on a pretty legitimate claim of an American Massacre of Iraqi women and children at a house north of Baghdad last week. Iraqi police are among those attaching their names to a complaint that seems to have some corrobarating evidence behind it.

“The American forces gathered the family members in one room and executed 11 persons, including five children, four women and two men,” the report said. “Then they bombed the house, burned three vehicles and killed their animals.”

Alot of these reports are exaggerated but certainly there have been some atrocities committed. If this one is true it’s another Mai Lai and an example of what happens to people that have been trained to kill and often come from troubled backgrounds when they are let loose in a place without laws or order.

Helen Thomas was awesome yesterday at Bush’s press conference. That is why she goe 3 years without Bush calling on her. And why does anyone have to be called on? The president is our public servant and the media are supposed to be our watchdogs. So shouldn’t every media venue automatically get their chance to speak whether Bush or any other President want’s to talk to them? Granted you can’t have every media outlet in there asking questions. What should be done is to have a rotating cross representation that includes the whole gamut of the political spectrum with everyone in the room that day getting their chance. While we’re at it the president should have to stand before the people every month and take questions. Non-screened people without questions given to them by administration spin Dr’s.

Great to see Bush still finding the war so funny at the press conference. This idiots lack of persective or decency is a true testimony to his mother and father. What absolute atrocities of wealth and privelage they are. Yeah Jesus would have loved these folks.

Watched som School House Rock with a 13 year old today and man did it just reiterate waht geniuses the guys who put those together were. The lyrics, the music, the learning, it’s all there and comes together in a way that seems effortless and damn catchy. It’s been said that they defined a generation and that’s ok with me.

A Republican Senator on Bush and Team America The World Police: “”They want to do just as they please, for as long as they can get away with it,” Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said in an interview with The Associated Press. “I think what is going on now without congressional intervention or judicial intervention is just plain wrong.” Yahoo Ding Ding Ding!

South Park premiered new eps tonight and immediately dealt with Isaac Hayes departure. I don’t know how they put this stuff together so fast but man are they brilliant. Sick and twisted. But brilliant. Very clever and funny way of dealing with his absence while still ending the Chef’s storyline in a fittingly ignominious way that made clear allusions to the events of the past week that Kyle mentions and to a sick group that brainwashed and twisted the Chef’s mind. The group is a bunch of League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen type really made of pedophiles that stands in for the scientologist Kyle is clearly referencing. You have to see how they do this without Hayes and the final scenes for yourself if you haven’t. I can’t do it justice. A very fitting and clever end for a once great man and a still great show.

Hillary Clinton said the following to Immigration advocates in regard to legislation designed to stop immigration: “It is certainly not in keeping with my understanding of the Scriptures,” Clinton said, “because this bill would literally criminalize the Good Samaritan and probably even Jesus himself.”

Ok it’s official, not only is she dead to me, but she’s fucking Karl Rove. Revenge for Monica? You make the call.

I’m half way through tonights Lost and the only thing that’s happened is that I have confirmed that Sun is a damn sexy woman and that the islan heals people, a fact i already knew. Come to think of it I already knew both these things though the opportunity to see Sun in negligee on a 50 inch screen was much appreciated.

I really hope I’m not coming across as pathetic being at Barnes N Noble as much as I am. But considering there are 2 or 3 people I always see there, not counting the homeless woman that’s always there sleeping, my 2-3 times a week might not look so bad compared to them. It’s a safe guess they are there much more. And where does that woman go when they close? It’s cold out there.

This is far more sad than my being into a woman who works there who didn’t give me a second glance. It is also more sad than the fact that another woman who works there that is far younger and cuter but less appealing because of that, does make alot of eye contact with me.

I’m sad but I’m not homeless on a 20 degree night. So I can’t complain. I want to talk to all three of these women for different reasons but don’t know what to say. The homeless woman in particular is hard to approach because I’d just be some little pissant voyeur trying to make myself feel better by not ignoring the plight of someone less fortunate who I can’t do a damn thing to help.

This inability to talk to people and express waht I feel or take chances will all seem silly someday. Humans do alot of this inner head game stuff that wisdom later shows was stupid and a waste. We know this. And yet many of us do it. Why is that?