Category Archives: Film

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on Shakespeare’s Henry V, TNG, stories, and garbage

I’ve been reading a lot lately, and thus have finally gotten around to a long held goal to read (or in some cases) reread Shakespeare.  I got me The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works, 2nd Edition.  It has a wonderful introduction but does not annotate the plays themselves which is both a good thing and a bad thing.  I’m about halfway through this brick of a book.  They arrange the plays by chronology, or at least the chronological order the editors believe Shakespeare wrote them.  Which fascinatingly, is not an easy thing to determine.

What I like about this construct is I can read one play in about two to three hours and it’s a nice bite sized chunk of happy without overwhelming my brain.  The last one read was Henry V.  This guy’s story should be (but no longer is) well familiar to all of Western culture.  It’s one of Shakespeare’s most well known, and maybe most quoted plays.  It’s not 100% to the truth of history, but that’s never what Shakespeare was aiming for.

Having never read the whole play at once, I can say it’s probably the closest thing to an action movie that Shakespeare ever wrote.  This play puts the pedal down from the start and never lets up.  It’s an intesnse experience.  The play itself (of course) has garnered a lot of negative thoughts from modern, arrogant types who don’t like that it’s a piece of jingoism.  Probably because it is in fact a play written for a patriotic English auidence that very much wanted to hear a story about how Henry puts his boot on the French throat and drives the sword through the eyepiece.

That’s what Shakespeare intended.  He clearly writes Henry V as his, the, model of an excellent, decisive ruler.  But make no mistake, Shakespeare doesn’t hold his punches from anybody.  Like a lot of history’s great people, Henry is both a hero and a maniac all rolled into one.  He is unphased by battle, takes extreme risks, and ultimately see his victory through immense battlefield skill and leadership.

This same man also pontificates about how he might rape, pillage, and murder an entire city.  Actually has his men begin to execute unarmed prisoners during a time of crisis.  And in as many words (while disguised as a common man walking amongst his troops in the dark) that the king has the right to spend his men’s lives like currency whenever the fuck he wants to.  In other words, Henry is indeed a man of his time, a good king, but still a ruler from the 15th Century.

The epilogue also reminds the audience (not that anybody at the time needed a reminder) that Henry died young (at 35) and after him all his gains in France were lost by subsequently poor English leadership which ultimately led to the War of the Roses, a polite term for a very violent, vicious, and multi-decade English Civil War.  One could take the cynical view that everything Henry accomplished was for nothing, but that’s going too far for my tastes.  Nobody knows what history brings next.  You can only influence and act when you’re on the stage.  After that, it’s outta your hands.

And then I remembered this scene from TNG where Picard has Data in fact act out a scene from this play.  Specifically the one where Henry is in disguise at night:

This scene is the opening shot for Season 3, Episode 10, The Defector.  In this scene a keen eye will see the Patrick Stewart plays Williams, Simon Templeman plays Bates, while Data gets the disgused king.  It’s a neat little vingette, a great opening to one of my favorite episodes of TNG in general.  The Defector was done when TNG was at the height of its powers.  It’s a masterpiece episode that is both moving and brutal.

So let’s take the opportunity to once again remember just how utterly bad new Trek is.  At least here, we shall always believe the creators of Discovery, Picard, (and the seven other new Trek shows they’re making whose names we can’t remember) should all be imprisoned.  It has also recently come to my attention that Stewart (a near two decade veteran of the Royal Shakespeare Company) was very heavily involved in making Picard.  So I guess he belongs in jail too.  What a disappointment.  I guess after thirty years you lose the magic.  In TNG, Stewart is a master of his craft, in Picard he’s a garbage man working for a board room of Paramount suits.  And Stewart’s seated at the same table.

Back to Henry V.  There’s also the 2019 Netflix movie The King which is Netflix’s take not only on Shakespeare’s Henry V but also Henry IV Part 1 and Henry IV Part 2.  My contempt for this movie knows no bounds.  So like new Trek,we must place it into the garbage category.  Not only does the movie completely alter the history, it completely alters the Shakespeare.  Plus Emo Queen Timothée Chalamet is just about the last person on the planet who should being playing Henry V.

So in other words, the people who wrote / made this movie, they thought they were smarter than Shakespeare.  I mean, Hollywood alters history more times than Trek changes the space time continuum.  But did these arrogant garbage men really, really understand how crass it is to rip up a story written by William Shakespeare?  Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t have the gall, I’d be like: “Uh, yeah, we’d better not do that, guys.  No really, let’s not do that.”

Perhaps the most eggregious sin of The King is how they screw up Agincourt.  Which is probably on the top ten of most important singular battles in human history.  How do you screw up Agincourt?  Easy.  You get Netflix to hire a bunch of hacks to make a bad movie.

I thus conclude I probably in good faith owe two future posts.  One should be a review of The Defector.  And the second should be a post about Agincourt.  I don’t always keep my future post promises, I get distracted like a meth addled squirrel, but maybe I’ll stick to this promise.

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rules are for little peasants

I don’t know why I feel compelled to comment on the Oscars (again) when I’ve pretty much said at many points during this pointless blog’s existence that it’s all a sick joke for the benefit of spoiled rich losers.

But I guess I’ll just point out that they really can’t help themselves. This is who they are. In the world of celebrities, a man can assault another man, and ten seconds later be honored and applauded like nothing happened.

In any other part of our society & culture this behavior rightly results in arrest. Not in Hollywood. Rules are for little peasants. If they’re in show business, it’s perfectly okay to be a hypocrite, because everyone else in the room is just like them.

It’s why I just don’t understand the cult of celebrity or people who watch TMZ or whatever, and follow the lives of these people like a religion. For the most part, these are not good people, they’re not moral human beings. Moral human beings, good dudes and women, don’t applaud someone who just assaulted another human being.

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this man is an imposter

Slammed in the middle of the NFL’s usual battery of truck commercials and false fluff where companies claim how wonderful they are by lying directly to the audience was a few ads for the new Death on the Nile film.  The is a remake of something that has already been done, and was done better.  It’s a follow up to another Murder on the Orient Express which was done back in 2017.  The Imposter is show business royalty darling Kenneth Branagh who has his tentacles in so many aspects of Hollywood you can’t keep track of it.  But is basically known for making a bunch of forgettable Shakespeare films, shitty (but lucrative) remakes and superhero trash in Thor and Cinderella, and the greatest masterpiece ever made in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit.

The Imposter has a habit of casting himself in the leading roles while he’s the director.  Which is something that you shouldn’t ever do unless your name is legendary, of which for all his connections, The Imposter is most certainly not.  What’s even more glaring with the two Poirot remakes is The Imposter is shoving himself into an actor / director role where the character has already been played to absolute perfection by David Suchet.  It’s like some hack showing up and deciding he’s going to play Indiana Jones far, far better than Harrison Ford.  It’s patently absurd, but like a bunch (all) of people in show business he’s a narcissist for sure, so it’s okay to fail, as long as he can see his own film and smile about how awesome he thinks he looks.  I think I saw in the Nile trailer that The Imposter has Poirot holding a gun.  Which is like Indy holding a fluffy teddy bear.  Such things should not be done.

There is only one Poirot, that’s it.  And shame on Agatha Christie’s family for taking the check that was slid across the table to let Hollywood trash the 25 years of work David Suchet & Co did with Agatha Christie’s Poirot.

In my mind, this would play out perfectly in 1938.  Miss Lemon would go through the financial records and discover the location of The Imposter based on his bribery paperwork.  Hastings would jump into his roadster to get there as quickly as possible, without knowing even where he was going, and would collide with a bus full of nuns and children on their way to a Great War veteran’s event.  Poirot would solve the case by getting in the face of Hollywood executives (around a crowded circular room with many people listening to him) and the film would be cancelled.  And then Japp would drag The Imposter from his gilded hotel room at 3:34am in shackles to the Scotland Yard basement room known as “The Kiln”.  Where then Japp would grab the phone book and ask questions for seven hours such as “Well then, let’s see how many Fitzhugh’s live in Charing Cross?”  Followed by the screams.

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to Office Space is a verb

I watched four of my employees this morning struggle mightily with the photocopier like it was cavemen learning about fire. They fought the machine for a half hour before they got it to work again. This copier is brand new, and it already is failing. It’s a Xerox, who has been making copiers since 1959 and things still don’t work.

You’d think if they’d been making the same kind of machine for over six decades they’d have figured this sort of thing out. Nope! Everybody around the planet is still struggling with the same flaws, failure, frustrations, and fury. It’s almost like they build these machines poorly on purpose. So you can pay them for maintenance or have to buy a new one all the time.

Everybody wants to Office Space their photocopier. It will always be so. Aliens don’t even need to blow up the planet to take over. They just need to give every family on Earth their own copier. After one month of dealing with failure, we’ll be begging the aliens to become our overlords. Just as long as they destroy all copiers.

not complying with electronic equipment environmental disposal / destruction laws is the dream of every white collar employee

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Cena likes money

John Cena likes money. That’s about all you need to say in conclusion after watching his forced, hostage video-like, confession of crimes that would make even the most jaded of Community Party goons proud and open to tears.

I mean, you could take it to extremes and be like: John Cena hates democracy, universal human rights, and supports genocide. That would probably be accurate, but still at least a little over the top for what’s actually inside his brain.

But the reality doesn’t really get past the hard goal of coin. John Cena likes money. China has money Hollywood wants China’s money. Hollywood will do as China tells it. John Cena will do as China tells him.

You need look no further for other examples than LeBron James / entire NBA (who worship BLM, but who also somehow apparently don’t believe in universal human rights, but also love money) or Zucky (who still has a copy of Xi’s book on the desk inside his heart, and who also loves money).

One of China’s most effective weapons is not what it does, but what it makes money loving cowards do for them without prompting. China didn’t send a knife wielding goon to Cena’s house. Cena did this entirely on his own. It’s quite pathetic. Cena is a grown man allowing somebody he’s never met determine what he says.

You know I just watched Five Came Back by Netflix where it chronicles how Ford, Wyler, Capra, Huston, and Stevens basically left Hollywood to put their lives and careers on the line to defeat fascism. It cost them their bodies and their brains for the rest of their lives.

I guess if China invaded Taiwan, or China continues to exterminate an entire culture, or if China sank a few US aircraft carriers, Cena would have to apologize to China for all the trouble we caused them.

I think Cena, James, Zucky, and all these celebrities and tech goons think the rules are different now. That China is not Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany, or Soviet Russia. And so taking China’s money is perfectly fine. That they will do as they’re told, cash that check, and there couldn’t possibly be consequences.

They should tell that to their Muslim neighbor, particularly if they’re Uighur. Or maybe they can go on record and explain to America why they think Communist China is awesome, and how Democratic Taiwan is full of losers. In the meantime, it completely exposes them as money loving hypocrites who society should ignore, but won’t.

There is a very clear choice. China is not shy of describing what kind of world they want the 21st Century to generate. They’re not lying, it’s all very clearly put out there by Xi and his people. But these dudes have made a choice, and the choice is money.

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important people, get important awards, say important things

My Guests and I didn’t watch the Oscars and simply don’t care.  We love old movies and old Hollywood.  Now everything sucks.  So we don’t watch, and would rather examine different kinds of beach sand in a laboratory than learn who won.

The Oscars used to be alongside the Super Bowl as a much watch event for the whole country each year.  But that was decades ago.  I can’t fathom a human being who still watches this running joke.  Though I’m sure plenty of decent, good people do so for their own reasons.  Hey we all have our own guilty pleasures, folks!  Mine’s beer, and more beer.

Anyways, we’ve come up with some belligerent guesses on how all this played out:

1) Most of the awards went to obscure arthouse projects and actors for films that almost nobody saw or will ever see

2) The ceremony dragged on for a bloated five plus hours as these self-identified very, very important people stroke their own egos with delicious hot fry oil

3) A celebrity made it a point to show and/or state how rich they are compared to YOU, the poor shit eating masses

4) Various, multiple, one-sided, unneeded, petulant, militant comments were made about the current state of American politics

5) Conversely, no mention was made about China’s current, daily crimes, because Hollywood wants China’s money and supporting evil helps with that

6) One or both Clooney’s offered a remark that made the audience desire to shoot one or both of them into the Sun via giant clown cannon

7) Bogart’s ghost appeared on stage and stated deadpan, “I hate the lot of ya.  You’re not real people.  I wouldn’t ever have a drink with any of ya.”

8) A woman clutched the Oscar statue, and quoted 37 Me Too platitudes, all without understanding the same statue is still held without shame by an acknowledged child girl rapist

9) George Lucas showed up, and tried to get everybody to shake his hand so it could be remembered that he is, in fact, still alive

10) Militant anti-film luddites stormed the stage wielding plastic bats and proclaimed a return to a “Heroic Book Future” before being subjected to tasers

Fin

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adventure game please

So it got put out this week that Bethesda (a Death Star in its own right which recently got swallowed by the even bigger Death Star of Microsoft) has tasked MachineGames to make a new Indiana Jones game.

This could either go either way. If MachineGames can recreate their brilliance of the first three Wolfenstein games this will go great. Or, they could create a piece of garbage like their last game in Youngblood and mortgage any remaining relevance they have in the gaming community.

The last Indiana Jones game of any relevance was 28 freaking years ago with Atlantis. This was a game of its time, and when you go back and look at it, even though you enjoyed it as a kid, it now appears bat shit crazy, silly, and stupid. But at least it was fun.

Wolfenstein was a game where MachineGames could be brooding, dark, and awesome. I hope the Indiana Jones game is both good, and is an adventure game. Something lighthearted and fun, just like what made the movies special.

The coat hanger scene from Raiders quickly comes to mind. Where the evil Nazi guy barges in on Marion and that piece of shit Belloq. Nazi goon’s got a metal bar and they both think this stooge is about to mess them up, but it turns out it’s just a coat hanger. Here’s the video:

What a fun scene. It still makes me smirk, and I’ve seen that scene exactly 147 times.

This is the kind of feeling I’m looking for in the Indiana Jones game. May they not screw this up. Adventure game please.

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everybody died today

The news is a funny thing. Lots going on in the world, but especially people dying. I think today I saw the following people have commuted to Valhalla:

– Sigfried or Roy, I can’t remember which one, but I think this means both are now getting mauled by tigers in Valhalla as drunk mead swilling goons laugh at them

– Some Survivor contestant, which means one of like 3,487 people because for some reason that stupid show still exists

– Some actress that at least a few people have heard of that was on some show or movie I’ve never seen

I think that makes it about 1/5 of the news articles on the front pages of the news I read. I didn’t click on these articles, but there they were, in my face. And I wouldn’t say I read trash news or gossip or celebrity sites. I’ve got my beef with the media, but it’s not like I’m reading TMZ.

I’m not wishing for people to go, and it sucks when anybody dies. Well, unless you’re Hilter, Stalin, a card carrying member of Al Qaeda or ISIS, or if you love & religious profess Crossfit. But it doesn’t mean you deserve front page news when you check out to the next realm.

I mean when like Sean Connery checked out, that’s front page news. Same with Leonard Nimoy. Otherwise, back page please, let check out time come quietly for most.

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oh, Dune and Matrix 4 will go straight to streaming? wait, these things still exist?

Remember, everything is a remake or a sequel. Original ideas are for suckers. Dune and Matrix 4 will go straight to streaming instead of theaters.

This is like a mercy killing. It’s where you shoot a dying shark in the face after it gets mauled by a killer orca.

1) Matrix 1 might be in the top twenty of all time. Matrix 2 and 3 are terribly awful pieces of trash.

2) I’ve never understood the appeal of Dune. I worship science fiction like the loser nerd I am. I think Dune sucks. Kiss my ass low grade, confusing, science fiction trash.

If these flicks had made their way to theaters, they’d have bombed. So now they get relegated to the sin bin of straight streaming. But in a pandemic, it’s not banned from theaters because they suck, it’s risky, rule breaking streaming. Ooo, what brave movie production companies who ban their D grade material to the Internets only?!

Remember the pandemic movie debut of Tenent? Oh, Tenent was going to save theaters but somehow it bombed? Please. Nobody cares about Christopher Nolan anymore because his formula is the same and nobody is impressed. Hey did you know Tenent has a time travel plot?! WOW! I’ve never seen that in a Nolan movie before. I can’t imagine how it bombed, even during a pandemic.

Please, do not enjoy or even watch Dune or Matrix 7. Watch something new, even if it’s terrible. If it’s an original idea, it’s worth your attention.

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Unforgiven – welcome to reality, and misery properly portrayed

Misery on screen is a delicate balance.  Unless the director is insane, it’s a horror movie, a horrible movie, or you happen to be making just about anything modern for HBO or Netflix.  Did you know life is a big meat grinder?  I mean, you could die, like, right now.  Your favorite doggy or kitty is one heartbeat away from Happy Pet Valhalla.  HBO and Netflix are happy to remind of this.

Oh Amazon is in on the game too.  Did you enjoy the fun, excitement, and adventure of the original Avengers or Guardians?  I mean, before superhero films became bloated and impossible to watch noise factories?  Well, don’t worry!  Amazon is here to help you feel awesome with something called The Boys where everybody is evil and human life is expended faster than Zimbabwean currency.

We’ve discussed this concept before.  And we recently rewatched another movie that properly handles misery on screen, and it’s Unforgiven, and it’s a legendary movie.

I haven’t seen the movie in a long time.  It’s way better than I remembered it.  Hell you can’t go too wrong when you get Eastwood, Freeman, Hackman, and Harris on screen.  And with Eastwood behind the camera?  Sold.  Get these four dudes in a movie where they drunkenly argue over which used couch to buy and I’d still adore it.  It totally blows that Harris is gone and that the other three don’t have too many years left.  Fuck Clooney and his toolish modern ilk.  All these modern leading men are con man actors compared to these four masters.

Eastwood goes full on reproduction of his still awesome and classic Western roles.  The tone is a perfect other side of the same coin.  And yet, because Eastwood is a master and not a Hollywood tool, the film doesn’t come across as a pathetic, politically based, beat audience over head with a message disaster.  You can truly love Dollars I and Dollars II for what they are.  And love Unforgiven for what it is.  And you truly enjoy, understand, and agree with the messages of all three movies.

Eastwood will one day be missed as a director, in a way we can’t even imagine yet.  Even Sully, the most basic of plots that has a running time of 43 minutes, is a decent watch and well worth your time.  Eastwood is still directing, he’s gonna die on set.  It’s appropriate, a heroic way for him to go.  I just hope it’s a long, long time from now.