Movie Reviews-Lovelace, The Conspiracy, Bullet to the Head

Lovelace
directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman

It's tricky making a Hollywood movie about adult entertainment. The producer and/or director must decide if the adult performer is a victim/survivor to be pitied and helped or a low life scumbag who's responsible for their own decisions. Lovelace goes for the first interpretation. Linda Lovelace was an adult actress whose performance in the seminal film Deep Throat and skill at a certain sex act made her a household name in the early seventies. This movie kicked off an acceptance of a certain bluntness and crudity about sex, a penetration of mainstream culture by porn that is ongoing until this day. Strange as it seems now, Deep Throat was a pop culture phenomenon. Late night comedians riffed on it. The film uses actual news footage from that era. The New York Times ran ads for it!!! Roger Ebert reviewed it. Couples attended it together. Not being Travis Bickle I can't imagine taking a date to an adult movie but the mating habits of the early seventies species Citizenus Americanus were odd indeed. 

Lovelace is based on Linda Lovelace's (Boreman) autobiography, Ordeal. Linda denounced her past actions and claimed her husband coerced her into everything. She said her scenes were nothing more than forcible rape. Some people disputed those allegations. But Linda did pass a lie detector test regarding some statements in her book. Good luck trying to sort those claims out. Linda became a crusader against the adult industry who nonetheless later claimed feminists had used her as a tool for their own interests just like adult industry producers.

Unsurprisingly the film is sympathetic to Linda. Somewhat strangely though the film also (inadvertently?) softens Chuck Traynor (Peter Sarsgaard), Linda's abusive husband. Domestic abuse is an ugly frightening thing. But in this movie there is maybe only one scene that reaches the viewer with the emotional power of films like Things Behind the Sun, What's Love Got to Do With It, or Once Were Warriors. So even though the viewer will definitely hate Chuck I don't think that the directors succeeded in getting us to have the white hot searing level of visceral disdain, rage and contempt that we had for the male villains in the three other films mentioned. I'm not saying that you will feel sympathy for Chuck. You won't. But Chuck is a cipher. Why would Linda would be with him? His intelligence, swagger and ambition seemed very low. This film has toplessness, brief nudity and some violence.  I think this film might have played well on Lifetime or OWN. This was neither Wonderland, a frightening look at the scummier side of that industry via a brutal murder/robbery that adult actor John Holmes allegedly helped arrange, nor was it Boogie Nights, an overarching morality tale about the death of idealism, lost youth, family break up and the brutal imperatives of capitalism and misogyny.

In what seems like a hackneyed intro Linda Boreman (Amanda Seyfried) is a guileless girl who is already viewed with disappointment by her uptight distant judgmental mother (Sharon Stone). Her somewhat uninvolved father (Robert Patrick) is a WW2 vet and former cop. A chance encounter with a laid back Chuck Traynor at a roller rink leads to dates and rather outrageously Traynor pleasuring Linda in her parents' kitchen during dinner. Shortly after that they're married. Traynor owns a restaurant and club but he's obviously a pimp. The movie never explicitly spells this out but if you, like 99% of the viewing audience are smarter than Linda is depicted, you'll pick up on this quickly enough. After Linda bails Traynor out of jail because some of his employees were turning tricks in the parking lot, (completely without his knowledge of course) he tells her that they have no money left. Needless to say he has an idea. Linda Boreman becomes Linda Lovelace. He's been grooming her for just this sort of thing.

This film didn't emotionally engage me. I'm not a woman. But I've been around enough women to know that, generally speaking, a new bride would probably not look kindly upon her husband's suggestion, really more order, that she have sex with other people on film for money. Linda was initially ok with this. The film can't tell us why but it suggests that the ugly relationship Linda has with her mother might have been responsible. The first time we see the mother she's yelling at Linda. I wouldn't necessarily say her mother wore the pants in the family but apparently she was the one who disciplined Linda. The movie should have gone deeper into the complex family dynamics that made Linda ripe for exploitation by Traynor. Do people flee from one domineering relationship to another because that's all they know? Maybe. The film wasn't ultimately satisfying. It just lurches from scene to scene. Lovelace faithfully recreates the early seventies feeling of wide lapels, wah-wah pedals, poodle cuts, Cooper Black and Harlow fonts and anything goes sexuality. Seyfried does an ok job. She shows Linda's vulnerability. 

Lovelace brings in some big names in backing roles but you never forget that they're acting, except for Bobby Cannavale as a mobbed up film producer. Other actors/actresses include Hank Azaria (from The Simpsons but unfortunately he does not do the Chief Wiggums voice), James Franco, Chris Noth, Debi Mazar, Chloe Sevigny, Wes Bentley, Adam Brody, and Eric Roberts. Noth oozes understated menace as the paternalistic mafioso handling movie distribution. To an extent, he tries to look out for Linda. He's not fond of Chuck. This is okay viewing if you aren't expecting a masterpiece.
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The Conspiracy
directed by Christopher MacBride

I think I mentioned before that I have a soft spot for conspiracy theories and therefore a soft spot for movies about conspiracy theories. So I watched this film. This movie is a faux-documentary complete with lost footage a la The Blair Witch Project. It tells the supposedly true tales of two young filmmakers, Aaron (Aaron Poole) and Jim (James Gilbert) who decide to film a documentary on conspiracy theories and the people who promulgate them. They come to focus on the charismatic, honest, good hearted and quite possibly loony Terrance G (Alan Peterson), an evangelical conspiracy theorist who combines incredible and occasionally offsetting intensity with a rueful sense of humor. Terrance G is looking for the Unified Field of Conspiracy theories, something that will tie in 9/11 with the World Wars with the Kennedy Assassination and so on. He thinks there's a secret group behind these events.

As Terrance explains to his skeptical chroniclers, it's no good if only he knows the truth or if he's the only one searching. He thinks it's critical to share what he knows with other people so that maybe tomorrow one other person is convinced , a week later maybe two people are listening, a month after that maybe four people are listening seriously and so on. To that end he puts on his sandwich board, pulls out his trusty megaphone and trolls the streets for converts. This generally doesn't work. The film depicts this in a pretty sensitive, almost heroic, manner. It reminded me of the Jehovah's Witnesses who continue to show up on your doorstep with an earnest smile despite being rejected and/or insulted almost everywhere they go. Heck it brought to mind some hardcore socialists in my own circle of friends and family who are convinced despite all available evidence that the Revolution is at hand. Even though Terrance knows he will be mocked, spat at, harassed, insulted and possibly assaulted, he continues on.

One day, while conversing with Aaron and Jim, Terrance notices a man on a bicycle who he's convinced has been following him for weeks. He calls the man out. Of course Aaron and Jim think Terrance has lost it. But soon after that incident Terrance disappears. And his apartment has been ransacked. The police don't appear to be all that interested. Aaron and Jim retrieve some left over information and news clippings from Terrance's apartment. They start to look more seriously into what Terrance was doing. As is later explained in the documentary that was probably a bad idea. It's on the level of greasing yourself up with seal fat, cutting open an artery and going swimming with great white sharks during mating season sort of bad idea.
The film heightens the sense of paranoia by shooting closeup with handheld cameras and not introducing that many more characters. Names and faces of some characters are blacked out or redacted. Unfortunately the film's final third is utterly predictable but nonetheless it does share with us quite a few tense moments. It was somewhere between Eyes Wide Shut, They Live and Kill List. This was a low budget movie. It does combine some real life uncomfortable questions with flights of fancy. This was a passable film, not outrageously good but not bad. If you are open to the idea that there are secrets being discussed and elites with interests that aren't necessarily in line with your concerns you may enjoy this movie. Also if you have ever jumped both feet into doing something only to get a sick sense later on that things are going drastically wrong, you're in way over your head and you can't find your way home you may feel some empathy with some people here.
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Bullet To The Head
directed by Walter Hill

Sylvester Stallone mumbles and grumbles through another action movie. Would that the story were as impressive as his physique. Of course I don't necessarily look for great stories in action movies so there's that. Walter Hill needs no introduction of course. The man directed 48 Hrs, The Warriors, Red Heat, Last Man Standing, Trespass, Undisputed, and The Getaway. He produced Prometheus and Alien among other films. So he's a heavy hitter. This movie was in its way both a Western and a buddy movie. My issue with the film was something that was hard to initially put my finger on but became more and more obvious as the film continued to progress.

Stallone's character takes almost ALL of the good lines. He's shown as much more competent than his partner. He always has the last word in arguments with his partner. And he won't stop dropping snide little asides about his partner's race. This I guess is supposed to be ethnic banter showing their comfort level and how close they are but his Asian partner doesn't really give very much back. The co-star was supposed to be the (Caucasian) actor Thomas Jane but the producers wanted to have a non-white in the role to hopefully reach a larger (presumably overseas) market. So over the objections of both Stallone and Hill, Jane was dropped and Sung Kang was inserted. So I can't help but wonder if the decidedly secondary role and the racial stuff are deliberate digs not only at the actor but at the producer. Either way it didn't work. I think that if Jane had remained in the role the movie would have depicted more of a battle of equals. 

Anyway, Stallone is a well dressed New Orleans hitman named Jimmy Bobo. He works with his partner and surrogate son Louis Blanchard (Jon Seda). They've been together for about six years. On a hit assignment in a hotel room they take out a corrupt cop named Hank Greeley. Shortly afterwards they adjourn to a bar where they're supposed to get paid. While Bobo is in the can, Keegan (Jason Momoa, Khal Drogo from A Game of Thrones) who has been watching the duo decides to make his move. Showing great dexterity, he moves through the crowded bar and quickly kills Louis. He then follows Bobo into the bathroom and tries to kill him too. But Bobo doesn't like other men walking up to him while he's relieving himself and is on guard. A short brutal fight breaks out. Keegan escapes. Washington D.C. police officer Taylor Kwon (Sung Kang) arrives in town. Evidently Greeley was also former D.C. police who was known to be shady. In short time Kwon has sussed out Greeley's connection to Bobo and Blanchard and tracked down Bobo. He offers a partnership to Bobo which is eventually grudgingly accepted. The two men try to figure out who wanted Greeley dead and who is Keegan working for. 

Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Adebisi from Oz) has a meaty role as the Big Bad and Sarah Shahi has a predictable but delectable role as the babe who must be saved. She is Bobo's daughter and Kwon's love interest. Hello! Christian Slater is suitably slimy. The man just looks greasy. If you think of someone who is likely to stab you in the back Slater's face always comes to mind. There is a fair amount of nudity and lots of violence. However the violence is almost cartoonish. I don't mean in how it's handled. I mean the visuals don't quite look real. I did like how although both Keegan and Bobo are bad guys they also have a code. Each of them will get very angry when this code is broken. Momoa in particular seemed to be having fun with this. He's a pretty evil guy but he does have a sense of humor. However this wasn't a movie to see in theaters. It's definitely a free rental or a what the hell I'm bored type of film.
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San Diego Mayor Bob Filner: Bad Behavior

Perhaps you've heard about San Diego Democratic Mayor Bob Filner, who by all accounts makes people like Herman Cain, Elliot Spitzer, Anthony Weiner, Mark Sanford, Clarence Thomas and Bob Packwood look like gentlemen greatly concerned with women's dignity. He is currently being sued for sexual harassment by his former communications secretary. And I wouldn't be surprised if other lawsuits are upcoming. The man appears to have been a sleazebag. Filner's behavior towards women allegedly ran the gamut from simple pickup attempts or investigations of interest through unambiguous textbook sexual harassment to what could conceivably be called attempted sexual assault. Or as one woman ruefully told me it could just be another day at the office. There is a joke by Chris Rock in which he claims that "Sexual harassment is when an ugly man tries to get some". I can't really call it but Filner doesn't quite appear to be an Adonis. 

Some of the claims against Filner would seem to suggest that the man had been watching too many Benny Hill skits. I'm a HUGE Benny Hill fan but somehow I manage not to use a comedian's fictitious behavior as a guide book for interacting with women in the workplace. In the first place that would be wrong and in the second place I really really really need my job. I'm not getting fired for doing some dumb stuff like Filner allegedly did. I mean how do you explain that to friends and family. It's one thing to get fired because you stood up against some racist stuff going down or because you blew the whistle on some shady finances or illegal dumping. I would be proud of that. It's something else again to get fired because you grabbed somebody's butt. How do you explain THAT on a resume? All kidding aside, other claims indicate that Filner had been crossing some very clear redlines around sexual harassment or worse. Since men are traditionally the initiators, unless a man takes a chance and makes his intentions clear, things might not happen. The challenge is that different women have different ideas about which men they consider attractive, when and where it's appropriate to field offers of interest, and of course how direct or bold such offers should be. A woman may think that one man's crude approach is refreshingly direct, masculine and flattering and think that the exact same approach from a different man is creepy, degrading and actionable harassment. It all depends. You just don't know until you try. David Letterman evidently knew how to be smooth. Filner did not. 

However in today's legal and cultural environment it's usually, especially for men, a good idea to avoid making the workplace your happy hunting grounds. I've seen it work for some people but I've also seen others make a big mess. And more importantly than that it's CRITICAL not to hit on people that work for you. That's virtually the definition of sexual harassment. It's a big freaking no-no. Trying to make sex some sort of quid pro quo arrangement is also wrong. Filner doesn't seem to realize that. And obviously putting your hands on people is also just not done. Does it rise to assault? I don't know. The lawyers can answer that. But there are just some basic obvious things that anyone should know. Unless you have some sort of explicit invitation keep your hands to yourself. It is known. How difficult is this? If the women Filner harassed had punched or slapped him or their husbands, boyfriends or other male relatives had gone looking for him with bad intentions, I would think he got what he deserved. But aside from the obvious assault-like nature of some of the allegations, to give the devil his due, other allegations are simply a man trying (ineptly and crudely) to make a move. Headlocks and forceful kisses or grabbing someone's behind = unethical, immoral and illegal. Asking someone who doesn't work for you if she has a man or telling her that you think she's attractive and asking her out to dinner = normal life.

Her job was to escort Filner from table to table during the dinner. At one point, Fink said, an attendee singled her out for praise saying, "this girl has worked her a$$ off for you." At that, Fink said, Filner told her to turn around.
"As a staffer, I know it sounds silly to say that you just do it, but you just do it," Fink said. Once she'd turned, Fink said, Filner "took his hands, patted my posterior, laughed, and said: 'No, it's still there!'" For a moment, Fink said, she was in shock, "and it certainly gave the people at the table pause."

Read this account of thirteen different women retelling their experiences with Filner. Let everyone know what you think.

Was all of this sexual harassment?
Should Filner have been arrested/voted out of office a loooooong time ago?
Should Filner be recalled?
If you worked with someone like Filner (as a peer, subordinate, or boss) how would you handle him?

Ban the Box Laws-Needed or Not?

Let's say that you were going to hire a babysitter/choose a day care center for your children, nieces and nephews, or other younger relatives. Would you want to know if the person to whom you were entrusting your next generation had spent time in prison for assaulting kids? If you wanted to hire (male) security at a domestic violence/rape crisis center would you think it relevant to know that the 6-4 teddy bear of a man who earnestly says he abhors violence against women just did ten years in federal prison for kidnapping, raping and pimping young girls? If your pre-teen son needs a math tutor would you send him to the home of a math professor who's not only a NAMBLA member but twenty years prior was convicted of child sex abuse? If you run a cash business and need to hire someone to make regular deposits of thousands of dollars to various banks, would you be nonchalant about hiring a woman who was just paroled after serving time for embezzlement and has ties to gangs specializing in armed robbery?

I think that most of you would probably think twice about hiring those people for those positions, if you knew their previous history. It may not be anything personal. You may be making a mistake. But you'd still want to know what they did right? You may not care if the fellow you hired to paint your house has some misdemeanor marijuana convictions. But there are other positions (akin to the above) where greater trust or intimacy is required or the crimes are relevant to the job duties.

The honorable city leaders of Richmond, California have decided that if you're a private city contractor who employs more than nine people you can't ask ANYTHING about an applicant's criminal record, otherwise you'll lose your contract.


So checking into an applicant's criminal past is now illegal. There are exceptions for jobs considered to be "sensitive" or jobs where background checks are required by state or federal law.

RICHMOND, Calif.—City officials in this San Francisco suburb passed an ordinance this past week prohibiting city contractors from ever inquiring about many job applicants' criminal histories. The move in this city of 100,000 people, which is troubled by crime and high unemployment, is part of a growing national trend that supporters say is designed to improve the community's employment prospects amid wider incarceration.

Under the ordinance, approved by the City Council in a 6-1 vote and set to take effect in September, private companies that have city contracts and that employ more than nine people won't be able to ask anything about an applicant's criminal record; otherwise they would lose their city contracts. The ordinance is one of the nation's strictest "ban-the-box" laws, which are so called because many job applications contain a box to check if one has a criminal record. 

"Once we pay our debt, I think the playing field should be fair," said Andres Abarra of Richmond, who was released from San Quentin State Prison in 2006 after serving 16 months for selling heroin. Mr. Abarra, 60 years old, said he lost his first job out of prison, at a warehouse, about a month after a temporary agency hired him. The agency ran a background check and "let me go on the spot," he said. He now works for an advocacy group called Safe Return that campaigned for the ordinance. 

Others say the laws potentially endanger both employers and the public. "We have a responsibility to protect our customers, protect other employees and then the company itself" from potential crime, said Kelly Knott, senior director for government relations of the National Retail Federation, an industry group in Washington, D.C., which hasn't taken a position on ban-the-box laws but has cautioned against federal guidance that could limit how employers use background checks. 

Richmond, with a population of about 100,000, joins 51 other municipalities that have passed similar ordinances, many in the past five years.

I'm not sure that this is a good thing. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand the US and its constituent states put too many people in prison. California is currently being forced by the federal government to release people from prison because of overcrowding. It would be useful both on a macro level both from a humane and a pragmatic perspective to ensure that these people get meaningful employment. That helps reintegrate them into the community and hopefully cut down on recidivism. 

But if at work I sit down at the "wrong" lunch table and a co-worker has a flashback to his San Quentin days and responds accordingly, after I get out of the hospital I might want to discuss with my firm and a civil jury why this savage was hired in the first place. I remember attending a party hosted by a lady quite close to me. Unbeknownst to us both someone else had taken it upon themselves to invite a friend who was just recently released from prison. His crime? Armed robbery and theft. Is that the sort of person you want roaming around your home?

There are some jobs where a criminal record is mostly immaterial to the work being done. There are others where a criminal record is quite relevant. I think that that decision needs to be left up to the employer, with only modest input from the state. I don't think that an arrest record or even a misdemeanor record should be able to be considered. But felonies? A possible employer needs to know about that. It's not like we have a labor shortage in this economy.
Obviously the elephant in the room is race. As we've discussed before the criminal justice system is racially biased at every level. Black people are disproportionately represented in the system. We must take steps to address this and deal with the consequences. This is why I'm against stop-and-frisk, the War on Drugs, racist police, snide bullying prosecutors and judges, armed bureaucrats, no-knock warrants, three strikes laws and a federal criminal code that has expanded almost exponentially since the sixties. I think that once you've served your time you should be able to vote again period. We also know that a white person with a criminal record has an equal or better chance to be hired than a black person without one! And we know that the EEOC is suing two companies for discriminating against black people by utilizing criminal background checks.

All that said, however there is a difference between someone who went to prison for driving without a valid license and someone who went to prison for stabbing someone in the neck. If I'm an employer I need to know the records so I can make the appropriate decisions. In the WSJ article a woman who spent six months in prison for arson states that she campaigned for the new law. Sorry but again, if I am looking to hire someone, I would really like to know if they're going to burn my company down. This is an excellent example of where the individual and group goals may conflict. On a group level I want and need responsible ex-cons to be productive members of society. On an individual level? Ehhh....




What do you think?

Should employers be able to use criminal background checks for applicants?

Should employers be liable if an ex-con they hired engages in criminal activity at work? 

If you believe in background checks for purchasing guns why not a background check for a job?

Book Reviews-Fear of the Dark, Joyland

Fear of the Dark
by Walter Mosley

Often when people operate at a consistently excellent level for a long time other people come to expect that and take it for granted. So in order to impress they can't just do their normal great work. They must go above and beyond to get people to see them in a different light. I had a boss once who told me that in pretty much those exact words. Maybe she was telling the truth that day in my performance review and maybe she wasn't. All the same though there is something to be said for getting used to excellence. I was reminded of that reading both books listed here. If you are familiar with the authors these books aren't anything new. Of course if someone else had written them I'd be raving about the strong new voice and colorful characterizations. So it goes. For me it was like sinking into a favorite comfortable broken in chair. Good story telling makes me happy.

Fear of The Dark is the second (?) in the series featuring mid century Los Angeles reluctant amateur sleuth and bookstore owner Paris Minton and his buddy, the debonair, dashing and downright dangerous Fearless Jones. As usual Paris is minding his own business (technically that's not quite accurate as he is also trying to mind the business of Jessa, a Caucasian woman who likes black men and likes the short con) when he's pulled into a world of trouble.

Paris is in his bookstore when his shiftless cousin Ulysses stops by. He's in bad trouble. Except for his mother, no one likes Ulysses. He uses people. He lies. He always has a big plan that fails. He won't pay back favors or money. Everyone calls him Useless. The last time Paris saw Useless, Useless hid stolen gold in Paris' bathroom without Paris' consent. The suspicious Paris checked the bathroom. He found and moved the gold, right before some highly unpleasant encounters with the police and an angry gangster. He's upset to see Useless. Paris is not interested in the desperate Useless' invocation of blood ties or his impassioned plea that he really needs aid. Paris shuts the door in his cousin's face and moves on.

But he can't move on because Useless disappears. Paris doesn't care. But Useless' mother arrives on Paris' doorstep, looking for her son. She knows Paris saw him. She wants his help in finding Ulysses (she always uses her son's given name). Paris dare not say no to Three Hearts because not only has his aunt always been kind and loving to him but she is also believed to have the evil eye. People who upset or annoy her seem to come to bad ends. Paris is not overly credulous but he's not in a hurry, even in 1956 Los Angeles, to go up against Louisiana hoodoo.

So, needing backup, Paris calls Fearless, who is now body guarding bail bondsmen. This kicks off an adventure across the greater metropolitan Los Angeles area, one that is full of gangsters, tough talking dames, whores with hearts of gold, racist police, horny lawyers, insurance scams, blackmail, and commentary on race, class and gender relations. Paris is more aggressive than in the first book. Fearless remarks that he thinks that Paris is the tougher of the duo. Coming from Fearless that means a lot as Fearless maintains his street reputation as a stone cold killer and defender of the defenseless. Fearless' aura as a man not to be f***** with is never more clear than when Fearless and Paris ask a favor of Bubba Lateman, who also has a certain reputation. Bubba has heard about Fearless but seems unimpressed. He asks Fearless what Fearless would do if Bubba ordered his killer wolf-dog to rip out his throat. Fearless calmly replies that it was a beautiful dog but that if it jumped him he'd snap its neck like a chicken. And then he'd proceed to teach Bubba a lesson that he'd carry down into his coffin. After a tense moment Bubba starts to laugh. I loved that scene.

There's another point when Paris is reading alone in the park. Thinking that he must be up to something, being black and all, police stop by to harass, insult, and search him. Frustrated and confused that Paris is not a criminal and they can't legally prevent him from being where he is or doing what he's doing they try to bait him into physical confrontation. It was quite reminiscent of this scene from real life. Some things don't change.

As before there's plot complexity as many different people are involved in Useless' plans but it's very engaging writing and moves quickly. The book runs about 300 pages. Despite relative cowardice, Paris has no problem with the ladies. There are two different femme fatales and three to four other major women characters. Paris is involved with three of them.




Joyland
by Stephen King

In a happy accident as I was finishing Joyland last weekend I ran across this profile of Stephen King and his family, most of whom are also writers. You should read it if you're a King fan. Good stuff. Anyway Joyland is King's second(?) book for the Hard Case publishing house, which has made a niche for itself publishing crime novels, shoot-em ups, and revenge stories, either done in the style of the old pulp masters or actually written by some of the old pulp masters. The covers, as you can see, are often lurid and erotically charged. It's supposed to remind you of the dime store novels from the fifties and sixties.

Well Joyland could be described as a crime novel or detective novel if you like but it's is just as much a coming of age story, a story of a writer looking back at his life, a trip into nostalgia, a screed against the unfairness of this world where children die of cancer while Dick Cheney keeps on going strong, and of course a ghost story. King knows just which buttons to push and he does it so well that you forget that this is fiction. You get totally immersed into his world. Reading this book I almost felt compelled to simultaneously listen to Same Auld Lang Syne or American Pie. There was a very strong mix of wisdom, love, regret, nostalgia and hope mixed into this book, just like those songs, in my opinion.

The book jumps around in time but perhaps it's something that happens to us when we get older, as the narrator is. Some physics I've read suggests that time is only an illusion and that past, present and future are all one. Maybe that is the case. The narrator goes from present day describing the recent death of a close friend to detailing in present tense the day he met that friend in 1973.

It's 1973. Devin Jones is a college student, a virgin, who is madly in love with his classmate Wendy Keegan. However what's apparent to the reader immediately but unfortunately doesn't become apparent to Devin until much later is that Wendy has friend-zoned Devin. She doesn't mind messing around with Devin but certainly won't do THAT thing with him. As summer break approaches she stops spending time with Devin, is vague about her locations and has her roommate answer his phone calls. Eventually, once Devin's at his new summer job, while he's pretending not to know what it means that Wendy's roommates openly laugh at him when he calls or that Wendy never calls him, he gets a "Dear Devin" letter explaining what everyone already knew.

King writes:

"I never saw Wendy again...There wasn't even a final phone call filled with tears and accusations. That was on Tom Kennedy's advice and it was probably a good thing. Wendy might have been expecting such a call [from me], maybe even wished for it. If so she was disappointed. I hope she was. All these years later, with these old fevers and deliriums long in my past, I still hope she was. Love leaves scars."

Devin's new summer job is at Joyland, a North Carolina independent amusement park/carnival. Joyland is almost defiantly old school carnival. It is not corporate owned. It lacks modern rides and events. In fact it's a struggle each summer for Joyland to stay in the black financially. But Joyland does have loyalty from its workers. Against the odds Devin finds that not only does he like the work but that he's good at it, especially the draining and dangerous task of putting on a dog costume in hot southern summers and entertaining the kids.

But Joyland has secrets. A ride is supposedly haunted. A few Joyland employees have unusual abilities which the thoroughly skeptical Devin can't entirely ignore. But it's when Devin meets Annie and her chronically sick son Mike, that he's inspired to look further into the history of the Joyland ghost as well as a string of murders that have occurred across the southeast. Devin also makes friends with fellow college students and co-workers Erin Cook and Tom Kennedy. Sadly for Devin, the beautiful Erin only has eyes for Tom, but unlike Wendy, Erin is honest.

This is a very good book. There are no gross out scenes in it. Supernatural elements are very muted. I hate to keep going back to this as an example but once again this story reminds me of what I think of as King's masterpiece "The Last Rung On The Ladder". Joyland is not about things that go bump in the night. It's about the darkness in the human heart. Pick this one up. It's just under 300 pages.

Iowa Police Beat Woman Shoplifter

There's no excuse for violence against women. We hear that theme constantly in society today. There are public and private messaging campaigns dedicated to telling men just that. However the real saying should be "There's no excuse for violence against women...unless you're a cop". Just ask admitted shoplifter Brandie Redell, who after being caught stealing in a Davenport, Iowa Von Maur department store, was treated to an apparently unprovoked and vicious beating when either her words or demeanor set off the police officers who were detaining her. I am not overly fond of cops for precisely these sorts of incidents. Of course no one is perfect. Who among us hasn't been angry enough to lay hands upon someone at some point in our life? Anyone can temporarily lose it. That is the state of the human condition. No my issue is that it's precisely because society authorizes police officers to detain, arrest, use violence against and even kill people that police activities need to be completely above board.

If a husband threw his wife a beating, gave her a black eye and damaged her eyesight because he claimed she bit him or was looking the wrong way at him or was clenching her fists, would anyone really give him the benefit of the doubt? Probably not, especially if the man was much larger than the woman and armed to boot. And if video evidence surfaced that showed that the man was actually the one who initiated the violence, well then the man would stand revealed as a liar. In today's environment he'd probably have some civil if not criminal issues to address. But if you're a cop, then you have a get out of jail free card as prosecutors will ignore the video and supervisors will downplay the apparent policy violation. After all you should be believed over a shoplifting white woman that evidently hangs out with black people. Watch video below.

As you can see the video contradicts the officer's claim that he hit Brandi Redell after she bit him. He has to walk to her in order to initiate contact. Is is possible that she bit him, ran over and sat down before the video started recording? It's possible but doubtful in my opinion. It appears that just as Redell stated, she and Officer Crow were engaged in some sort of verbal back and forth when the police officer lost his patience and decided to administer some street justice right then and there. And the reason the officer may have lost his patience? He could have just lost his temper. He might have just learned that his dog died. It could be racial animus and sexualized jealousy. Of course no one really knows but the officer involved. But in this country you'd be foolish to automatically dismiss the last as reasons.

Redell, who has two previous shoplifting convictions, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of shoplifting and is due in court on Aug. 23.She told CBS Chicago that the beating appeared to be triggered by a call she made to her boyfriend to ask him to pick the child up. The boyfriend, James Gibson, is a community activist who has conducted race sensitivity training with police. Redell said that when one of the officers heard his name, he told her "This is going to get ugly, real quick."

There is no audio on the surveillance video. "I don't think the police were really thrilled that a white woman was calling a black man for help, especially one that they already weren't fond of," she told CBS.

Davenport's Police Chief Frank Donchez said his department's investigation didn't find any evidence of racial bias. "Our policy says you are to conduct yourself in a professional manner." Was he within policy? No. Do we need to conduct an internal investigation? Yes," Donchez told CBS.

LINK

Men are often neutral to negative to one of "their" women shall we say "frolicking" with some man of a different race. That rightly or wrongly appears to be hardcoded in a lot of humans. So perhaps Officer Crow saw an opportunity to lash out against a woman who was not only giving him lip as he saw it but was sleeping with the enemy? I don't know. But I do know that traditionally a male role is to provide and protect. It is one of the worst insults to someone to harm their family, particularly a wife, mother, sister, daughter or girlfriend. Officer Crow's alleged statements would seem to indicate that Redell's connection with Gibson may have set him off. We've written before about tiffs between men and women. I don't like to see them. But arguably if a woman initiates physical confrontation she must be at least cognizant of the possibility that the man will respond in kind. Is it right? No. But it's life. In this case, at least from what the video shows, I don't see the woman initiating physical contact. It's the men. And it's quite cowardly to hold someone down while someone else beats them. Evidently Officer Crow is a real Billy Bada$$ in a fight, as long as he's punching a woman that's being restrained. Needless to say the prosecutors refused to file charges against Officer Crow. The Davenport Police Department has so far not fired the officers involved.

We've also discussed before with our two fine attorneys who blog here, The Janitor and Old Guru, about when a citizen may defend themselves against illegal police activity. Their general consensus IIRC was that the best bet was to just try to survive the event and do battle in court. That's good advice. However there are some police officers who delight in brutalizing citizens under cover of law. Such people are bullies. I'm not sure they deserve the respect or deference normally given to officers of the law. Eventually cops like that are going to try that tactic with someone who has nothing to lose and doesn't give a rat's a$$ about their badges or guns. Obviously no one condones shoplifting. Redell needs to go to jail for a while until she learns not to steal. Someone should have told to her as I've heard before "I can buy anything in this store. But if I can't buy it you don't need it. Don't ever steal." But the sentence for shoplifting or talking on the phone is not a beatdown in a backroom in front of your child.

What are your thoughts?

Did Redelle get what she deserved? Could this be justified if the officer told her to get off the phone and she refused?

Is this a clear case of police brutality?

Movie Reviews-A Band Called Death, Only God Forgives

A Band Called Death
directed by Jeff Howlett and Mark Covino

The story of the punk-rock band Death is one that I'm not sure could have been written as believable fiction. Three black brothers from Detroit were playing punk before the Ramones, Sex Pistols, or several other punk bands. I had heard of this group before. I have their long out of print cd. I didn't review it here because I'm not a huge genre fan. Nevertheless this documentary is worth watching. I liked seeing some familiar Detroit landmarks and hearing about some classic 1970s Detroit area music names. I wouldn't necessarily say this was a sad tale but it is a sobering one because Death never fulfilled its musical potential. For every musician who writes songs the whole world wants to hear and becomes a multi-millionaire or billionaire there are thousands of others who must put their dreams on hold and find jobs as janitors or fall into substance abuse. However after a long period in the musical wilderness Death is making something of a comeback. 

Death had its beginnings among the younger three brothers of the close knit Hackney family. All of them were musically inclined. Their parents encouraged them to follow their dreams. David Hackney, the oldest in that section of brothers, was a fan of the 60s and 70s hard rock groups. He became an acolyte of a hard edged guitar sound that took its cues from musicians like The Who, Jimi Hendrix and Grand Funk Railroad. As he and his brothers had been taught unity above all else he convinced them to join him in a power trio. They practiced incessantly and loudly, around the neighborhood and at home. This music was NOT popular within their community as David made almost no concession to traditional blues, soul, funk, jazz or early rock-n-roll. He was interested almost exclusively in what neighborhood critics called "white boy music". He liked to play fast, hard and above all loud.

Eventually the band, which is to say David, decided to call itself Death. The film elides over how much live/paid work Death got. I'm thinking it wasn't that much. Death had a very unpolished sound. Of course YMMV. Bobby and Dannis Hackey reminisce how the band's name and to a lesser extent, the band's race made it difficult to find local gigs. Persevering, Death eventually obtained a record deal with Groovesville/United Sound, a local Detroit area recording studio and production company that was primarily engaged with soul artists. After a lot of rejection, United Sound was able to contact Arista record mogul Clive Davis, who heard the band's master tapes and liked them. He agreed to a record distribution and promotion deal. This could have put Death on the fast track to fame and fortune. There was just one requirement. Like most other music industry big shots Davis didn't like the band's name. He wanted the band to change it. David Hackney refused in quite profane terms. For him the band's name, concept and music were all connected. As he told his brothers if we let them change the name that would be giving ownership of our soul. His brothers weren't crazy about the decision but supported their older brother. But that ended their initial involvement in the music industry as Death. Davis withdrew his offer. United Sound decided to find musicians who actually wanted record deals.

The band Death would disappear for the next quarter century. Ultimately Bobby and Dannis would move to Vermont, meet Peter Tosh and reinvent themselves as a reggae and later a gospel group. David stayed in Detroit, brooded and fell into bad habits. It wasn't until one of Bobby Hackney's sons fortuitously heard a friend raving about a mysterious old school Detroit rock group that Death would reform. Musicians such as Questlove, Alice Cooper, Henry Rollins, Vernon Reid and Kid Rock talk about Death. The film is bittersweet. It has interviews with the two surviving original Death members and several of their family members. It details their ups and downs, loves and losses, their frustrations with life and even occasionally their brother David, whom they love and miss terribly. As they point out consistently, throughout the documentary, one of the last things David did before leaving this earth was to hand them the Death master tapes for safekeeping, predicting correctly that someone would come looking for them some day. Even if you're not a fan of this music this documentary is as much about family as it is punk rock. I certainly saw echoes of my family in this story. You also might do so. This movie made me think that you should try to avoid regrets. Let your loved ones know what they mean to you today.
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Only God Forgives
directed by Nicolas Winding Refn

This film was a hot mess. I don't necessarily mean it was no good at all but the director was obviously interested more in visuals and style than he was in telling a story or actually ensuring that actors and actresses had dialogue. Upon thinking about it some more I'm not willing to say it was a s*** sandwich with a cherry on top, which was my initial viewpoint. This is done by the same man who directed Drive. Just as in that movie he evidently wanted his star Ryan Gosling to give a minimalist performance in Only God Forgives. The problem here is that almost everyone else in the film also gives a minimalist performance. So there is no hero or heroine to hang your hat on. There is a LOT of bloody violence. Also the film continues what seems to be a trend of bringing Freud back to the forefront as an explaining factor for people's (or at least men's actions). Maybe Freud was right. It's not like Freud wrote Oedipus Rex or Hamlet, to name just a few Western works that touch on actual or sublimated incest as a motif in socio-sexual development. He just put together some of those things into a theory. And incest is, if not explicit in this story certainly implicit. The protagonist's mother first greets him with a hug that is anything but motherly. She attempts to shame him into action by speaking dismissively of the size of his manhood as compared to his brother's. One wonders how she would know that. The two come across as more embittered ex-lovers, which I think they must be, rather than mother and son. The mother's relationship with each of her sons appears to have been complicated.

Another director would have made this into a standard action/revenge flick. Refn went for something else. I don't think it quite worked for me but it was different at least. Gosling has only a handful of lines. The movie felt like a silent film.

Julian (Gosling) manages a Bangkok, Thailand boxing club. Some fights are fair; others are fixed. The club provides thugs for and is a money laundering front for the drug import-export operation overseen by Julian's older brother Billy (Tom Burke). To say that Billy is unstable is an understatement. After the conclusion of a match Billy is desirous of rough sex with a prostitute, the younger the better. He is turned away by a few pimps until he finds one willing to give him what he wants. The sex is not shown but the aftermath is and it's ugly. Billy has raped and murdered the underage prostitute. For whatever reason Billy doesn't seek to escape. He is still there at the scene when the quiet and serious police Lieutenant Chang (Vithaya Pansringarm) arrives to handle the matter. Chang's a very hard but brutally fair man whose idea of justice might be looked upon approvingly by Tywin Lannister. He allows the girl's father to beat Billy to death. However, disgusted by the fact that the father pimped out his own flesh and blood, Chang later amputates the man's hand as a reminder to be a better father to his remaining children. Chang is never without his trusty short sword (really more of a machete). Chang is also equally devoted to his family and karaoke.

This incident brings Billy's boss, his and Julian's mother Crystal (Kristin Scott Thomas) to Bangkok. She's a racist, foul mouthed, cold eyed, mean, sexually charged drug baroness who can't believe that Julian hasn't already taken revenge. Julian looked into it but refused to act when he found out his brother's actions. Crystal could care less about the "yellow n*****s" as she calls them, saying only that whatever Billy did he must have had his reasons. Crystal constantly tries to manipulate Julian into doing something (maybe something of a more intimate nature as well). But as boss she is also quite comfortable ordering Billy's crew to put people in the ground. The rest of the movie goes on from there but again the story and plotting are very weak and virtually non-existent other than what I've outlined. This is a dreamy surrealistic flick full of neon colors and fantastic sets. Dreams, flashbacks and reality combine and confuse both the viewers and the characters. I've heard that Refn, who also directed Valhalla Rising, had a similar visual style but better story in that film. I may have to check it out. Bottom line with this film though was that it was strange. Thomas and Pansringarm give the best performances. But their work was almost was wasted here. Do not see this if you are expecting Gosling to give a well, driven, performance. But if you just like watching Gosling this movie might be up your alley.
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Attraction, Fetish and Racism: Asian Girlz and Day Above Ground

Human beings (especially the male variant) are visual creatures. If we see something that we like then we either make it known that we are available or inform that person of our interest in the culturally appropriate manner. Everyone has slightly different preferences. If you favor red hair and a relative lack of melanin you'll probably look first in one subgroup of humanity. If you prefer a lot of melanin you'll look in another subgroup. Whether via inertia, deliberate political/romantic decision, lack of opportunity or childhood cultural imprinting most people wind up with folks from their own particular subgroup, however defined. But humans have always mixed and always will mix. There's nothing wrong with this. Some people even prefer people who are not from their group. I don't automatically think this is bad. It depends on the reasons. There's a thin line between having a preference and having a fetish. There's an even thinner line between expressing admiration for a certain subgroup's real or imagined particular characteristics and reducing a member of that group to a sexual stereotype. Saying I like Black women is one thing. Saying I like Black women because they just want to get f*****d all night is probably something different. 

The band Day Above Ground recently crossed that line between preference and fetish with the song "Asian Girlz". This five minute song listed every stereotype about East Asian women. The song may have been meant as a satire on some non-Asian men who do indeed fetishize Asian women. Angry people could be missing the point entirely. Or it could just be 100% racist crap. If it was meant as satire, which I'm not sure of, it didn't work. Levy Tran, the Vietnamese-American model who acted in the video gave an apology.

I'm so sorry once again to anyone who was offended by the video. It wasn't at all the intention. I truly apologize
— Levy Tran (@MissLevy) August 1, 2013

I sincerely apologize to all who feels that I set Asian women back 50 yrs. I know I lost respect from a lot of ppl. It wasn't my intention
— Levy Tran (@MissLevy) July 31, 2013

Check out the video and one funny response to it below. Both videos are slightly NSFW. There is no nudity but there's implied sex and sexually explicit language in the first video and profanity in the second.

One man's response

Thoughts?

Was this satire gone wrong?

Is this the most racist song you've heard?