When the director tweets out (and later deletes) that the final film product is not what he originally intended or indeed created it's not the best sign. This could be a good old fashioned case of CYA and blamestorming. Or it could be God's honest truth. The best thing one can say about this film is that it is indeed quite not as bad as some of the more vitriolic responses have indicated. Nevertheless it is a bad film. It is not emotionally engaging in the slightest bit. It is a summer blockbuster based on a comic book which was never one of my favorites. But even by the low standards of "comic book" movies this film was flat. It was so flat that I don't want to spend a huge number of paragraphs explaining why. It's not worth my time, which has lately become scarce. And you would be bored before you got halfway through. If films like The Dark Knight, Sin City and 300 show that the best comic books or graphic novels can reflect timeless myths that come to amazing life on the big screen and compare favorably with literary prose, films like Fantastic Four show that weak source material combined with bad casting and worse direction can produce a film that is going to have to peddle itself furiously overseas to have even a remote chance of making its production budget back. The Good (this will be short) Some of the special effects were good, particularly Johnny Storm (The Human Torch) and Ben Grimm (The Thing). They actually looked real. You could feel the horror in being a rocky malformed well...thing, who will never know the ability to physically love a woman again. Sue's initial inability to control her access to the visible spectrum actually had pathos. Reg Cathey's work as Dr. Franklin Storm, father of Johnny and Sue Storm, is worthy of note. Cathey brought an admirable intensity to a role that was more than a bit hackneyed. I remember him from The Wire. Unfortunately in Fantastic Four he had little chemistry with either of his children but I blame that more on the writing than on him. And that's about it for the good that I saw in this film.
The Bad Where to begin? Well I could go on for a while here but as mentioned I want to be concise. I know this is supposed to be an origin story/reboot but the whole point of the Fantastic Four is that it's a family. Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm are feuding frenemies. Reed and Ben are best friends. Reed and Sue are a romantic item. Sue and Johnny are siblings who are extremely protective of each other. None of that came across in this film. Maybe all the acting in front of the green screen has limited some actors' abilities? I don't know but none of the four leads evinced any real chemistry with each other. You could see them trying sometimes but it just never came across. They looked and sounded like they were on lithium drips throughout the film. That was the film's biggest flaw. I was never ever ever ever able to lose myself in the film's reality. So if the actors didn't care, why should I? I know that Michael B. Jordan can provide better acting than he did here as Johnny Storm. Kate Mara can as well, for that matter. If Jessica Alba's Sue Storm was too brassy and offkey then Kate Mara's version too often fades into the background. I don't need to see another so called strong woman who beats up 30 men who are twice her size but in this film Sue Storm didn't have a whole lot to do. I suspect that much of that has to do with the source material but there are still things the writers and producers could have done to make the actress' story a bit more engaging. For example, a few "remember whens" between the Storm siblings might have helped.
Again I understand the origin story. I get that this film was based on a slightly different version of the Fantastic Four but dorky or not, Reed Richards is still supposed to be a leader of men. I couldn't buy the baby faced Miles Telleras any sort of leader of anyone. If he got into anyone's face it would probably just be to beg them to give his lunch money back. Doom(Toby Kebbell) had the arrogance and analytical nature of Victor Von Doom down pat but his reasons for turning to the Dark Side as it were were hackneyed at best and downright dumb if you want to be frank. I'm not a Fantastic Four comic book geek. Perhaps this is how it went down in the original source material but if so then they should have changed it for the big screen. Jamie Bell does ok as Ben Grimm but it's nothing to write home about. Basically there are no characters you care about. The story is one you've seen a million times before. And the film doesn't even try to hid the fact that monetary considerations were infinitely more important than any story it was trying to tell. This is a film you can safely skip seeing in the theaters. I wouldn't even advise seeing it on VOD or DVD. Wait until it's on for free and you have nothing better to do. There are one or two scenes of violence that would be more appropriate for a horror movie but most of the violence is well, comic book like. No sex and no cleavage IIRC. But it's not that any of that would have changed my opinion on this film. With the miscast Teller and bad chemistry among the cast, this film just didn't do much for me. I think the Fantastic Four story which was relatable in the sixties doesn't resonate today as it did then. Tim Blake Nelson slums as a oleaginous government doctor with a hidden agenda. Are there any other kinds? The ending is rushed and the big battle feels well, fake from beginning to end. Fantastic Four, with a few exceptions, was subdued and almost lifeless. Too much time was spent with heroes in the lab and not enough of them doing heroic things. TRAILER
I wrote before that Donald Trump is incredibly thin skinned for a man of such immense wealth. This was not any great insight on my part by any means. It's so obvious a blind man could see it. Trump does not take criticism well, sees slights everywhere and very quickly gets in beefs with folks over the most asinine things. Of course he or his supporters would say that someone who takes criticism well tends to get a lot of criticism. From this POV the best thing to do is to attack immediately and set expectations. I think Trump tries to live by the Office Space lawyer's advice passed on from his imprisoned client to "kick someone's a$$ the first day or become someone's b****." The other thing about Trump is that rather than attack someone's argument or theories he always attacks the person's intelligence, wealth, appearance or immutable characteristics. Trump did this most recently with Fox News personality and Republican debate moderator Megyn Kelly. In an interview with CNN's Don Lemon Trump made a dismissive reference to Kelly's period as a way of explaining what he saw as her undue aggression. He also retweeted a reference to Kelly as a bimbo. These comments, tweets and retweets all obviously caused some current and former Fox News personalities to attack Trump. Other conservatives have rescinded invitations to Trump to speak. I am loving this. It's amazing and amusing to me that a right wing movement that has said far worse things about the President, the First Lady and their children is now up in arms because of what Trump says about Megyn Kelly. Republicans already take it as an article of faith that President Obama is a man with no class. Heck, during the Democratic 2008 debates President Obama came under some criticism from fellow Democrats (wrongly in my opinion) for merely telling rival Hillary Clinton that she was "likable enough". I don't think the President would have been elected or re-elected if he were on public record telling anyone that the only reason some woman was attacking him or doing something else to annoy him was because she was on her cycle. Time will tell if these comments damage Trump's brand among conservatives. But they show that whatever else he is Trump is not a deep thinker or a man who is able to or willing to make intelligent arguments when faced with opposition. So maybe he is the perfect candidate for a Republican base that is increasingly filled with know-nothings.
I am reminded of that passage from The Return of the King, where Sam and Frodo, hiding from an Orc patrol, witness two Orcs arguing before one murders the other and runs off. Emerging from hiding, Sam cynically remarks if this sort of friendliness would spread around Mordor, half of the good guys' problems would be over. But Frodo cautions otherwise:
"But that is the spirit of Mordor, Sam; and it has spread to every corner of it. Orcs have always behaved like that, or so the tales say, when they are on their own. But you can't get much hope out of it. They hate us far more, altogether and all the time. If those two had seen us, they would have dropped all their quarrel until we were dead." Once this little intramural Republican sexism kerfuffle is over I am sure the Republicans won't have any new interest or understanding in changing how they talk about women or so-called women's issues. Fox News will continue to remain a bastion of barely repackaged racism and proud ignorance. And Kelly will continue to be a champion of that. It is what it is. After all, should Trump win the nomination, I am certain that Fox News will champion him against his Democratic opponent. Whoever comes out of the Republican gauntlet as winner is very likely to be hostile to some values which I hold dear. But for now, I am just sitting back and shaking my head. Ironically if Trump had taken the high road (LOL) and provided some reasons to support the argument that Fox News was trying to take him down, this whole controversy could have been avoided. But if Trump did that he wouldn't be Trump. One wonders exactly how Trump would know if or when Kelly is having periods. Does he have a special spidey sense for such things? And ultimately Kelly takes orders from Roger Ailes, like everyone else at Fox News. Will Trump go after Ailes?
"When you got an all out prize fight, you wait until the fight is over, one guy is left standing and that's how you know who won." -Al Capone from The Untouchables.
Today is the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. A few days later will see the 70th anniversary of the subsequent atomic bombing of Nagasaki. Each bombing immediately killed as many as 80,000 people in each city by most estimates. There would be many other people who would die later from wounds, radiation and cancers. The bombings finally convinced the Japanese Emperor Hirohito to drop most of his terms for surrender (over the vociferous objection of the military although like most so-called royalty being self-serving Hirohito requested to retain royal prerogatives). The other three conditions for surrender which the Emperor and the military leadership had previously insisted upon were (1) no military occupation of Japan (2) Japan would try its own war criminals (3) Japan would disarm itself. These conditions were obvious non-starters to the US though I would argue that the ensuing occupation was much easier than Japan had any reason to expect. In any event the idea that one bomb could destroy one city made a huge impact at the time and obviously in the decades since then. There were some people at the time of the atomic bombings who thought that they were unnecessary if not criminal in nature. These weren't just people outside of the military either. Whether for moral or other reasons some leaders within the military and political establishment weren't sure that the use of the atomic bombs was justified. Others saw no problem with using the new weapon. Surely it was no different than the first person using a gun against an overconfident swordsman. If you're at war and have superior technology you use it. The Japanese surrender made a US invasion unnecessary and thus saved American lives. Before the atomic bombings, the Battle of Okinawa lasted almost 90 days and saw unbelievably vicious fighting and atrocities by both sides, including rape and deliberate targeting of civilians. The US lost around 14,000 marines and soldiers while the Japanese lost at least 77,000 troops. From this battle, both sides took the lesson that the invasion of Japan would be something close to an exterminationist undertaking. Now counterfactuals are always just that. No one can say for sure what would have happened. Some people have accepted the narrative that the atomic bombings were war crimes for which the US should be ashamed. Others say that we must work to rid the world of all nuclear weapons.
A very very very long time ago I used to think that the atom bombs were indeed criminal and likely racist in their application. But that was before I read Slaughterhouse-Five and researched the firebombing of Dresden. And later on (in my dissolute youth I was a WW2 buff) I learned all about the firebombing of Tokyo. More people died in the Tokyo bombing than died in Hiroshima. Does it really make a moral difference if someone is immediately turned to ash by a nuclear device or is incinerated or suffocated by a non-nuclear bomb? I don't see that it does. And certainly a nation that committed the Nanking Massacre has no room to point fingers about civilian casualties. The decision of moral import is whether or not to bomb a largely civilian area (though there were a high number of soldiers in Hiroshima). Once that decision has been made, everything else is just details. War, particularly total war, can and does often devolve to starkly utilitarian considerations. If you can break the enemy's morale and destroy his industry you can prevent well armed and supplied motivated soldiers from showing up at the front. If the enemy has no vehicles or communication or oil or gasoline then he can't effectively fight. More of his soldiers die or surrender and more of yours stay alive. That's the theory anyway. After the war it was discovered that aerial bombing of civilians had less of an strategic impact than many people had assumed. It just terrorized people and made them angrier. Nevertheless the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki may have been the exception that proved the rule. Fear broke through the insane Japanese military code. Hirohito finally saw reason and surrendered, thus saving countless lives. The atom bombs were horrible events. We should work to make nuclear weapons unthinkable. The US needs to stop its addiction to war and cease its arms exports. Everyone on this planet should work for peace whenever possible. But in 2015 the US has no reason to think of Hiroshima or Nagasaki as criminal actions. Japan started it; the US finished it.
Everyone is the hero in their own life story. This hoary truism was very obvious reading the book Mob Boss, which detailed the life and career of the titular Mafiosi character, one Alphonse "Little Al" D'Arco. Despite the book's title, D'Arco was technically never the boss of the Lucchese Crime Family, a powerful criminal organization which dates back to at least the 1920s in its present form. But for a short time period D'Arco was indeed the acting boss while the actual boss and underboss fled underground to dodge arrest and trial. The underboss, Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, put out his own story a few years back in a book written by late biographer Phillip Carlo. In that book, Casso depicted D'Arco as an initially loyal bumbler who let the authority inherent in the acting boss position go to his head, becoming greedy. However Casso was a stone killer and quite likely, though the term is overused, a paranoid psychopath. He had a very loose connection with the truth. Casso is currently serving thirteen consecutive life sentences plus 455 years in federal prison. Like D'Arco Casso became an informant but federal authorities decided that Casso was simply too evil and untrustworthy (they caught him in lies) to use as a witness. So it goes. So D'Arco tells things as he saw them in this book. Many people who could contradict him are either dead or in prison. For what it's worth, Capeci and Robbins, two mob experts of long standing, say that they never caught D'Arco in a lie. Every organization has youthful prodigies and shining stars who blossom into consistent top performers in later years. They very quickly become leaders who are well respected for the wealth and status they bring to the organization. Every organization also has people who fervently search for every opportunity to do the least amount of work possible. These people spend their entire career getting performance reviews that read "...has room for improvement....not fully invested in the company's program....needs to reverse current trends." If there are ever cutbacks these employees are immediate and unanimous choices for termination. And finally there are people closer to the middle of the bell curve who are rarely close to being fired but who certainly aren't on the fast track to status and power either. This last is the group to which D'Arco belonged. Although he had a decent mob pedigree (both his father-in-law and blood relations on both sides of his family were noted mobsters), D'Arco hadn't had a meteoric rise in the Lucchese Family. He wasn't made (formally inducted) until he was fifty years old, in part because some other members of the Family weren't too impressed with his criminal skills. For much of his career D'Arco earned more money from legitimate businesses such as restaurants, food trucks, real estate and burger stands than he did from such ventures as labor rackeetering, hijacking, burglary, gambling, extortion and loan sharking that made up the bulk of his criminal portfolio. He was also imprisoned for some time, including a sentence for drug dealing, which he claims was a faulty charge. Although he claims to have been mostly opposed to drugs he readily admits to other drug deals. D'Arco is just adamant that the particular drug charge that saw him imprisoned was bogus.
After his second release from prison things started to look up for D'Arco. He joined the same crew made infamous in the Goodfellas movie. One of his friends, Vic Amuso, rose in rank within the family. After the Lucchese Family bosses were convicted they made Amuso and his dangerous partner, Casso, boss and underboss. Shortly afterwards, D'Arco was promoted to captain. As the Mafia is at its base a pyramid scheme, D'Arco's income jumped dramatically. These good times didn't last however, as being captain meant that D'Arco had to deal directly with Casso and Amuso, who were both, to say the least, somewhat erratic and greedy. It's questionable as to whether Casso or Amuso was actually the dominant partner. What's beyond question is that each man had long standing grudges against other Family members. And now that they were running the Family they had the power and authority to indulge their worst instincts. They did just that. Going underground they used D'Arco as their primary contact to direct an internal purge against informers real and imagined as well as against mobsters who had offended them, or more often, simply had a business that the underboss and boss wanted for themselves. The duo broke a lot of rules in their reign of terror, including the dictate against threatening and assaulting relatives of members. D'Arco says his disgust was growing but it wasn't until he realized he was next on the hit list when he decided that the time was right to flip. I thought this book was interesting if a bit too long. Mob Boss explained exactly how labor racketeering and various other crimes (white collar and otherwise) work. D'Arco is an Army veteran. He sees his time in the Mafia as similar because in both organizations it was a mortal sin to disobey an order. When D'Arco was commanded to arrange the murder of a good friend or to ensure that a murder victim had their body mutilated he might feel bad about it but he'd follow orders. The Mafia's highest imperative is that money flows up to the bosses. And it's probably a violation of that directive that sealed D'Arco's fate. D'Arco describes a charitable act which Casso saw as theft. No good deed goes unpunished. No one wants to get yelled at by his or her boss. When your boss is dropping people all over the United States, you definitely don't want to be in his bad books. Look for a fascinating aside on how the Mafia uses certain black so-called civil rights organizations as fronts to shake down contractors and construction companies. The book brought home how utterly different the Mafia reality is from the fantasy. In fiction the boss gives a private order to the underboss or counselor who does likewise with a captain who repeats this process with a soldier who then recruits another soldier or associate to do the deed. No names, no witnesses, no teams, and nobody talks. In reality the boss meets with various people to order a criminal action or murder. If the boss is as stupid as Amuso and Casso were, he might even pester people at the lowest level for gory details. And everybody gossips about who killed whom, when, where, and why. The criminal life isn't worth it, and this story shows you why. Today D'Arco is somewhere in the Witness Protection Program. Maybe he's living next to you.
Everyday there's someone else announcing his candidacy because he thinks he has what it takes to be President of the United States. I really do believe that one possible reason for this number of candidates is because some people think that if the black guy could do it how hard could it really be. I'm not 100% serious writing that. Not completely anyway. But for all the myriad disagreements I have and will continue to have with President Obama it is still in some aspects pretty amazing that the twice elected President of United States is a black man with a name that is utterly non-European. That's a big deal. And it is also a big deal that America might follow the election of the first black President with the election of the first female President. But on the Republican side because there is no incumbent to follow or obvious heir, much like GRRM's War of The Five Kings, people think why not me? That HAS to be the justification for long shot mopes like Bobby Jindal, George Pataki or Ben Carson, to name a few. It's like the lottery. Someone has to win. And you can't win if you don't play. And even if you lose you may not have to return all of the campaign contributions. You could parlay your new fame into a television or radio show. Perhaps you have a book you'd like to peddle.Or maybe you intend to be the loyal opposition/sparring mate for whoever eventually does win. Then you can get a cushy cabinet position in their administration. Then you just kick back and do favors for lobbyists for three or four years before cashing in your chips and becoming a lobbyist or tripling your salary at a think tank. On the other hand if you really are trying to win the race there are different paths to victory for candidates, especially Republican ones, in an America with a browning electorate. Some Republican nominees would attempt to run up the score with white voters, particularly among the hard right base. Other Republicans would seek to placate the base but reach out to white suburban college educated voters of whatever political background who may not have seething rage about illegal immigration or gay marriage but who are still worried about their children's economic prospects. And some Democrats might point to the party's dismal national standing among white men, especially Southern white men, and claim that they can reverse that to build a new broad based coalition. I don't know and neither does anyone else who will win their party nominations and ultimately the Presidency or which argument will resonate most strongly with the voters. I do know that this race is going to be wide open, perhaps a little more on the Republican than the Democratic side, though Sanders is currently showing a little more strength and staying power than Clinton would probably like to see.
Scott Walker
Why he can win The governor of Wisconsin could be the Republican Prince Who Was Promised. With the possible exception of New York City is there a region or area that is more closely associated with unions than the upper Midwest? I'm not sure that there is. The Midwest is where the modern labor movement was born and where it thrived for years. And yet, times change. Governor Scott Walker emasculated and humiliated public sector unions on their home turf. He beat them. He survived recall and was elected again despite the best effort of unions and sympathetic supporters. He took their best shot and is still standing. Unions are on the run. Walker's not stopping to rest on his laurels. He's going after tenure as well. His status as a college dropout may well endear him to some people who feel that overeducated Ivy League pointy headed elites are ruining America. There's no word as to whether this "aw shucks we's jus regular folk" schtick interferes with Walker's fealty to the MIT educated Koch Brothers. I'm guessing not. But in any event Walker greatly appeals to the "let them eat cake" cheap labor camp of the Republican capitalist class as well as to the resentful Republican proletariat who are often overcome with schadenfreude anytime a government worker loses his or her job, must take a lower salary or loses union rights. There was some data in the 2012 election that suggested that voter turnout in the Midwest among white conservatives was lower than expected. If Walker could reverse that he might make a few Midwest states besides Indiana turn red. And then it's anyone's ball game isn't it? Why he can't win Although he has started to walk the walk, as witnessed by his recent signing of the 20 week abortion ban, it's not really clear that Walker has always talked the talk around social issues which are dear to the hearts of conservatives, particularly in and around the Bible belt. On the issue of illegal immigration in particular he is a late convert. Some social conservatives feel used by the Republican establishment that whispers sweet nothings to them to get the vote but is really only interested in delivering things like low taxes and low regulation for their business class. Can Walker change any perception that he only cares about gutting unions? Jim Webb
Why he can win Webb is a throwback to years when the white vote, particularly the white male vote, was more up for grabs in Presidential elections than it is now. The world has changed however. In Presidential elections, Republicans routinely get 60%+ of white voters nationwide and much more in the South. But as we have seen that proportion is no longer enough to win the Presidential election. This has caused some internecine strife among Republicans. Some just want to ignore this and keep the same messaging. Others want to change messaging, if not policy, and try to woo away some winnable elements of the Democratic coalition. Others want to go full white nationalist and try to increase their percentage of the white vote, which is still by far the largest group in America. This Republican problem, viewed with much glee by some Democrats, also leaves other more conservative Democrats in a bind. But Webb may see this as an opportunity. If he attracts conservative/independent whites who are more interested in class and pocketbook issues than they are in ensuring that whoever makes the latest racist gaffe is suitably humiliated and shunned, then he can stop the Democratic losses among whites in Presidential elections. There is a nascent class consciousness among many working class white Southerners which usually loses to race consciousness. Webb could bridge this. Perhaps he can even win more than one or two Southern states. He's a combat vet, something fewer and fewer Presidential candidates are. And he wasn't just twiddling his thumbs. Webb put in work. He's got a Navy Cross, Bronze Stars, Purple Hearts and a Silver Star. He possesses foreign policy experience at higher levels as well, having served as Secretary of the Navy and Assistant Secretary of Defense. Why he can't win Yeah. I was just kidding. His run is just an exercise in self-indulgence. He's to the right of where the Democratic Party base is moving. Many of his most logical and likely supporters have probably identified as Republican or independent for years. It will be a heavy lift for both policy and identity politics reasons for Webb to make successful inroads with many Democratic primary voters. Although I understand his attempt to find nuance around Confederate Flag displays, again the people who would support him most passionately are already Republicans. John Kasich
Why he can win He's the other Republican governor from the Midwest running for President. He's managed to combine pragmatic conservatism with what he sees as good policy decisions to attract widespread support in his state. He won't easily be characterized as a mouth breathing goober who gets all of his information from AM radio. Like Walker, Kasich, would if nominated, try to provide a path to victory for the GOP through the upper Midwest, which has not yet undergone the demographic transformations which have turned Florida, Virginia and North Carolina into battleground states and placed California firmly out of reach. If the GOP can win Ohio it makes the electoral math much easier. Kasich's seeming reasonableness could entice some independents to vote for him, particularly if the Democratic candidate is lackluster. Why he can't win I was always told that if you graduated from Ohio State University it is a miracle that you manage to tie your shoes every morning let alone run for President. Ok, that's probably not a fair, accurate or nice statement, though I still would check to see if Kasich is wearing loafers. Kasich's problem is not that he hails from that state down south but that conservative as he is, he's not going to be conservative enough for the Republican base. Kasich expanded Medicaid in Ohio under Obamacare and has also supported Common Core standards. If he ever starts to get any traction in this crowded Republican field you can be sure his rivals will tell everyone about his positions. And that is when Republican voters across the nation will see that Kasich has a bit of a quick temper. Now if you aim your ire at the normal Republican targets, media, minorities, welfare recipients, etc. all will be well and good. But if you're questioning the morality of Republican opposition to Obamacare and calling opponents stupid, I'm not sure you get too far with that (unless you're Trump). Also the positions of moderate conservative and snarky sarcastic ill-tempered conservative are already held by Jeb Bush and Chris Christie. Kasich will have to take them (and obviously Trump) down, to get any sort of traction. Right now he's just a rounding error in the polls.
Something which unites some people on the hard right and on the hard left or nationalist black left is the desire to sneer at the removal of the Confederate Flag from such official public spaces such as the Columbia South Carolina Statehouse or from Texas state license plates. The usual line of "reasoning" on the right will claim that because removal of the Confederate Flag will not stop the horror of "black-on-black" crime or any other pathology which apparently only affects black people it is therefore a waste of time and (this part is important because it dovetails nicely with what many right-wingers think of black people anyway) STUPID for black people to spend any time or energy trying to get the flag removed from public spaces. After this seeming axiom is pointed out the right-winger will usually try to convince you that the Confederate Flag has nothing at all to do with white supremacy or slavery and for that matter neither did the Civil War and anyone who thinks otherwise is the real racist, not them. I think the people who try to argue this are either mentally slow or think that you are. On the left of course there are people who understand the symbolism of the Confederate Flag and do not initially seek to claim that it has no meaning of hatred or a very specific and ugly type of white identity politics. Nonetheless they usually wind up claiming that the flag is harmless and/or needs to be understood with some sort of nuance . Another form of left-winger, disproportionately found in academia or other bastions of so-called radical thought, will claim that the US flag is the flag that black people really need to reject. And then of course there is the "more radical than thou" type who is thoroughly convinced that unless and until we can undo, eliminate and repair each and every incarnation of racism, capitalism, sexism, patriarchy, homophobia, speciesism, transphobia, fat shaming, xenophobia, whiteness, nationalism, and any other "ism" you can think of going back to 1492 or before, then your protesting the Confederate Flag or being happy that there is a growing clamor to remove it from public spaces is just evidence that you're a brainwashed sap who's too quick to go for the okey-doke.
From this point of view you're watching people take flags down and thinking you did something while the power structure remains unchanged. Man you're stupid. Much like some of their counterparts on the far right, some people of the left really do enjoy believing that they're much smarter and thus more moral than the average putz on the street. This is not a political failing. It's a human one. Both of these critiques of people who are trying to remove Confederate Flags from public spaces miss the point. Each "argument" creates a straw man which is then thoroughly beaten. It's quite simple. The Confederate Flag is a symbolic "f*** you" to Black people. There are perhaps other meanings arguably but everyone knows, whether they want to admit or not, what the primary, secondary and tertiary meanings are. People don't like it when you insult them to their face, particularly when they're paying for the "honor". And by the way, the Confederates lost. Although many apparently disagree, I think it was a good thing that they lost. So the flag of the losers has no business being on the public space of the winners. If you want to wear your Confederate Flag belt buckle, wave it at your concerts, tie it to your pickup truck, knock yourself out. But it shouldn't be officially installed on state or federal property. And to those who argue that the US flag is the one we need to reject, the difference is that for all the evil that's been done and blood that's been shed in its name the US flag has the promise and possibility of inclusion and fair play. The Confederate Battle Flag does not and never did. The Confederate Flag is forever fixed in its meaning. Black people in the 1860s were not at all conflicted about which flag offered a better opportunity for advancement and recognition of their humanity. It is, public protestations to the contrary aside, possible for people to walk and chew gum at the same time. You can work to stop inner city violence, lower infant mortality rates, create better food and exercise options, stop police brutality, feed the hungry, assist the homeless or impoverished, prevent redlining, interrupt the flow of black people into prison, and STILL think that the Confederate Flag should come down from public display.
The House That Dripped Blood directed by Peter Duffel
Amicus Productions was a British film company that was actually owned by Americans. In many respects it was a Hammer Films ripoff. Well maybe ripoff is an unfairly harsh term. Rather I should say that the look and feel of the company's films were often similar to those of Hammer. This was made more so by the fact that apparently Hammer had neglected to sign many of its most notable stars to exclusive contracts so quite a few of them showed up in Amicus films. In this film for example, quite bountiful cleavage is provided by Hammer Films va-va-voom icon Ingrid Pitt. Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee also show up for to add their usual gravitas to the proceedings. The major difference between the two companies was that Amicus was much better than Hammer at producing interesting films set in the present day while Hammer of course tended to shine at period films, Regency or otherwise. This film is an interesting time capsule of the looks and styles of early seventies Great Britain. Anyway this is another film in a packet sent to me by my brother. I think it was the best of the films included therein. It's an anthology of four short stories all of which revolve around the titular home. Robert Bloch, the noted American horror author of Pyscho, wrote the stories and screenplay for this film. So there's quality writing, solid actors and decent direction. And the film is just a little short of two hours. So even the infrequent down times don't last very long. Despite the title there's very little depiction of blood shown in the movie. In fact I think there might not be any. So if you are the sort of person who avoids horror movies because you can't stand the sheer nastiness and explicitness of much of the genre, you might be interested in checking this out. Or on the other hand if you are turned off by the ubiquity of nudity, spurting blood, shaky camera work, jump cuts and crushed heads that have become common place in modern horror films you may be intrigued by a slower paced horror film that really presents itself as a mystery and avoids too many overt shocks to the system. The director had a background in television which turned out to work well with the episodic nature of this movie. The special effects are not so great and are not even state of art for the time. But there is a definitely a tongue in cheek feel to the proceedings, particularly when Pitt is on screen. Some of the cheesiness is probably quite deliberate. All the same, it's Bloch's writing and pacing which make this movie work.
Detective Inspector Holloway (John Bennett) is looking into the strange disappearance of an horror film actor. The actor was last seen in the house. The real estate agent Stoker (John Bryans in one of many shout outs to horror luminaries) has some strange stories to tell about the house. Despite his disbelief in anything that can't be quantified and enumerated, Holloway is willing to listen. Each story is opened and ended with Holloway looking less sure of himself and casting worried glances at the real estate agent. Could there be something really wrong with the house? Or are all of these incidents mere coincidences? Watch the movie and find out. Method for Murder Could it be that this story inspired Stephen King's The Dark Half? Dunno. I think Koontz might have written similar works as well. Anyway in this tale a horror writer (Denholm Elliot) is concerned that his fictional creation of a mad strangler named Dominic (Tom Adams) is actually alive and threatening both him and his wife (Joanna Dunham). He's hearing strange noises around the house and seeing things. His wife thinks that he's gone round the bend. She suggests rest and seeing a shrink. The writer starts to question his grip on reality. Does Dominic really exist? Is he Dominic?
Waxworks This story could be subtitled Eleanor Rigby were that song actually written about a man. But loneliness is hardly limited by gender is it. In this short, Peter Cushing is a desperately lonely gentle retired bachelor who has watched life pass him by. His only joys are listening to classical music and taking long brisk walks around town. It's probably not a reach to suggest that his long brisk walks are substitutes for other more pleasant activities he'd rather be doing but which require another person. Anyway on one of his jaunts about town he discovers a wax museum with surprisingly realistic figures. Cushing's character is entranced by the wax figure of Salome. This version of Salome looks like a woman he used to know. Cushing's character may be wistful about missed opportunities with women but Cushing also plays the role in a deliberately prissy fey manner. The leering owner of the museum (Wolfe Morris) seems to know more about things than he lets on while another man (Joss Ackland) tries to warn the Cushing character away from the museum while slowly falling under some sort of strange spell himself.
Sweets to the Sweet In almost all of his Dracula movies for Hammer, the late Christopher Lee didn't get to do much more than snarl, grimace and intone portentously. One could forget that he was a pretty damn good actor, as he often showed in his non-Dracula Hammer movies and here in "Sweets for the Sweet". This is a great little short which will definitely make you question who is the hero and who is the villain. John Reed (Lee) is an imperious dominant giant of a widower (Lee employs his full 6'5" height in most scenes) who appears to be needlessly cold, harsh and downright mean to his only child, his daughter Jane (Chloe Franks). Reed has employed a new tutor/governess for Jane, Ann (Nyree Porter). He doesn't care to explain his frigid parenting style to Ann or go into detail about why he forbids Jane to have any dolls or toys. This short is subtle and enjoyable. I think this was probably the best of the four shorts. Paternal authority is necessary but it can also be extremely frightening, especially if your father happens to be a sneering type who's quick with discipline and a cutting remark.
The Cloak This piece is the campiest of the bunch. It sends up Amicus, Hammer and some serious actors, e.g. Christopher Lee, who were occasionally annoyed at being typecast in what they considered work beneath their talents, like for example horror films. Paul Henderson (Jon Pertwee) is a famous horror film actor who has somehow fallen on somewhat hard times. Nevertheless the show must go on, not least because Henderson is too old to do anything else. So he's off to do another vampire movie. Still, although Henderson's annoyed at the crappy scripts, laughable sets and ridiculous special effects he's forced to work with, he's in his heart of hearts a true horror fanatic. He appreciates horror and knows the history. So when Henderson has the opportunity to increase his character's verisimilitude by purchasing an antique graveyard cloak from a rather disturbing shop owner (Geoffrey Balydon), he leaps at the opportunity. Things don't quite work out. Ingrid Pitt steals this short just by, well being Ingrid Pitt. She's Carla Lynde, Henderson's companion. She seemingly doesn't have much to do besides display herself but she's obviously in on the joke. There's a sudden shift from camp to attempted serious horror which didn't quite work for me. Fright Night did this sort of thing much better fourteen years after this work. All in all The House That Dripped Blood was a decent horror flick if you are a Pitt, Lee or Cushing fan or are just curious about how people made horror films before they could amp up the gratuitous sex and violence. TRAILER
