Movie Reviews: Dirty Weekend, Kill The Irishman, Bad Teacher

Dirty Weekend
directed by Neil LaBute

OK judging by this film Matthew Broderick may need to do some running, cut back on the carbs and hit the weight room. But you could say that about a lot of people couldn't you. Father Time eventually catches up with us all.There are very few people in their fifties who look as they did when they were in their twenties. Perhaps I am just a little taken aback at watching an actor I long identified with youth or young adulthood move into AARP eligible status. Oh well. It happens to everyone if we're lucky enough I guess. Alice Eve continues to take quirky roles which downplay her physical attributes and show a gift for snark and comedy. Nevertheless I didn't like this film all that much. There is a much anticipated twist that while it doesn't come out of nowhere (it's all but shouted out in the first twenty minutes) was sufficiently odd enough to put me off the film. YMMV but this wasn't really the movie I was expecting. I kept hoping that the film wasn't going to go where I thought it was going to go but it did just that. If this film were a basketball player it could be said to have faked left and went left. This is a film which occasionally gives the impression both from casting and the cinematography that it was directed by Woody Allen. Of course as it turns out this movie was directed by Neil LaBute, who also directed such films as Your Friends and Neighbors and In the Company of Men. I didn't know Labute directed this film before I started watching it but as soon as you listen to the characters talk it becomes supremely obvious who created this film. LaBute has the ability to produce some incredibly emotionally harsh scenes, something which, at least in the two other movies mentioned above, caused some people to dismiss him as a misogynist and/or misanthrope. That trait is somewhat muted in this movie. Nevertheless Dirty Weekend could still come across as an unpleasant Seinfeld episode or a less restrained Woody Allen film. I did like the introductory 60s style colorful credits with the smooth jazz soundtrack.

American Les Moore (Broderick) and British woman Natalie Hamilton (Alice Eve) are sales executives for the Los Angeles branch of an (IIRC) unnamed business conglomerate. Les is the duo's senior member but it's not clear that Natalie actually reports to him, as deference doesn't really inform their relationship at all. The two workers are taking a business trip to Dallas which becomes unavoidably delayed in Albuquerque. Les is a whiny little nebbish who virtually defines the term passive aggressive. Nothing is ever his fault. Self-centered Les tends to see the worst in people. He also has a verbal style that makes you wonder why someone hasn't punched him in the mouth yet. After five minutes with Les, even Gandhi would be looking for some brass knuckles. Les insults people without even thinking about it. Buttoned up Natalie is marginally less irritating but has a superiority complex about American conversation styles in general and in particular about what she sees as Les' cold emotional style and moral hypocrisies. Once they're stranded, Les almost immediately tries to ditch Natalie so that he can go into the city alone. Natalie finds this suspicious both because it is suspicious and because she feels that they need to remain together at the airport to catch the next available flight and arrive in Dallas. Natalie doesn't feel capable of doing the sales presentation by herself even if showing up Les would be a highly beneficial competitive side benefit. So to Les' barely concealed annoyance, Natalie stays close to him. And Natalie notices things about Les. She may not say too much but there's not much she misses.

Neither co-worker knows the other very well but it rapidly becomes apparent that both of them, especially Les, have some secrets which they'd just as soon not share with the other person. And both people initially feel morally superior to the other for what appear to be different reasons. There is something to the old joke that two women can work together for one week and end up knowing each other's detailed personal, romantic and medical histories while two men can work together for one decade and be oblivious to details of each other's lives other than marital status or sports team affiliation. This movie plays with that a bit as Natalie surgically drills down to bring out Les's hidden fears and secrets. From a combination of revenge, self-defense and possible actual interest, Les tries to do the same with Natalie. As with many LaBute films Dirty Weekend feels very stage like. With only a few exceptions the film is very static. Broderick and Eve have almost all of the dialogue. The other characters only speak in order to help us learn something about Les or Natalie. There is often an artificial stilted nature to the verbiage. My issue was that I simply wasn't interested in Les or his problems. Dirty Weekend is not really a light humor sort of film though I suppose for LaBute it may be as close as he cares to come to such fare. I'm leaving aside the trailer as it reveals the film's primary twist. This film may have been more transgressive had it been made two decades ago though I still wouldn't have cared for it all that much. You may feel differently. If you're unfamiliar with LaBute's work I guess this could be a dip into the shallow end of the pool.




Kill The Irishman
directed by Jonathan Hensleigh

Although you would never know it from most Hollywood crime movie output, organized crime existed and thrived outside of cities like New York, Boston, Philadelphia or Chicago. The syndicate was nationwide. Everywhere you go there are people who like to gamble, consume illicit substances or buy goods with no sales receipts. And everywhere you go there are people who enjoy hurting people, are too lazy to work for a living or want to lend money at higher rates than the law allows. Kill The Irishman tells the tale of such people in the city of Cleveland during the fifties, sixties and seventies. In particular it tells the real life story of Irish American labor leader/mob leader Danny Greene (Ray Stevenson). Greene, as played by Stevenson, was something of a likable nut. He was a Irish history fanatic who drove a green car, dressed in green clothes, and painted the walls and steps of his union office green. For a mobster he was quite well read, often relaxing by perusing works by famous Irish poets and authors. Even more unusually Greene was a health and fitness enthusiast who eschewed alcohol, tobacco and meat. He regularly jogged and exercised. But of course one doesn't get a street rep in the Cleveland underworld merely by being a well read vegetarian who knows a lot about his ethnic background. Although Greene had a long standing disdain for Italians that probably went back to his experiences being bullied at high school, he nonetheless often worked with them in his loan sharking, extortion, labor racketeering and other criminal ventures. Greene makes a name as someone who is not to be trifled with. Greene gets to know Cleveland Mafioso John Nardi (Vincent D'Ononfrio), a frustrated middle manager who doesn't like the current Mafia hierarchy much more than Greene does. The unlikely duo become close though that doesn't prevent either of them from cracking friendly and sometimes not so friendly slurs about the other's background. When Nardi loses an internal power struggle for leadership of the Italian crime group both he and Greene are upset.

But when the Cleveland Mob tries to take over all of Nardi's and Greene's businesses the two friends resist violently, kicking off a mob war that will have far reaching and permanent repercussions for all sorts of different people. This should have been a better movie. The casting is pretty good, with the exception of Val Kilmer's wrong turn as a police captain who attended school with Greene all those years ago. You will recognize a great many character actors and big name actors who often show up in mob movies, including but not limited to Paul Sorvino, Christopher Walken, Mike Starr, Tony LoBianco, Steve Schirripa (Tony Soprano's hapless brother-in-law), Robert Davi, and Vinnie Jones. Linda Cardellini and Laura Ramsay are Greene's wife and girlfriend, who get to see a more tender side of him. Fionnula Flanagan is Greene's crusty old widow neighbor who initially dismisses him as a dumb thug but later gives him a religious token and urges him to remember their Irish ancestors. This movie wants to be Goodfellas so badly but it can't. And it can't because the budget, special effects and ultimately writing fail to support a more than decent cast. Because the Cleveland Mob war was fought with bombs as much as with bullets the low budget really detracts from the story. And although I loved his work in Tombstone, in this movie Val Kilmer is charisma free. His intrusive voiceover detracts from the film. I wish someone would remake this movie with about 4 or 5 times the budget and do it right. There were a few too many times this looked like a made for TV film. Stevenson did really good work here. He plays Greene with a real twinkle in his eye. He's a tough guy but is rarely depicted as a mean guy. Greene showers the neighborhood with food and gifts at Christmas and Thanksgiving. He is kindly and chivalrous to women. Greene goes on television after a failed attempt on his life to give his enemies his address and dare them to try again (this happened in real life). Stevenson's Greene is a real man's man. He enjoys loyalty unto death from his friends and love from his women (well one woman anyway). Fun fact: much if not all of this movie was shot in Detroit because present day Cleveland had changed too much from the sixties and seventies to be believable in a movie depicting that time. Walken's minimalist offbeat acting style is a delight to watch here although he could probably do roles like this in his sleep. This was an okay film but not necessarily one you should seek out unless you're a genre fanatic. Obviously there is violence but the camera glides over such scenes quickly. There is no close up lingering over bloodshed.
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Bad Teacher
directed by Jake Kasdan

This movie was thoroughly predictable but in a good way. It was funny. It's a reverse Cinderella. Instead of a poor but honest girl being mistreated by maleficent female rivals and winning the heart of a prince the movie imagines a foul mouthed lazy golddigger middle school teacher Elizabeth Halsey (Cameron Diaz) whose first, last and only goal is to marry a man who earns more money than she can spend. If you're not a man who fits that criteria the only thing you can do for her is tell her which way that rich man went. And if you are a remotely attractive single woman then you just need to stay out of her way. Plain or ugly women can hang around her as long as they realize that it's Elizabeth's world. They're just living in it. Elizabeth can be very nasty to rivals and unconsciously patronizing to just about everyone else. Having failed to snare a NBA player for marriage or failing that child support (she's foiled by their assiduous practice of birth control) Elizabeth thinks she's finally hit the big time with upcoming nuptials to a rich heir. But in a theme that's repeated throughout the film women are a little quicker to see through Elizabeth than men are. Elizabeth's would be mother-in-law demonstrates to her son that Elizabeth cares nothing about him, only his money. Elizabeth doesn't even know her future husband's birthday. Well that ends that relationship. Elizabeth must go back to her day job as a middle school teacher. She had just recently ostentatiously quit the job. She's a horrible teacher. Saying she doesn't care about her students gives her too much credit. If she's not sleeping in class she's giving the students movies to watch instead of doing any teaching at all. Elizabeth is not a motivated or dedicated teacher. Another teacher, Amy Squirrel (Lucy Punch), who is quite motivated and dedicated, starts to become more and more annoyed by Elizabeth's open lack of professionalism and crass behavior. This dislike erupts into outright hostility when both women try to put the moves on the new substitute teacher, Scott (Justin Timberlake), who just happens to be from a very rich family. It doesn't help matters that Scott apparently likes top heavy women, which Amy definitely is and Elizabeth is definitely not.

So the film's balance concerns the romantic rivalry between the two teachers, Elizabeth's inappropriate teaching methods, a crush that a gym teacher (Jason Segel) has on Elizabeth and growth by Elizabeth and Amy, who discover that in some aspects they might be mirror images of each other. Neither woman is happy to learn this. You can see something ugly in Amy's personality pushing its way to the surface via Punch's nervous expressions and crazy eyes when she's sharing a scene with Diaz. Good stuff. There's a fair amount of slapstick comedy. I love that stuff. Don't look for deep musings about the meaning of life or thoughtful writing. This is pure low comedy. It doesn't try to be too much more than that. And it works. Punch is British but you wouldn't know it here because her American accent is pretty good. John Higgins is the harried school principal who just wants everyone to leave him alone. Diaz does a great job portraying Elizabeth's initial indifference to and even horror at the idea that other people can make demands on her time and her feelings. If you need to relax and laugh without needing to concentrate too much this is a good movie to watch.
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Illegal Search or Unreasonable Citizen: California Family

Below the break you will see a video of a family declining a vehicle search by some sort of California Agriculture inspector. They are later pulled over by California State Police and arrested. The proximate cause of the arrest was the driver's (Brad Feinman) refusal to accept a ticket or provide identification. Of course once the police broke the vehicle window and hauled the family out, they searched the vehicle anyway. This video was hard to believe. Not because of the escalation of force by police officers. That part was easy to believe, especially the part where the Caucasian-American police officers did not immediately shoot or beat or tase the Caucasian-American citizens. No what I didn't know is that apparently the State of California has taken the power upon itself to search, excuse me, inspect vehicles entering the state. This appears to me to be an end run around the Fourth Amendment. It's being done under the bailiwick of the Agricultural Inspection station but to me it doesn't really matter why it's being done or under what supposed authority it's being done. I think it's wrong and should not be tolerated. What sort of country are we living in if government authorities can just search your vehicle without warrant or probable cause anytime they want to do so. Now there are smarter people than I and people who know the law much better than I who read this blog. I would be interested in knowing what they thought of this. But ultimately it doesn't matter does it. If someone is asserting authority to search your vehicle merely because you're entering the state and/or look suspicious it seems to me that California is giving a huge middle finger to the Fourth Amendment and associated civil liberties. This, among other reasons, is why I think the security apparatus that has grown up around airline travel post 9-11 is so pernicious. There really is no reason why such (VIPER) procedures can't be put into place for travel by train, bus or as we saw here, automobile. 

The idea that the search is "voluntary" because you don't have to enter into California seems to me nonsensical. Why not just get rid of the Fourth Amendment entirely? After all, imagine how much crime the state could deter or prosecute if police officers could enter your house any time they wanted to search it. Would I have done what this man did?  Would you have? I don't like needless confrontation, but I hope that I would have the stones to stand up. But is it my right to endanger a wife and child? I'm positive that a higher level of state violence would have been used against me and mine MUCH earlier in the process. I'm as sure of that as I am that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. So who can say what I would have done. As the song says you have to know when to hold them AND know when to fold them. I think that the citizen decided not to comply with any of the requests because consent at any point would seem to reduce his chances of fighting it later in court. But again I am not a lawyer. Maybe my fears and irritation are unwarranted and these "inspections" are just fine legally and constitutionally. If so then we need to change the laws and the constitution. Anyway, check out the long video below and share your thoughts. You may think that the man is a jerk or a zealot. You may think that he's playing with fire. I don't say no to that. But something is wrong if any state or federal agent is asserting a right to search your car without some sort of probable cause. And it seems to me that's what's happening. The video starts in real time roughly at 1:32.

NYPD Assaults James Blake

As you may have heard former tennis star James Blake was wrongly detained by the NYPD when he was mistaken for a suspect in an identity theft ring. That in and of itself is not a big issue. Police and witnesses make mistakes all the time. No the big problem was that rather than being questioned first and THEN detained or arrested by a uniformed or otherwise identifiable NYPD police officer (which could have cleared up any misunderstanding immediately) James Blake was rushed by undercover police officer James Frascatore, grabbed by the neck, assaulted and forced to the ground. The officer did not identify himself. I'm not aware of the exact particulars of self-defense laws in NYC but presumably if strange men assault you in public you do have the right to defend yourself. If Blake had tried to defend himself of course the officer would have shot him and felt piously justified in doing so. Plenty of people, some with good intentions, many more with bad ones, give advice to black men on how to avoid unnecessary confrontations with police. Some of that advice is worthwhile. Most of it is utterly worthless. Here we have Blake literally minding his own business in Gotham before being assaulted by a public servant (who apparently has a track record of violent and abusive policing). There is nothing that Blake should or could have done differently to minimize his chances of being attacked. He was a black man and that was sufficient. Of course it's not just race. It's also class. Can you imagine anyone accusing a Caucasian American business owner or lawyer or other perceived/actual paid up member of the 1% of a non-violent crime and having the police execute a violent takedown? Of course not. Heck, even Mafia bosses with platoons of killers on call don't get treated like James Blake was treated. To add insult to injury the person who police thought was the initial suspect wasn't involved in the alleged crime of identity theft. The NYPD commissioner issued a mush mouthed apology but the union is defending Officer Frascatore. Just another day in the US. It is surreal. Once again, I must admit that Cliven Bundy and his supporters weren't wrong about everything. If the people tasked to enforce the law routinely brutalize people under protection of the law, what recourse does a citizen have?








James Blake Statement:

Just before noon on Wednesday, September 9, 2015, while I was standing on a sidewalk outside my hotel in midtown Manhattan waiting for a car to take me to the U.S. Open, a plainclothes New York City Police officer tackled me to the ground, handcuffed me, paraded me down a crowded sidewalk, and detained me for ten minutes before he and his four colleagues realized they had the wrong man.

The officer, who was apparently investigating a case of credit card fraud, did not identify himself as a member of law enforcement, ask my name, read me my rights, or in any way afford me the dignity and respect due every person who walks the streets of this country. And while I continue to believe the vast majority of our police officers are dedicated public servants who conduct themselves appropriately, I know that what happened to me is not uncommon. 

When this incident was reported in the news media, Mayor de Blasio and Commissioner Bratton both called me to extend their personal apologies, and I greatly appreciate those gestures. But extending courtesy to a public figure mistreated by the police is not enough.As I told the Commissioner, I am determined to use my voice to turn this unfortunate incident into a catalyst for change in the relationship between the police and the public they serve. For that reason, I am calling upon the City of New York to make a significant financial commitment to improving that relationship, particularly in those neighborhoods where incidents of the type I experienced occur all too frequently. The Commissioner has agreed to meet with my representatives and me to discuss our ideas in that regard, and we very much look forward to that meeting.
Frascatore's History

Who is a girl: Lila Perry, Tolerance and Acceptance

I don't really care how a person chooses to live their life. That's their business, not mine. I tend to be a live and let live kind of person. I don't know what happens after we die but I figure that you're the best person to decide what is right for you just as I am the best person to decide what is right for me, within certain limits. But it's that last little disclaimer where so much that is controversial can be found. What are the limits? Where are they? Most people would agree that the limits would be where some form of harm occurs. When you impact someone else's life, liberty or safety negatively is where your rights to live freely stop, or at the very least must be weighed against other considerations. One of the reasons that the American gay marriage or to use proponents' preferred terminology, marriage equality, movement was so successful in such a short period of time was because it was extremely difficult if not impossible for opponents to argue that they would suffer any serious harm as a result of gay marriage being legalized. This was especially the case in a social milieu in which marriage itself was roundly derided by many as being little more than a paper and in which ever increasing numbers of children are born to unmarried parents. If you don't like gay marriage, don't marry a gay person was a blunt but effective rejoinder to most of the objections raised. In a framework that recognizes individual rights and the above theory of harm there simply wasn't the language available to counter that idea. However there are places where just because something is tolerated or even legal doesn't mean it must be accepted. We've discussed some of those instances before. Dragooning photographers or caterers or bakers to provide their services for gay weddings may be legal or constitutional but it is also something that starts to make me a bit uneasy. 

And the next step sought by the "T" membership of the "LGBT" coalition is something where I think I would jump off the acceptance bus entirely.  Almost 200 high school students in Missouri walked out of their classes to protest one a transgender student in senior year being allowed in the girls' bathroom. Members of the Hillsboro High School in Hillsboro, Missouri, ditched two hours of lessons to object to Lila Perry, a 17-year-old senior, being granted access to female bathrooms. Perry, who started identifying as transgender earlier this year, was using the female facilities to change for gym classes, which upset many other girls at the school.

Just because you decide that you are a woman doesn't make you a woman. Just because you decide that you are a man doesn't make you a man. If you have XY chromosomes and a penis, you aren't a woman. You can dress up like a woman. You can put on a wig. You can wear high heels. You can attempt feminine grooming styles. You can try to walk or talk similar to whatever your own particular stereotypical vision of a woman may be. I couldn't care less. We all have our own issues to work through. But when you try to force other people to accept and relate to you as a woman that's when I say get the bleep out of here. 

We have separate locker rooms and bathrooms not because of gender bigotry or hatred but because of privacy, modesty and in some cases safety. I think it's asinine and extremely offensive, as Perry does, to compare racial segregation to restrooms marked "ladies" or "gentlemen". Perry can take his martyr complex and shove it someplace unpleasant. I do not think it is in any way fair to force everyone else to lose their modesty because one person has what amounts to a mental disorder. This is particularly the case when we're talking about children. The rights of the other young women need to be valued here. They should have the right to change without a male being present. They shouldn't be forced to validate Perry's fantasies. Building or allowing this young man access to a gender neutral changing area and/or bathroom is a reasonable accommodation. Trying to force everyone else to bend the knee to a rather radical view of human sexuality and biology is neither reasonable nor workable in my view. When you cast things as a zero-sum game, which is what this has become, you will get a fight. I don't think anyone should hate or discriminate against anyone else based on their sexuality or how they identify. But don't tell me that 2+2 = 5 and that I'm a bigot should I disagree. In a time where "bullying" gets a lot of attention it's ironic that the schools and the federal government are forcing or in other words bullying teen girls to get undressed and use the facilities in the presence of someone who is, despite his delusions, not female.
LINK

Music Reviews: Freddie King: Going Down at Onkel Po's

Freddie King
Going Down at Onkel Po's

Late great Texas born bluesman Freddie King was one of my favorite musicians. He was a huge man at 6-6. King had a literally larger than life expressive baritone voice. Obviously King was best known for his exciting guitar style. King easily bridged the gap or in some cases was the gap between the post BB-King lead style electric blues and the blues-rock and funk of the late sixties and early seventies. King had a very aggressive guitar sound, shaped in part by his very large fingers and somewhat anachronistic country blues style usage of a thumbpick and index finger pick. Unfortunately King died tragically early at 42 from ulcers and pancreatitis. Like many blues musicians King's best work was done live. However, as with many other artists whose lives were cut short before they could put all of their musical and financial houses in order, King's discography was marred with posthumous live releases that to put it mildly, were utter crap. Some musicians found it very difficult to regularly produce high quality live releases. Just because someone happened to be recording at a concert didn't necessarily mean the concert was intended to be commercially released. There were many Freddie King bootleg releases which featured out of tune guitars, inaudible or occasionally overly booming bass, microphones that were too close or too far from the amplifiers, questionable mixing levels or other sonic issues that marred the music. And when you worked as often as Freddie King did, (a typical year could see him doing 300 performances or more) it was almost inevitable that there would be some off nights where the band was flat, poorly recorded or just uninspired. It just happens. As something of a Freddie King completist I own many of these releases, to my chagrin. Sometimes it seems as if every last single fly by night recording/publishing company put out a Freddie King concert release under many different names. To make things worse, often times these releases would cover the same concert or concerts, occasionally dropping or adding a song so that the company could claim that their release was unique. Purchasing or even bothering to listen to much of this stuff can leave you feeling akin to Charlie Brown immediately after Lucy has pulled away the football for the ten billionth time. All day sucker.

Fortunately "Going Down at Onkel Po's" is not a middling Freddie King release. This is a concert at Hamburg's Carnegie Hall from a seventies Freddie King German tour. The first thing of note is the overall sound. The bass can actually be heard, although probably writing that the bass can be felt, would be more accurate. The band is tight on this recording. I don't know how long the two men played together but on this night King's drummer was blues/soul great Calep Emphery, who was a fixture with fellow blues giants BB King and Little Milton. Emphery brought back both swing and simplicity to King's music, giving it a pulse and drive that was critical to a listener's enjoyment. The second guitarist steps out on slide from time to time while the rest of the band, including Freddie's brother on bass, provides some entertaining and occasionally surprising rhythmic accompaniment. There aren't any horns here but additional punctuation and chordal background is provided by two keyboardists. But make no mistake, this is the Freddie King show all the way. James Brown may have been the hardest working man in show business but there was a reason that some people called King the Texas Cannonball. He gives it everything he's got and then some. King here employs a very thick bassy feedbacky guitar tone that hits you hard right in your gut. As it is a live release with no producers telling King when to stop almost all of the songs run a little long, usually about 4-5 minutes, instead of the normal 2-3 minute run time. Some of them go much longer than that. 56th and Wichita rambles on for 10 minutes while Stormy Monday runs for 16 minutes and change. YMMV with some of these extended sets. King was not a jazz musician and couldn't do what they can do with additional space. Not everything on here is a home run. On the other hand, Ain't Nobody Business goes for about 7 minutes and I could listen to it for 20 minutes. King's voice speaks to me. 

So I guess what I would say is that if you're a Freddie King fan or are just curious about electric blues this is definitely worth your time. This was what modern blues sounded like circa 1975 or so. This was before blues had become preservation hall music. There are a tremendous number of nods to and quotes from the popular rock, soul and funk music of the day. That makes sense because Freddie King had developed a great deal of the vocabulary that then current rock, soul and funk musicians were using. The other thing that I liked is that as with many blues guitarists of his generation, there was always a lot of space and dynamics in King's music. This is a 2 CD set and can be found in many different places for reasonable prices. The below video covers a little less than 1/2 of the concert.

Movie Reviews: Zipper, Taken 3, Northmen: A Viking Saga

Zipper
directed by Mora Stephens

What makes a man go crazy when a woman wears her dress so tight/ It must be the same thing that makes a tomcat fight all night -Muddy Waters "The Same Thing"

Why must I feel like that/ Why must I chase the cat/ It's the dog in me, nothing but the dog in me. -George Clinton "Atomic Dog"

Woman I can tell what's on your mind/ Cause I can see the lovelight shine/ You're wanting me to settle down and quit all my rambling around/ Oh woman this heart of mine just loves one day at a time/ Tomorrow is a brand new song and I might be moving it on -Jerry Reed "Let's Sing Our Song"
People have written billions of words detailing the differences great and small between men and women and debating whether such divergences are primarily cultural and environmental or instead mostly biological and hard wired. I lean more towards the latter explanation in most circumstances but that's neither here nor there. Culture and biology often reinforce each other so it can sometimes be difficult to tease out which is what. What's important is that for both genders but apparently more so for men, sex is a primary and necessary drive for which much will be risked. Unfortunately Zipper doesn't have a whole lot to say besides the obvious but it looks good doing it. There are too many politicians and celebrities to mention who could fit into this fictional story but I guess the most obvious parallel would be to former NY Attorney General and Governor Elliot Spitzer. Tiger Woods also gets a filmic shoutout. But you can probably just pick up your local newspaper and find someone who reminds you of the characters in this film. I wouldn't say the cast of Zipper is slumming exactly but they have done better things in the past. 

Zipper (and there's not a whole lot of subtlety to that title is there) tells the story of a charismatic and telegenic South Carolina assistant federal prosecutor named Sam Ellis (Patrick Wilson). Sam has the look and attitude of a man who's going on to bigger things. He's made a name for himself going after corrupt politicians and bringing down the hammer on the sorts of bad guys who help him make the evening news. He's compassionate but not soft, stern but occasionally merciful. He's the office rock star. Men want to be him. Women want to do him. But they can't because Sam is happily married to Jeannie (Lena Headey) a politically connected and wealthy former attorney who gave up her career to support Sam and raise their son together. Her ambitions will be realized thru Sam's success. The sky's the limit for Sam. He could be the next US attorney for South Carolina. He could be a US representative. Even the US Senate is within reach, according to cheerfully slimy political fixer and family confidante George Hiller (Richard Dreyfuss). But Sam has temptations. He manages to stop just short of doing anything unforgivable with the sexy young office intern (Dianna Agron) who comes on to him after a big court win. But when Sam talks to a provocatively dressed case witness and unashamed $1000/hr escort he loses it. Adult entertainment and his wife no longer satisfy his needs. Sam needs real live women! And just like that Sam begins running to the ATM, buying burner phones and maxing out the family credit card. The story such as it was disappears under visuals that were reminiscent of Showtime movies or early nineties Shannon Whirry erotic thrillers. There's some moralizing but not as much as you might think. Ray Winstone does good work but is ultimately wasted as an family friend of Jeannie's. He's an investigative journalist who was contracted to do a puff piece on Sam but rather transparently has his own agenda. John Cho has a blink and you'll miss it spot as an image consultant and Sam's friend. 

The problem is as stated above there's really no explanation besides the need for variety that is offered for Sam's straying.  Sam is a bit of a cipher. He's neither a sympathetic nor tragic figure. He just is. Jeannie is ambitious but is also quite affectionate. Of course when you consider some of the song lyrics at the top of this post perhaps there is nothing mysterious about Sam's actions at all. Zipper's second half gives Headey more opportunities to shine. It's her character's actions and decisions which are the true driving force behind what happens next. When you live or are intimate with someone for a period of time you notice all the little things about them. Little things like a spouse or lover having a phone or ringtone you don't recognize can trigger all sorts of fears. All in all this independent film was occasionally entertaining but unsatisfying because the tension is lacking. And even where there is tension you don't care too much about most of the characters. Both genders reveal a fair amount of flesh. Again, it's Headey who makes the film work.
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Taken 3
directed by Olivier Megaton

If the first Taken was a reminder that metaphorically speaking just because the mule was old didn't meant it couldn't still kick you in the head, then this installment served notice that age catches up with everyone. Entropy always increases. This movie definitely could have done with some cinematic cialis. What was once life or death has been suffused with moral questioning. In the initial installment Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) didn't mess around worrying about what he had to do to get his daughter back. He just did it. That was the whole point of the movie. There are some people you encounter in this world who as Walt Kowalski memorably informed us, you really shouldn't mess with. That used to be Bryan Mills. Trip his wire and he will chop your lips off and feed them to you before he gets really inventive. However in this film Mills ends up having to pull his punches quite a bit. And maybe it was just me but the interminable car chases and explosions just made things worse. There wasn't hardly any emotional involvement with the story or the characters. As I wrote about Taken 2, at this point is there anyone left on the planet who doesn't realize that messing with Mills' family is a very bad idea? There really shouldn't be. That's like the Japanese after Nagasaki saying "Is that all you got?" to the Americans. And how many times does Mills have to save the life of his ex-wife (Famke Janssen) before she starts to catch feelings for him again. Hmm. 

The fight scenes are mostly incompetent. I'm not sure if that is a mark against the director or merely an unavoidable concession to the fact that a 63 year old man such as Neeson, however well trained his character is, won't be able to dominate similarly well trained men twenty, thirty or forty years younger than himself without straining or breaking believability. It may have behooved the writers and director to go in an entirely different direction and play up Mills' detective, tactical or mechanical acumen instead of his martial skills. That to me would have been a much more engaging and fun movie. Perhaps I just wasn't in the mood for this film. Don't get me wrong there are still a few fist pumping scenes and cool one liners but overall Neeson looks tired. And so does everyone else in this movie. Forest Whittaker has a redundant role as a police commander whose primary jobs are to warn everyone how dangerous Mills is and always to show up immediately after Mills has escaped. Again. It seems as if Whittaker would have the name to demand better or larger roles but a paycheck is a paycheck. Maggie Grace recaps her role as Mills' constantly endangered daughter. The camera is not kind to her. Plot? Well there's not a lot here I care to detail. Actually there's not much to detail period. Mills is framed for a murder and must fight to clear his name and of course save his daughter from unseen peril. Stupid people do stupid things. Obvious plot devices abound. Hollywood's new favorite all purpose bad guys show up. This film did rather well financially. I can't see why.
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Northmen: A Viking Saga
directed by Claudio Fah

Well I thought that this movie was entertaining though even a genre fan such as myself would not say that it was a great film. If you ignore all the inconvenient things like lack of treated drinking water, modern medicine and dentistry, washing machines, air conditioning and the other goodies we take for granted that keep us healthy, safe and clean l still find something romantic about the Middle Ages. It was after all a time when it appeared to be a bit easier for one man to make a big difference in the world. All you needed was a sword, a strong arm and a bad attitude. This was a very similar movie in tone and mood to Sword of Vengeance (although it was much less violent) and not just because it had genre fixture Ed Skrein (aka the original Daario from Game of Thrones) in a supporting role. In another way it was also an updated Western. It might have run on a bit too long but the ending was solid. You may not have known it but at various times during English (Anglo-Saxon era) history the Vikings came not only as raiders and pirates but as traders, invaders and settlers. During some periods there were even Viking Kings of England. The movie is set during this time, say 9th century or so. The young Viking warrior Asbjorn (Tom Hopper) has fled Norway along with his father's last surviving loyal retainers. Asbjorn and his father lost a power struggle against the new Norwegian King Harald, who is apparently a bit greedier and more dictatorial than the previous Viking customs would permit. Asbjorn's father died; Asbjorn and crew fled. They intend to reach Viking settlements on the east coast of England, where they can live in peace and freedom or perhaps raise a new army to go home and settle accounts. But they can't do that because they get blown off course and wind up shipwrecked on what they later find out is Scotland. They need to get south. Adding to their bad luck a Scottish military patrol/caravan just happens to be heading their way. Well you can't call yourself a Viking warrior if you're going to let a little thing like being shipwrecked, famished, outnumbered and mostly unarmed ruin your day. In short time the Vikings have shown the Scots what the phrase "the fury of the Northmen" really means. 

Strolling through the dead or dying Scots, the Vikings find a cart with a woman inside. And it's not just any woman. The Vikings don't know who she is yet but they can tell from her beauty, youth and clothing that she must be someone important. They decide to take her for ransom. To some of his followers' irritation Asbjorn decrees the woman will be unharmed and unmolested. For a Viking, Asbjorn is a moral sort of fellow. All the same you can't lead hard men without being one yourself. Some of his wolfpack wonder if Asbjorn's really got the stones to call himself captain. As the Vikings later learn from a mysterious, cynical, sarcastic, modern thinking and quite irritable warrior monk (Ryan Kwanten) the woman they have "liberated" is Princess Inghean (Charlie Murphy), the daughter of Scottish King Dunchaid (Danny Keogh). She was being taken against her will to be married off to one of her father's nobles. The news that she was kidnapped by Vikings on Dunchaid's lands will have quite negative political impact on Dunchaid's reputation throughout all Scotland. It'll make the King look ridiculous, and as Jack Woltz would tell you a man in his position can't afford to be made to look ridiculous! On hearing the news the King sends out his A-Team group of killers, led by the sibling duo of Bovarr (Anatole Taubman) and Hjorr (Skrein) to rescue Inghean. But these brothers, who might as well have big red arrows pointing to them with "We're the bad guys!" inscribed, have their own ideas about what their mission should involve and how it should end. And in an era before instant communication and GPS, Bovarr and Hjorr have a fair amount of independence of action.

This kicks off a long chase movie with all of the requisite back to back last stands, sword duels, feats of derring-do, betrayals, and sieges that any genre fan might wish to see. The film could have benefited greatly from a few flashbacks or setpieces to allow you to understand who the individual Vikings were. Few of the Vikings are really given a lot of definition but there are all the usual tropes--the huge loyal brute, the impossibly skilled bowman, the best friend, the crazy guy, the old guy who's down for one last fight, the deadpan cynical snarker, the untrustworthy second in command--you know the drill. Inghean has other outre skills (and no I am not talking about "those" skills) which the movie uses judiciously. Obviously Inghean and Asbjorn start to make goo-goo eyes at each other but the film surprisingly underplays that. It's not that kind of party. The true stars of the film are the South African and German shooting locations. There is a lot of beauty in this world, and this film lovingly depicts that. I can't emphasize enough how wonderful the cinematography is in this movie. Even the most dedicated city-dweller will want to get out of his house to enjoy the woods, streams and mountains. The film also gives a fair, if cursory look at the benefits of both Christian and Norse belief systems. It is fascinating to consider a culture where some people believed the only way you reached heaven was by dying in battle with sword in hand. The camera work appears to be stolen from inspired by Peter Jackson. Again, this film will mostly appeal to people predisposed to like this sort of stuff, but there is enough here for the rest of you to make this slightly worthwhile. I thought it was a fun Saturday afternoon kind of movie. If you want more than that, look elsewhere.
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Cemeteries, Mosques and Anti-Muslim bigotry

An ugly fact of the human condition is that the negative generalizations that we are so quick to detect and oppose when used against us we often eagerly apply to the other. Few of us completely lack this trait. Witness the ugly bigotry some people have against Muslims. There are four recent incidents which reminded me of these thought patterns. In the first case, former baseball great, born-again Christian, ESPN analyst and proud conservative Curt Schilling approvingly posted and later deleted the meme comparing Muslims to Nazis. He apologized and removed the tweet, but was briefly suspended from ESPN activities. His employer made it clear that Schilling did not speak for ESPN. Unsurprisingly the NY Post defended Schilling as telling "the truth" about Muslims. In the second case a group of apparently low information American citizens in the town of Farmersville, Texas are protesting plans for a "Muslim invasion" of their town. Well, what exactly has these people so up in arms you might ask? Is there some wealthy Arab expatriate sheik who is building a compound for his harem and is going to seize all the town's young women for his own libidinous purposes? Or maybe it's a smooth talking charlatan who is building a secret bomb making and terrorist training facility. When the time is right he'll give the secret radio signal. Every Muslim in Texas will start screaming Allah-u-Akbar and chopping off heads. Perhaps it's just a whole bunch of fiendishly clever Muslim parents who, just for s***s and giggles, intend to have massive numbers of children and so within a few generations take over the United States. The people of Farmersville apparently believe that some of that might be going on but in reality the plan that has them so upset, fearful and blurting out stupid or hateful comments is that some American Muslims, you know, fellow citizens, are planning to build a cemetery. Yes, some people in Texas are so scared of Muslims or hate them so much that even dead ones make them cry for their Mommy. 

Not to be outdone, some people in my own state, in the city of Sterling Heights, are protesting a planned mosque. Some people opposed to the mosque claim to have and may indeed have no religious or ethnic bias as a motivating factor. But many others are quite clear about their prejudices against and hatred for Muslims. When you say that "these people scare us" or "you should have homeland security investigate these people" or "I don't want to live next to people like this", you don't leave much room for misunderstanding. Finally, in Houston Texas, about thirty or so brave yahoos protested against a pre-kindergarten and kindergarten magnet language immersion school for the horrible crime of teaching Arabic. That'll show those five year old little terrorists in training! Don't mess with Texas!!!

Some Americans hold all Muslims responsible for the actions of a few. They think that Islam itself is wrong and evil. They piously point out that a small percentage of Muslims can do a great deal of harm. They feel justified in hating or distrusting all Muslims. Whether such Muslims are American citizens doesn't matter. The more historically minded among such folk or more likely those who can remember and repeat simple talking points will talk at length about past Muslim atrocities or point today to the savagery of ISIS as an example of the typical Muslim. That's all well and good for what it's worth. I have no interest in defending any form of conquest or imperialism, religiously motivated or otherwise. And if you want to be a bigot, as long as your behavior is not unduly or unlawfully influenced by your bad thoughts, I don't care as much as I used to care. The only problem I have is this. If you are living in the United States or Canada or Argentina or just about any place in the so-called New World you're standing on land which witnessed one of the greatest and most successful genocides in world history. For the past five hundred years people of European descent and primarily Christian belief conquered the word and raped, enslaved or exterminated millions of their fellow human beings. In the United States it's only really in the last fifty years or so that the idea that this might not have been such a nice thing to do has penetrated the mainstream consciousness. And it's still a very controversial concept. The New York Times, hardly a conservative or white nationalist publication, just published a fawning review of Hugh Thomas' World Without End, which is apparently one long apologia for Christian Spain's invasion and genocidal conquest of large swaths of the non-white and non-Christian areas of the planet. It's hard to imagine the NYT doing the same thing for someone who strenuously argued that, sure maybe a few people got hurt, but by and large the Islamic Caliphate's or Ottoman Turk's repeated invasions of Europe were noble attempts to spread civilization.

What's beyond the pale (pun definitely intended) is that people who were victims of all this and/or their descendants should judge all whites or all Christians the same way that others wish to judge all Muslims. So why is that? Why is it that because of 9-11 it's okay to say that Islam itself is the problem or that every single Muslim must immediately be held accountable for anything that one of the other 1,599,999,999 Muslims on the planet says or does? Is it okay for people who have suffered multiple 9-11s for centuries to say that white people are the problem? The racism which pervades the Western world is not something that can be laid at the feet of Islam or Muslims. I am less concerned about being blown up by Al-Qaeda than I am about being shot or beaten by a police officer. Nevertheless I try to judge people on an individual basis. And despite problems I think many Americans still attempt to do the same. Judging every member of a group because of something that a small subgroup did is wrong. Judge people for their own actions. Actually if Christians really want to live up to their teachings they should definitely not be judging people at all or even resisting evil. Good luck trying to get people to live up to that scripture.

Bottom line though, and this is apparently difficult for some people to accept, is that this country has no religious tests for citizenship or political office. Nor should it. And every religious freedom or exception to general law which is won by Christians can also be enjoyed by Muslims, people of other faiths or people of no faith at all. Whether it's Muslims building a cemetery, entering a gun shop, or building a house of worship, Muslim citizens enjoy all the same rights as any other citizen. And well they should. And if you wouldn't tolerate negative generalizations about Jews or Christians, blacks or whites, don't make them about Muslims.