GHOST OF GIRLFRIENDS PAST:A NUTSHELL REVIEW

Uncle Wayne salutes the "Good Life."

Conner Mead and aide, Sandra

This movie faithfully followed the storyline of Mr. Charles Dickens’ A CHRISTMAS CAROL. It was so blantant that protagonist Conner Mead, toward the film’s end leaned out a second floor window and in the best of spirits yelled to a passerby, “Is It Christmas?” Well, it’s not “Merry Christmas” exactly, but the sound pattern is close. In this retelling of Dickens’ tale the vice to consider is hedonism rather than miserliness. To be more focused sexual libertinism is the fault.

The film opened with famed photographer, Conner Mead (McConaughey) demonstrating his skills with a camera and at the same time with beautiful women. [This film gave minor roles to a large number of pretty women.] He was enjoying himself. Then, here came a downer. He was obliged to attend a weekend wedding rehearsal, as the groom was his brother Paul (Meyer), and Conner had agreed to be best man. His self-centered ways came close to spoiling the wedding plans of Paul and Vonda. She was given to “spells,” anyway, and her father, the sergeant, is both granite-faced and a bit weird. There was an old untouched flame attending by the name of Jenny Perotti (Garner). Throwing everything out of Earthly orbit was the appearance in this film of a Marley correlative, Uncle Wayne (Douglas). He had been Conner’s mentor in the “love ‘em & leave ‘em” school of wooing. “Enjoy yourself, Conner, because you’ve got only one ride through the park” being a reasonable interpretation of his playboy philosophy. Since Uncle Wayne was dead, his appearance to Conner at the old Mead Estate in Rhode Island was an unexpected event. Death hadn’t changed him much. He warns Conner that he will be visited by a “Ghost of Girlfriends Past” and also by a Ghostly Gal of the Future. At the rehearsal Conner tried to rekindle something with his childhood girlfriend, Jenny, who, after all, had not been conquered by him. There is potential competition from Brad, who is a doctor. She’s a medical doctor now also, certainly was no fool, but, yes, still had a place in her heart for Conner, if he’d just change. She had been his past, was now free in his present, but would she be his future? The combination of ghostly re-introductions to his past, a better understanding of Uncle Wayne’s life, and a ghostly revelation of his likely end, given his past and present, had a way of opening Conner’s eyes. He saw that a life full of love-making was not the same as a life full of love. As with A CHRISTMAS CAROL, this is a film with a positive conclusion.

The film attempted a variety of comedic moments from very witty (Barnard College) to slapstick (wedding cake disaster) with better than anticipated results. However, humor is  subjective. Yet, this light romantic comedy should appeal to many. Don’t expect any of the actors to be nominated for an Academy Award. The film was directed by Mark Waters.

Players: Matthew McConaughey as Conner, Jennifer Garner as Jeremy Perotti, Michael Douglas as Uncle Wayne, Breckin Meyer as Paul Mead, Lacey Chabert as Sandra, Robert Forster as Sergeant Volkom, Anne Archer as Vonda Volkom, and Daniel Sunjata as Brad.

All rights reserved. Gobigfoot, 2009
t5qmzbcvwf

t5qmzbcvwf

THE INFORMERS (2009): A MOVIE SNAPSHOT

William & Laura have tete-a-tete.

This is a slice-of-life look at Babylon West in the year 1983. It is a rather detestable, tedious film. It is part of an emerged body of  movies belonging now to their own genre, the Gay genre. This is not to say that there weren’t pleny of pretty women lolling about. That’s a pretty exact description, too. These people are frequently seen in bed, sofas or chaise lounges, often enough in threesomes or even foursomes. Besides this they take a lot of drugs and drink a lot of booze. Some, throughout the film, appear to be “stoned.”

There is some satire woven into the flick. Also, I predicted the inevitability of male frontal nudity in Hollywood films, when I reviewed Boogie Nights on community television. Now, they are getting “artsy” angles to boot. Pornography is dead; only “doubting the Holocaust” is considered pornography nowadays – and even that may die.

Graham & Chrissie attempt a vertical moment.

As with the Eagles’ song. Hotel California, this “could be heaven or this could be hell.” One of the apparent problems was stated by Graham (Jon Foster) , “if people don’t teach you, how are going to know what is right or what is wrong?” He should know a lot about the latter but doesn’t. The closest he gets is an uneasy feeling that: What it is may not be right.

Graham has a very attractive girlfriend, Chrissie (Amber Heard), who is very laid-back (literally). She’s kool to threesomes, which is good, because one or both are frequently in bed with a third man, who may be a male prostitute. He and Graham apparently deal drugs also.

So it goes with all the cast. William (Billy Bob Thornton) plays a practiced dissembler, adulterer, fornicator and absentee father. Cheryl Lane (Winona Ryder), who is a TV reporter,  is one of his love interests. She looks a bit like Betty Boop on “chrank.”               

Peter contemplating "easy-street" as he sells new "product."

Peter (Mickey Rourke) is a career criminal presently making some money by kidnapping boys (possibly girls too) and selling them to a gang that is going to exploit them, apparently. Take your choice, but this film is so solidly set in the movie-TV-music scene that – on a bet – that is the area of exploitation which will befall them. Laura (Kim Basinger) is “uninspired,” spending her money on pills, alcohol and a male prostitute, when not “bummed out” and brooding. All the young crowd seemed to gravitate to “sex and drugs and rock &  roll,” led by Graham & Chrissie.

This film is directed by Gregor Jordan. Its screenplay writers include Bret Easton Ellis & Nicholas Jarecki. They have condensed the cultural imperatives of the late 70s and early 80s into a brief period of casual, tolerant, stoned, sexually-swinging human interactions. Put differently, this is a Los Angeles Malpaso.

The film opens with shots of the Los Angeles freeways at or near dusk. Their headlights were soon adding color to the roads. It doesn’t take long for a lass to flip through some current television, and at one channel encounter a story of a strange new illness that seems to affect homosexual males, primarily. She watches a few moments, doesn’t find it appealing, and changes station.

 Folks, this is your flash clue to where this film’s heart resides. At the end of this film the moviegoer finds Chrissy on a stretch of Malibu beach. She’s very sick, her body is dotted with the “Kaposi’s sarcoma” type of cancer. Her boyfriend has been called by someone, goes there, doesn’t really know what to do or say, exhanges a few brief words with her, kisses her, and rises as if to leave. Fade to black.

The film is filled with “pretty, pretty boys that she calls ‘friends.’” Near the beginning one is run over in the parking area of a location hosting a party. It may have been a “hit” hit. In the end the moviegoer is left with the image of a beautiful, shapely woman in a bikini on a Malibu Beach beach, dying of a disease that is almost exclusively the province of homosexuals. It seemed such a waste, until one recalled the previous 90 minutes of film. Perhaps Mother Nature was merely collecting her “vigorish” from another loser in life’s foolish gambles.

I believe this film is meant to gain some sympathy for the plagues that seem to afflict those who’ve entered into that other “kind of love.” However, the film milieu is one that soon induced contempt. There are capable actors in this film, but  none are capable of making their various characters appealing. Some may see this movie as a plea for tolerance. Since no one in the film is moral, why demand an impossible standard?

Aleister Crowley is said to have said from the heights of Satanism: “The whole of the law is this: Do what thou wilt.” Or, as the dudes of the 60’s & 70’s put it: Do your thang!

In this case the best thang to do is skip this film.

All rights reserved. Gobigfoot, 2009.

GOD’S WAY — OR THE HIGHWAY

This is a guest page. Occasionally, I encounter a post or page that seems worth passing on. This is such an occasion. This is a page that appeared in the Israel Christian Group site on Google. Please consider.

      Once again, the people of the United States are compelled to suffer from usury and financial fraud. This could not happen, if the shepherds were effectively guiding their congregational flocks. The sheep of the Most High and His Son will always wonder away toward peril. The task of the good shepherd is to keep them safe.

      Bread comes in two forms: one is for the everlasting moral plane; the other for the carnal plane. For both it is the “staff of life.” For the Hebrews eating connoted an “act of faith.” Little wonder that Jahshua abjured his apostles at the last Passover meal that he would experience on Earth to “Eat of My Body” and “Drink of My Blood.” In this terse statement the Messiah of Israel and Saviour of the world taught salvation through faith. He said: Believe in Me and experience Life everlasting. Indeed! Keep the Faith!

      The Repair of the World is the exclusive work of Jahshua. It cannot be done by carnal men. Today, the Western World in particular is led by “determined men” who openly usurp this prerogative of the Son of the Most High, hoping to establish a “New World Order” with their desperate, half-baked ideas. They rebuild the Tower of Babel, after the fashion of their fathers, hoping to have better results. Will they succeed?

      King Solomon is said to have commented that there is nothing new under the sun. In our leaders today we see the continuing wisdom of Solomon’s comment exemplified. Let Israel Christian, as well as all Christianity, not look to these people for guidance, because they are not proper shepherds. They are anti-Christic, entreating all to believe in their vision.

      Since the Most High Son-King will allow this anti-Christic Oligarchy to achieve extraordinary carnal power toward Endtime, the seemingly invincible power of the wicked and the vain should not be a big surprise. Revelation pronounces as much. Additionally, the animosity of this anti-Christic Oligarchy toward Christianity will wax during this period. In so much as the Celto-Germanic people are concerned, because they are descended from the Israelites (both as free colonists and as exiles from bondage), this period is referenced in Scripture as the “time of Jacob’s troubles.”

      There are many, today, who believe they will escape all this by the miraculous “Rapture.” That’s not a Scripturally witnessed doctrine, and there is little chance that that will come to pass. Considering the pain and suffering of Jahshua unto death, one would suppose that His faithful sheep would be willing to accept pain and suffering also. Their forefathers often did. The “Rapture” provides a painless alternate that appeals to the contemporary “faithful.”

      This End is ordained. It is somewhat simliar to a multiact, incredibly complex drama. The King knows how it will come out (and so do we; we win). Yet, it is so extraordinary a creation that the Most High Son-King almost seems to take a seat in the audience to watch, too. It is spell-boundingly brilliant. Folks, we live in the most exciting and perilous time ever – the end of the carnal era on Earth is at hand.

      All this being said, we still now abide in that carnal world, as we are carnal people. This brings me to the second form of bread, which is the staff of life in a carnal sense. We must eat to live. This basic necessity is the primary organizing force in human existence. Wherever one goes over this Earth, one finds organized groups, operating within a political economy of which the core is the provisioning of the “staff of life” in a carnal sense. The wisdom of these organizations may be discerned to some extent by their relative success over a reasonably long period of time.

      In Holy Scripture the Most High stated what should be done to operate a proper political economy, Due to the covenant relationship with Israel, where they were to serve as His Priests on Earth, religious ordinances were part of this political economy. In fact it was a combination of a theocratic form and a monarchical form of government. The sacrifice of the Messiah ended the need for most religious ordinances, especially those involving sacrifice. Jahshua was the ultimate sacrifice. His crucifixion nailed the old sacrificial laws to the cross, where they died.

      Yet, the remaining judgments, laws, rules and regulations of the Mosaic Code are still the Word of the Most High on how to establish a sound government. If one adds in earlier covenants with the earlier patriarchs of the Adamic-Hebraic line, one has all that is needed to establish an organic law for a political economy. This doesn’t meant that the leaders and people of a political economy cannot add in specific, ad hoc regulations that do not conflict with the organic law, when this is reasonable. The Most High did not see fit to discuss vehicle “right of way” with Moses or the other patriarchs. He gave humans enough sense to figure that out.

      One of the problems that confronts a political economy that starts well and prospers is that the leaders “pat themselves on the back” (and generally start plotting like the pigs in George Orwell’s Animal Farm to advance themselves at the expense of the workers of the political economy). This is the beginning of classicism and the perversion of the Godly organic law so to establish the “law of men.”

      This is where the Earthly shepherds of the Christian flocks must do double duty. Their duty is two-fold: soul and body. They must preserve the “wheat” of their Master, while he is away. Enemies are always trying to plant “tares.” While the angels of the Most High were abjured to let this situation be until the End, this admonition doesn’t apply to His stewards, who must watch the fields vigilantly and be willing to confront enemies. There is no sin in defending the Godly from the unGodly. In fact that is the two-fold task of God’s shepherds and stewards. Otherwise, the sheep would all be devoured and the fields given over to weeds. That is not the will of the Most High. There is strife between Earthly forces of good and evil until the End.

      This strife is usual. Throughout the Bible the central figures, who in this sense are Everyman, are confronted with choices. The Most High has provided guidelines and reason, as well as the traditions of the patriarchs (wisdom), to help people choose the correct path or “fork in the road.” The Scriptural son of one educational tale chose the wrong path and became prodigal. There seem to be many such in our times.

      Pastors today do not hammer away enough at the need to choose one’s path according to Godly rules. Collectively, well-pastored sheep should require Godly fields in which to live and prosper. Such an environment would preclude usury, Ponzi schemes, massive debt, fraudulent “money,” living beyond one’s means, and the “something for nothing” mentality of today. A vigilant pastor would be incensed that a man is not paid enough for his daily labors to achieve even a subsistence living. Today, pastors do not correct their flocks in regard to valuations. This may be seen in the fact that people, who function as “cogs in the wheels” of a gigantic speculation “industry,” operated out of Wall Street, the City of London, Zurich, and other citadels of debt-mongering, are viewed as admiral, and envy of their wealthy lifestyles perverts honest labor from its dignity unto the nonproductive worlds of speculation, crime and vice. Where are the pastors? This should be a constant area of preaching, for no good political economy can exist where debt-speculation, money “made out of nothing,” Ponzi-schemes, and the like. rule as “sound economic doctrines.” If you don’t manage your own political economy but spend all day vainly jibberjabbering about “Rapturing,” then the Serpent People will slither into the prominent positions of government and will then establish their favorite political economy, based on Babylon and Egypt.

      All Christian pastors should preach that Christians should direct the American political economy. Just as blood is the life of the body, so money is the life of the political economy. Would you give some private, vain group the power to add or subtract blood to your body, as they see fit? You would want a medical doctor that you knew and trusted. Why allow total strangers, especially nonChristians, to operate your nation’s money (debt) trust as a private fiefdom? Because “Christian” ministers or preachers say so?

      The people who created the organic law in this nation went to extraordinary trouble to detail matters of tax, revenue, money creation, debt, and generally all relevant issues involving money. They clearly assumed that the people would want their government, which was intended to represent their interests, creating and injecting money into the political economy withou interest. Obviously, they never thought that a people could be so foolish as to allow private, vain interests to issue their money “out of nothing.” I use that last term because the overwhelming anount of aggregate money figures today represent “conceptual money,” as opposed to real money. For this reason it can disappear overnight, whereas real money cannot. Real money can be horded by vain interests, but it is still there. It is true that anything carnal can disintergrate into elemental parts, however, real money should last a reasonable amount of time and be replaced by newer real money. Money should be injected as a one for one proposition; and not injected on a ten for one basis, as occurs often with fractional banking, allowing at least 90% to vanish overnight.

      One responsible function of Christian governmance is the retiring of older real currency, if it is material, and the replacing of it by an equal amount of real money. This way a virtually constant amount of money will be available for enterprises and life requirements. There cannot be a deflation or inflation outside of a massive crime, which should be punished accirding to Godly rules in regard to “spilling of blood.” The ruler(s) of a sound political economy should not hold the sword in vain. Counterfieting is to be expected. Therefore, it should be guarded against. God’s laws should prove painful enough to guide vain minds away from such temptation. There should be no problem for a ruling body to establish an orderly fashion of supervising money aggregates.

      A nation’s money should be for that nation only. Outside investors should not be allowed, A policy of limited immigration of Christians only should afford outsiders a means of participation in the nation. All trade with foreign nations should be based on barter. For example wheat might be bartered for oil or chrome. It is the wish of the Most High that Israel Christian construct a nation that would be a lightbearer to the world. We have failed miserably during my lifetime. Why? Very few pastors have any interest in Godly goverment. What is the point, if carnal life is corrupt, and good Christians will soon be floating high above it all, piously commenting on the wickedness below?

      The Most High has made a world where choices are necessary. He is in control, certainly. Yet, He still requires choices. Our choices should reflect his expressed rules for living well on Earth. These are His doctrines. By choosing well, Christians can provide clues to their King that they, indeed, love and believe in Him. “My doctrines are not My Own, but come from the Father.” “If you love Me, keep My commandments.”

      People, there is no sin in having a Christian nation in which the laws reflect this faith and love; indeed, it is the heritage of Israel Christian. Nor should this heritage be rendered as thin vapors, subject to a myriad interpretations by a like number of vain minds. Let our nation be ruled by the requirements of the Stone Kingdom, in so much as humans can do so.

      ‘Tis said: Start me with ten who are stout-hearted men, and I’ll soon give you ten thousand more.

      To this end we need strong pastors. Where are they?

JGS1

Thank you, sir.

Gobigfoot, 2009.

MAX PAYNE : A MOVIE REVIEW

Max picks up party gal at snitch's wingding.

Max Payne and Mona Sax are a firepower-packing duo.

This film has a stylized, often slightly metalic look to it. This has a certain resonance with the protagonist’s name and modus operandi. Mark Wahlberg has been virtually type-cast as a toughguy maverick. He may be an outlaw or an officer of the law, but in either case he takes care of business according to his rules. Hence, even as an outlaw, he is merely outside their law–not his. As an officer of the law, he does not let legal or police department procedures get in the way of his personal rules of justice. Max Payne is a sort of vigilante within the police department. In this he calls to mind the Al Pacino/Robert Da Niro duo in Righteous Kill (2008). In the Max Payne case the moviegoer is coaxed into sympathy, as his wife and child were murdered, while he was out writing parking tickets (or some other mundane police work). This hurts. This embitters. This induces the thought of seeing that justice is served upon the malefactors.

 Max Payne has himself transferred to the hidden-away room where the “cold cases” are maintained. As dedicated as a monk to reams of ancient scriptural parchments was Max Payne to the “cold cases.” He was certain that the one overlooked clue needed to solve the murder of his wife and child resided somewhere in the dry, cold pages in the secured room behind his desk. Max Payne was a man on a mission. He barely tolerated the presence of his fellow cops, and they did not welcome his company.

Mark Wahlberg looks like he might be a cop. However, he doesn’t act much like a cop. He’s not loud and full of wisecracks. He doesn’t clump together like cheerios with other cops. He’s at odds with his old partner, whom he partially blames for allowing the murders to happen.

All of these elements would tend to make the film seem to be a “dark study” of an injured (in the heart) cop and how he “works out” the problem(s) that haunt him. However, this film is one that is suffused with spiritism. You see, folks, Max Payne has visions. In an “other-worldly” lighting he sometimes sees and “discusses” his situation with his deceased wife (Marianthi Evans), as she cares for their deceased child, usually in a homelike setting. The issue usually is: Should he give up the flesh and join her or abide longer? She usually counsels him, “Not yet, Max.” There are some loose ends that have to be properly tied by Max.

Parenthetically, why does Max see his wife in a familiar, homelike setting? Well, that is where he knew her and felt that she belonged and where he felt she was most happy. At any rate, who can envision Heaven?

Besides this seemingly authentic vision by Max, there are other visions which others experience, which have the character of delusions blended with para-biblical demonology and Teutonic mythology.

Now, a parallel storyline, which will bend and converge with the mission which engages Max Payne, involves a large corporation name Aesir. It is likely to be the sort of company that has its fingers in many pies, but for this film its mainly depicted as a member of the “military-industrial complex,” of which D. D. Eisenhower warned his fellow citizens. You know the kind: filled with Richard Cheneys and Donald Rumsfelds. This company, Aesir, has worked to develop a biological mechanism which would unleash the super-warrior lurking within “G.I. Joe Mensch.” Naturally, the chemical proves to have side effects. In perhaps 1% of men the chemical does produce a stronger, faster, quicker-healing soldier. However, for the rest, the chemical proves to be a “bad trip.” The inoculated men have hallucinations, become suicidal, and extremely edgy. Invariably, they begin to “see” dark, winged beasts–dubbed “valkyries”–but which are also likened to angels of death.

There is also an associated myth involving the “proper way of the warrior.” Men who die ignobly are taken away by the demons to a place one may call ‘hell.” For those men to whom the chemical proves transforming into an ultimate warrior, this associated myth reenforces mentally and spiritually what was physically achieved by the chemical. Incidentally, the Aesir company logo is stylized black wings. The “valkyrie” or “angels of death” also sport prominent black wings. Furthermore, all the superwarriors, “failed projects,” and sundry associated people and things wear this logo as tattoos or designs. I will note that Stephen R. Hart, the actor playing the tattoo artist/shopowner, executed a memorable, allbeit brief, scene.

This is an urban based film. It opens with a narration inwhich Mark Wahlberg tells of his present situation and hints of dark deeds. Meanwhile, the moviegoer sees a man struggling at the surface of a body of water, He is tied and weighted. He seems to give in, submitting to the inevitable: he would join the army of dead at the bottom. Indeed, as he sinks, the bodies below make a seemingly eerie welcoming committee. Then, there is a camera cut to Max Payne’s city. He there. He’s a cop. Don’t get in the way of his mission.

The Film Capsule: A detective named Max Payne enjoys his job as a police detective. He enjoys a good relationship with his partner of some years. Then his life is derailed, and nothing will ever be the same again. He comes home to find his beautiful wife and child murdered. He blames his partner in part for this in the sense of not finding the killers and breaks up the team. He is obsessed with finding them and bringing “justice” down upon their heads. He eventually gives up his former police deparyment work for command of the “Cold Case” Department. He devotes his time to sorting through the data in the cold case files in a pen behind his desk. He knows that somewhere in here is the clue that will solve the murder of his wife riddle. There is a seemingly unrelated story going on involving a company named Aesir. It is run by a cold, ruthless sort of woman, whose behavior seems similar to a crime-family boss who wants the dirty deeds he orders to be done to be very remote from and legally untraceable to him. She has a security chief to shield her. Her company makes “modern super-warriors,” actually. Their mission is to design ultimate fighting men for sale or lease. Unfortunately, to find a few good men, they have to filtered out a horde of men of a lesser cut. These human debris live marginalized lives in the urban jungle, trying to deal with the “bats in their belfries.” Well, strictly speaking, they’re angels of death. Or Valkyrie. Or demons. Or something–hmmm–ELSE! They are black, winged and demonic-looking. Maybe they are real, or maybe the are hallucinated visions conjured by brains that stepped off the plane years ago. Whatever. As Max Payne goes out on the solo to pound and pressure informants (snitches) into redoubling their efforts to find him a lead, he stumbles across a gaggle of hoodlum types at a party thrown by one of his snitches. One is Jason Colvin (Chris O’Donnell), who is shirtless, allowing the moviegoer to inspect his low bodyfat which is partially obscured by tattoos. Among those dark lines of body graffiti he discerns a pair of stylized, graceful black wings. He’s not the only one. Present also is “Natasha” (Olga Kurylenko). She is a tall, shapely gal in red. She’s a pretty woman. Moviegoers may remember her from Hitman (2008), in which she played a similar party girl. She takes a fancy to Max, and goes forth into the night with him. She can’t imagine that he won’t “check her out” real closely. To help him out, she gets nearly naked. Max, suddenly thinking of his wife on that same bed, tells her to get out, which she does, while taunting him with her incensed, mocking horselaugh. At the party Max had also met Natasha’s pistol-packing sister, “Mona Sax” (Mia Kunis). They will team up, after Natasha is killed/suicided. Folks, she was lapping up the blue elixir of Aesir, too. Names such as BB Hensley (Beau Bridges) and Alex Balder (Donal Logue) crop up, as Max’s pursuit of his wife’s killer(s) gets warmer. On one of those solitary occasions in the “Cold Case” Department’s file room, which is his official beat, he notices some papers by his wife’s hand, he sees the logo of Aesir. Darn! Didn’t Michelle work for them? Before Max can get too far along, he is captured by hoodlums and thrown into the drink, which is the scene we encountered at the opening of the film. This time we hear Max’s wife tell him: “It’s not time, Max.” He promptly struggles his way back to the surface, as the disappointed dead reach up to him in sad farewell: “Max, we hardly knew you!.”  Almost frozen from his swim, he fishes out a vial of blue elixir which he had “impounded” earlier, and gulps it down. Guess what? He a 1% man. This stuff makes him superduper-tough. Of course, there are those darn demon critters he’s now hallucinating, but–hey!–you got to take the bad with the good. Right? Yeah! Max goes to Aesir headquarters to pistol whip a young executive who knew Michelle and some other people of interest, too, so Max could get the right answers. Well, the private army of Aesir is called into the fray. Max Payne is armed with a handgun, possibly a 45 caliber, 15-clip, semi-automatic. Hence, an army of super-warriors armed with fully automatic, 50-clip handheld weapons would have little chance. The intense battle works itself to the roof, where Max–now backed up by Mona–confronts the Aesir boss lady (said by some to be modelled on Katherine Meyer Graham and by others on Myra Lanski Boland). It takes a whirlybird, some demons, Mona and Max to sort it all out. Suffice it to say that at the end of the film, there weren’t as many people as there had been a little while ago.

All rights reserved. Gobigfoot, 2008.

TWILIGHT: A MOVIE REVIEW WITH COMMENTARY.

Vampires in the Global Village

Bloodlust? Or stone-cold love?

"Hobo" vampires enter the Cullen clan's space.

In a small town in the State of  Washington a surprisingly disparate collection of inhabitants struggle to get along with each other. There are forks in the road that challenge more than a few of them. Choices! They sometimes can’t be finessed. In this film some made very bad choices. Folks, there are animals running loose in the woods. The Green Revolution has returned The Children of the Night to cool, cloudy Washington, as well as other parts of the great Northwest. If they kill, it’s because they were born that way. Nature! Love it or leave it! Don’t be cold to a heart that’s cruel. It’s just doing it’s thang.

Well, I’m going over the top a bit here. The moviegoer, in fact, sees in this film valuable lessons in “getting along” with others. They honestly try, even when part of the community appears to be unusually white, cold-to-the-touch, creepy-looking and clannish. So, who’s perfect?

Speaking of which, this film has a counterpoint to The Cold Ones in the form of a clan of Quileute Indians. From a member of this Quileute clan, Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner),  the heroine, Isabella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and the moviegoers learn important facts about the first group, the Cullen clan. Even the name of this Indian suggests incompatability with the pale Cullens, as the color black is the absolute opposite of the color white. Yet, the moviegoer learns of an ancient modus vivendi which was established between these two groups.  It is a positive touch, which the writer(s) added. Yet, as it is clear that they detest each other, one may be granted leave to wonder how much longer can this tense entente continue.

Now, the heroine, Bella, once she reaches the critical mass of curiosity, behaves in a very standard (and handy) horror flick mode: she researches vampires. One might also observe that her childhood friend, Jacob Black, as well as his father, Billy (Gil Birmingham), serve as a collective  Professor Abraham Van Helsing, who are not easily fooled in matters vampire. Incidentally, notice that both the professor and the Indian lad have first names that conger up ancient Hebrew patriarchs. They are righteous blocks of granite before the Unnatural Ones.

Speaking of which, the Cullen family, arriving at highschool, or the like, have a truly weird “air” about them, suggesting a group of “stoned” homosexuals ready to check in at Club 54. This may have been directorial humor – or malice of a cineme verite kind..

Another curious and, perhaps controversial, matter issuing from this film is that the name “Cullen” is spoken in such a way that it suggests the word “Cohen.” Being unfamiliar with the author or nearly anything else about this film, I was not familiar with any names which would be encountered. Hence, it took several pronunciations for me to establish firmly in my mind that the word was, indeed, “Cullen.” This may have been intended, as it has been the hard lot of Jews to be compared to vampires in folk tales, drama, books, films, et al. It is founded largely on the twin issues of “draining a host nation of its blood” (money), which has led to numerous expulsions from various European nations–often more than once, and allegations of ritual murders. Probably, rumors about golems didn’t help to still troubled waters.

The vulgar minds of most nonJews would not perceive the connection. One of the reasons that the first film Blade was a guaranteed classic, as well as cult film, was that it introduced this issue again, not just once, but in two antagonistic sets of vampires that might be likened to Capitalists and Revolutionaries, which were metaphorical proxies for Jews and their primary known role(s) in the world.

Be that as it may, the Cullen family seemed to suggest an “our crowd” sort of social attitude.

A weak point in the legend of the Quileute clan’s discovery of and relationship with the Cullen clan involves the initial chance encounter in Quileute hunting grounds of the two groups. Why did they not “get it on” right then and there? Were the Quileutes a basically peaceful tribe of hunter-gatherers? As we learn from Edward Cullen, he (and presumably all vampires)  were made to be the greatest predators, blessed as they were with strength and speed. The awkward confrontation with the Quileutes might have easily been settled by attacking them, ripping off their heads (literally), and possibly getting drunk on their human blood. Possibly? Well, the reader should be apprised of the fact that these are “modernists” vampires who have voluntarily committed themselves to animal blood only. For them to drink human blood would violate their pledge of abstinence. Edward quips to Bella that they were the “vegetarians” of the vampire people.

People, the Cold Ones really just wanted to be part of the community. No more moving from one place to another, as villagers hunted them with pitchforks and torchfire. Being ”consciousness-raised” vampires, the Cullen’s only sought their own home in the Global Village. “Dr. Carlisle Cullen” (Peter Fascinelli) even provided needed medical skills, which the folks appreciated. He could also identify a vampire kill as a ”death by animal” case. In such cases it usually a meant “hobo” vampire had traveled through the Forks vicinity. No sense in Dr. Cullen being too explicit or detailed in regard to the “animal.”

Who was the weirdest member of the Cullen clan, according to appearance? For my money it was Jackson Rathbone, playing “Jasper Hale.”  He almost catches the weirdo look of bleached-out zombies blended with Dustin Hoffman’s character in Rainman. Were these “people” similar to what the moviegoer sees, before they were “turned” by diluted venom-vaccine from the “choppers” of another vampire? Or is the vampirization process something of a complete body make-over? I can’t say.

This is not to denigrate Robert Pattinson’s “Edward Cullen,” who could certainly strike up an outre appearance. He can hit the moviegoer with the creepy-eyes, too. It is a “look” that engenders a startled & stunned state of mind in others initially. But – Hey! – the kids got use to it. However, I never saw any of the school clowns mimicking one of the Cullens before their peers. I would certainly have done that. There is a sense that maybe you keep such things to yourself. Sort of like what you might do in the presence of 1970s Dallas Cowboys running back, Duane Thomas, when he leveled his “stare” (he was pretty cold, too).

Yet, Pattinson has a classic, good-looking appearance which is unusual in leading roles in films today, especially in  Hollywood movies, where men such as Ben Stiller, Jack Black, and Kam Penn abound. He is something of a throw-back to the James Dean type. In fact this film has some resonance with the film Rebel Without A Cause. One can see in Kristen Stewart’s role some of the same qualities and motivations as did Natalie Wood’s character in the teen classic just referenced. “Fitting in” can be a bitch.

I believe that there is an almost zany Romeo and Juliette aspect too. Yet, for all the elements in this film that might have been turned into “howlers” in another film which put a different spin on the story, Director Hardwicke was able to develop a credibly romantic tale. I thought that she was skillful in weaving in stock characters in such a way that the film might be comsidered a perfect homage to filmland’s trite strategems for explaining motivation or bridging plot gaps.Imagine what a Mel Brooke might have done with it! The performances by Stewart and Pattinson in their roles were sufficiently good to smooth the irritations caused by the prickly points along the film path.

Essential to this accomplishment was the fact that “Bella Swan” did not fit too well into her social environment. Although she lived until the age of four with her father and mother in Forks, Washington, she now lived in Phoenix, Arizona, with her divorced and recently remarried mom. She likes Phoenix, as it’s warm. Mom’s husband, the coach, is taking a job in Jacksonville, Florida, and they will soon move there. Uncomfortable  with the newlyweds and not desiring to go to Jacksonville, she makes the decision to return to Forks and make a new home with her dad, Charlie Swan (Billy Burke), who is the sheriff there. Dad has given his approval.

Part of our understanding of this attractive teen is provided by her by means of narration. She  shares some of her feelings, most telling of which was that if she had to die, doing so in behalf of the person she loved wasn’t such a bad route. This concept gets to play out at least twice, 1) to save her mother and 2) to be with her lover.

A Big Capsule:  A teenage woman, Isabella, makes the decision to return to Forks, Washington, when her divorcee mom decides to remarry and head east to Florida with her new hubby. She will join her father, who is a strong, silent type. He’s not pefectly at ease with the situation and shows a bit of awkwardness. She’s “kool” with her father because he doesn’t “hover.” Her father is joined by “Billy Black”  for a football game on TV. His son, Jacob, is with him, and the lad greets his playmate, Bella. It isn’t long before Billy sells his old red truck to the sheriff, as a getabout gift to Bella. She goes to the local school in her truck. She doesn’t know anyone really. Jacob Black goes to school at the reservation, so he won’t be there. Nevertheless, as the daughter of the sheriff and living in a small town, she must be known to the others, however thinly. At school, she is promptly greeted by “Eric Yorkie” (Justin Chon), who functions as a film type that apprises Bella of the new school environment, its personalties of note, and the general “lay of the land.” She is both alert to him and aloof from the school’s major personalties and interests. Yet, from the moment that Eric points out the mysterious Cullen clan’s student body contributions, especially Edward, she is attracted to him and finds herself stealing glances at him. At such times he often seems to be glancing at her. Chance places them together at a lab table as “partners in science.” He is acting a bit uncomfortable with her. What gives! Then he just vanishes  for a couple of days. The damp, cloudy climate might be depressing to a sun-loving Arizona expatriot, such as Bella, but she takes to it. As a cute gal, she has most of the boys well in hand. Her mood is presently reflective, and the lush, moist, somber environment fits it well enough. There is a camera cut, as she first returns to Forks, that depicts a solitary deer picking its way through verdant terrain. It startles at something and begins to run. After bounding through the woods, spurred by fear, it is captured by what appears to be a bipedal creature–possibly even a human, who takes it down to the ground for the predator’s kill. Although her name suggests “beautiful swan,” her story in this film is more like that of this pretty deer. Of interests to the moviegoer is who that “predator” was and is. Is there a “Beauty and the Beast” aspect to this film? Her relationship with Edward really “warms up,” after he returns from his two day absence. He has changed somewhat and becomes more “forward” in his approach to Bella. Her curiosity makes her open to his placating advances. It’s not long before he confesses that he “can’t resist her” any more. At an earlier point he had warned her about involving herself with him. Now, he won’t take no for an answer. So, the moviegoer witnesses the attraction bonding them. In her narrator role she confesses to being in love with him (even though his hands are mighty cold). Edward has proven to her that he can be more protective than “a caveman” cause he knows she “wants a brave man.”   He literally stops an out-of-control van from crushing her by extending a hand in a “stop” gesture. He also saves her “honor” from a potentially dangerous situation involving some “high” Frat Boys. Edward can read the minds of others (except Bella’s) and was incensed by the Frat Boys’ “impure thoughts.” After they escape in his “hot wheels,” he tells her he feels like going back and ripping off their heads (which the moviegoer comes to realise he can literally do). Now, sometime in this period, Jacob Black counsels Bella, and she comes to learn of the Quileute Legend. She goes to a handy Quileute-run library where she purchases a book on the legends, myths & facts about what the Indians call “Big Tooth.” With this and Google she gathers enough circumstantial evidence to convince herself that she was hopelessly in love with a vampire. Bummer?  Not really. Bella is a little different herself. Well, then, are the moviegoers going to be forced to witness “star-crossed” lovers? An unexpected event occurs at an almost all-Cullen baseball game. Bella is there, too, and has been reasonably well accepted by Dr. Cullen’s unnatural brood as part – sort of – of their crowd. A lightning-graced storm has given the Cullen’s clan the sports field all to themselves. They are a trip to watch, due to their techniques, speed and power. Suddenly, they see three strangers ambling out of the woods, as if summa cum laude graduates from the Mark Wahlberg School of  Tough-Guy Walking. Two men and one woman confront and are confronted by the Cullen clan. The young black vampire, “Laurent” (Edi Gathegi) , who is 3oo years old and seems to have a Caribbean lilt, acts as the trio’s spokesperson. He is respectful and conciliatory toward the Cullen clan, noting that they were just pacing through and wouldn’t disturb the Cullen’s “kool” with the Forksian folks. However, the moviegoer has already witnessed them drain a local restaurant owner and town favorite. Bella is half hiding behind Edward, as the Cullen’s hoped she wouldn’t be discovered by “peopleotarians.” The other male, “James” (Cam Gigandet), who is a young white vampire, wearing his hair in a modified, Thomas Jefferson-style, begins to inhale deeply. The more perceptive moviegoers realised that he was on the scent of Edward’s “chick.” “Fie! Fi! Fo! Fum! I smell the blood of a hu-man!” Where once there was discussion of the trio joining the baseball game, suddenly they all are at war (excepting Bella). Vampires know how to kill vampires. No peasant superstitions here; instead, they rip off heads and tear bodies apart. Bella is with Edward, but James is tracking the scent. If she goes home, he’ll kill dear old dad. Bella is caught in a tough situation. Edward is planning to drive her to a safe spot. However, James has tracked her to mom’s, who is now being held as prisoner. Either Bella comes to Phoenix (mom has returned, alarmed about news from dad), or mom gets drained. “Alice Cullen” (Ashley Greene) has “seen” the future and predicts that Bella will die. She has drawn a likeness of the spot. It looks like a room in her old high school!  That must be where James is holding mom. The potential moviegoers well may imagine how the two sides gather there for a “show-down.” Let me tell you that things get bloody. There’s a lot of venom between the two groups. How will our dear Bella fare? It can be a cold world. Love helps.

All rights reserved. Gobigfoot, 2008.

BY WAGONS AND SHIPS ISRAEL YIELDS TO DEVINE REPLANTING

Today, most educated people look to science for guidance. Scientific theories are written on stone, taught in schools by their disciples, eventually found wanting, the sacred stones broken, and replaced by new scientific theories written on stone and taught by their disciples.

Personally, I am not opposed to science. I am opposed to idolatry. I define idolatry according to the Israelitish-Christian tradition, as best indicated from careful gleaning from unBowdlerized Holy Scripture. The Most High of Adam, Enoch, Noah, Shem and Abram, whose name was changed according to the will of the Most High to Abraham, is all. There is no other, according to my way of thinking. The entirety of Holy Scriptures from the twelfth chapter of Genesis forward is the unfolding relationship between the Most High and Abraham and the destiny of Abraham’s Seed of the Promise. This Covenant People were singled out as the special agents, or protagonists, in the astonishingly complex drama He willed into being for reasons that will never be fully revealed until the Great Reconciliation occurs in the Kingdom to come. This being so, it is hardly surprising that these people were called a “nation of priests,” as they were destined to bring the Law of the Most High to foreign lands. These were Children of the Promise. In the Holy Scriptures only the Seed of Abraham-Isaac-Jacob were so-called. The Holy Scriptures only uses the term “called out” to serve Him in conjunction with Israelites. In Egypt Jacob-Israel, on his deathbed, anoited the sons of Joseph as his “first-born” unto whom the Promises and Inheritance should descend. Ephraim and Manasseh became the dominant Tribes of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Their seed would inherit the Promises and Inheritance, according to the special significance that these words held for Abraham. Isaac and Jacob.

When Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, they were accompanied by a “mixed multitude” which behaved as ”thornes” and “nettles” toward the Israelites. The Most High warned Israel against “diversity,” as it would lead to a loss of faith and personal corruption. Israel never acquiesced to the wisdom of the Most High. The main thrust seemed to be that it was permissible for “strangers” to live amid the Israelites, if they acknowledged the Most High of Israel and served according to His Laws.

Whatever the reason for originally accepting strangers, and being outnumbered may have been an element, the strangers rarely gave more than lip service to Israel’s God, while privately serving their own gods. The pattern more often than not was corruption and Baal-worship entering the congregation of Israel. Prophets are frequently recorded inveighing against Israel’s “whoredoms” [associating with strange gods]. Their words usually commanded few ears. The typical “Christian” today would reference them as “crackpots.” It is likely that the Israelites in those days of God-fearing prophets used similar terminology. Nothing much changes. In God’s time there should br no change, as it is always now. In human time one has reason to suppose that the Most High expects some progress in “walking in ways pleasing to Him.”

Hence, it is hardly surprising to read in newspapers that 70% of American “Christians” believe that one can be “saved” by taking “paths” other than that which is stated in Holy Scriptures by the Messiah of Israel Himself. This is a corrupt and vain people whose “shepherds” may be incompetent – or even evil.

Nevertheless, in the time of Moses a great host of Israelites migrated to the “Land of Milk and Honey.” One suspects that climatic conditions were more favorable in those days. The lands of the twelve tribes were apportioned. One notes that the Most High of Israel favored borders as a defining and orderly condition for settlement. It is interesting that all enemies of borders are also anti-Scripture (or they perversely interpret inconvenient Scriptural text). This includes some large religious organizations originally founded by people of faith in those same Scriptures.

Therefore, the Israelites settled in their new lands and became dominant under Saul-David-Solomon. There were plenty of enemies to overcome. The soft-hearted kings of Israel, no doubt generally reflecting the people, refused frequently to punish the wicked. [In those days unGodly acts were considered wicked, unlike today, where the only recognized evils are assertions deemed "racist" and/or "denying the 'Holocaust.'" For such "crimes" a "scarlet letter" must be worn, alerting all that a sinner is present.]

It is in the time following the Judges of Israel, when David became king, as recorded in II Samuel 7:10, that the prophet Nathan told the Israelites that they would be planted in another land, which would become their own - one that they presently had no knowledge about – and that they would be established and move no more. As they were already in the Land of Milk and Honey, this prophecy cannot be about this land. Further, the Israelite population was booming. Clearly, they would outgrow this “first dwelling place.” The Most High had in mind a distant land, which was great in size and rich in the good things both on land and sea. One day they would find their resting place there, under the banners of Ephraim and Manasseh, as well as being joined by the other regathered tribes. Out of many, they would become one. There would be no king but Jahshua, known generally in the West as Jesus.

Under King David and King Solomon the realm of the Israelites expanded greatly, including parts of Egypt, Arabia, Babylon and into the borders of modern-day Turkey. The jurisdiction of these Israelite kings included the floodplains of the Euphrates River. Had they been Romans, they might have built aquaducts from the Euphrates River to the Land of Milk and Honey. The main point here is to establish that the Israelites were not absolute strangers to these lands. There were commerce and state relationships that made for familiarity. Further, as the Northern Kingdom was closer to these lands than the Southern Kingdom, they may have had closer relationships over time. Among the baleful results was most probably some variety of Baal-worship, which seemed at one with the noteworthy corruption inveighed against by the Most High’s prophets to this House.

There may have been colonies of Israelites from the Northern Kingdom long-scattered about during Israel’s expansion under King David. Growing populations and growing trade between Israel and the lands to the north and east may have been factors. Also, as with Egypt, the House of Israel’s growing colonial population and its success may have been factors in their annihilation and subsequent bondage. They may have seemed too rich. That might lead to burdensome demands for tribute from Assyria which was resisted, leading to their defeat and bondage. [This may startle Americans who are accustomed to seeing burdensome tribute placed on the poor.]

That the House of Israel may have had good knowledge of Assyrian lands and even knowledge of the lands beyond the Black Sea, Caucasian Mountains, and Caspian Sea is herein being proposed. Please recall that the Tribe of Dan was a seafaring people. Zebulon and Asher are also described in Holy Scripture as seafaring. Naphtali and Gad may also have had ships at sea. Yet, Dan is especially interesting. The lands of Dan were split into a northern and southern group. The northern group is closest of all the Tribes to the route of the Assyrian invaders. Yet, on the stone tablet ordered by the Assyrian king to number the people conquered, there is no listing of the Tribe of Dan. All the others were listed, including 200,000 from the outlying cities of Judah. It is possible that the Danites in these lands were listed under Naphtali or Asher. It is also possible that news of the approach of the Assyrian army had reached the Danites of the northern group months before they actually arrived. This allowed the Danites to execute a massive exodus to one or more of their numerous colononies. In fact the Danites may have been Israel’s major “intelligence” tribe, as their far-flung colonies naturally positioned them to be aware of political “goings-on” in the land of their colony. I feel confident that such knowledge was fed back to the Northern Kingdom (and probably the Southern Kingdom as well). As a matter of speculation, the reason that Dan held bifurcated lands – one near the northern tip of the Southern Kingdom and one near the northern tip of the Northern Kingdom – is that they held an unofficial position as “spies/couriers” to these respective Kingdoms. Their “antennae” were far-reaching, as they sailed the “serpent paths” (rivers, and other curving bodies of water).

What wre some of the known and suspected colonies of the Tribe of Dan? Well, consider some known relationships:

1. “The Danites were widespread. Cyprus was called Ia-Dnan: ‘The Island of Dan(an).’ The same people were called Danuna, and under this name they appear as rulers of the Plain of Adana in Cilicia. Greek tradition has their eponymous ancestor, Danaos (Dan), migrating from the Nile delta to Greece. So important was this movement that the Greeks afterward called themselves Danaoi for centuries. Virgil also designated the Greeks as ‘Danai.’ ”            [THE STORY OF CELTO-SAXON ISRAEL, W.H. Bennett, Appendix 7, pages 176-177]

The fact that Israel did migrate from Egypt should be borne in mind. As with Assyria, the Danites may have had plenty of clues to the changing mood in Egypt toward their “guests.” I believe that before the pharaohic hammer fell on Israel, some, if not all, of the danites took to sea for a safer haven. From their experience as seafaring people, they would have a good idea where to go for shelter. If this reasonable scenario is true, then it is only reasonable that the legend of their exodus would gain mythic standing. It would also suggest that this prior experience bode well for the Danites when the word of the approach of the Assyrian armies reached them.

2. “It is an obvious inference that the ancient Irish tuatha de Danaan, who trace their origins to the East, are related to both the Danaan of earely Greece and the Biblical tribe of Dan. It is a known fact that the old word, ‘tuatha,‘ means tribe; ‘tuatha de Danaan’ therefore means, ‘tribe of Dan.’ ”                                                         [THE STORY OF CELTO-SAXON ISRAEL, supra, p,176]

3. “Phoenicia never at any time was a nation under one government, but was merely a geographical designation  for a particular strip of coastal plain along the Eastern Mediterranean. Prof. George Rawlinson remarks: ‘The cities of Phoenicia lived for the most part on friendly terms one with another, but at no time formed a regular confederacy. In the normal condition of things each had its own monarch, who was quite independent of all the rest. On approach, however, of serious danger, the various towns drew together, alliances were formed, and joint armies and navies collected.’…

“Little is known about the Hittites, but what we do know is that their greatest period was contemporaneous to the five-hundred-year period that Israel occupied the land, and to the Golden Age of Phoenicia. Prof. Wassell traces most of the British immigrants of about 1000 B.C. as coming from Syria, Cilicia, and Cappadocia in the land of the Hittites. The Hittites are spoken of in Scripture quite frequently, and their remains indicate that they possessed a high state of civilization. As the sons of Heth and of Canaan and Noah, they were of course Phoenicians; nut as Waddell also connects the name of Hittite with that of Catti, Gad, and Goth, it is a good guess that it was the Israelites, from 1500 to 1000 B.C. who gave the Hittite civilization the eminence that it held during that time. In fact, the passage quoted from Judges 3:5 states that Israel lived among the Hittites. Those Phoenician Hittites were of course worshippers of Bel, the god of Sun fire, as we have already seen, but Scripture tells us that the Israelites also served these gods and forsook the worship of Jehovah. Hundreds of thousands of Englishmen have come to America, and their descendants are Americans today; so likewise did thousands of Israelites settle in the land of the Hittites and passed as Hittites.”            [TRACING OUR ANCESTORS, Frederick Haberman, pp. 71-72]]

I believe that by this bit of data one can easily come to suspect Establishment-type Americans of redacting information with the intention of nudging ordinary citizens in the false directions essential to achieving an anti-Christic state of mind. In my view this goal is certainly premeditated, and it depends on ignorance and fecklessness on the part of the Christian community for success. Hence, the all-out effort by them to hid the true identity of Israel and to substitute a fake in its stead. Who has the marks of Israel? Who has the marks of Edom? The Christian community has been “drugged” by its religious leadership, just as one might expect from Revelation, and the group perception is so hazy as to land them in Satan’s “bighouse,” where the two-minded people gather to talk out both sides of their mouth.

4. “Now, let us take notice that it was during the same period that there arose in the Aegean Islands and on the coastland of Europe another civilization, whose lustre still survives until this day–the civilization of Greece–but it must be borne in mind that the instigators of that civilization never called themselves Greeks but Hellenes, Achaeans, Danai, and Lacedaemonians. Scholars have wondered where that high type of culture and manhood suddenly came from, but a little searching with an open mind will soon answer that question: and let it be noted that the so-called mythical age of Greece is also contemporaneous with the Golden Age of Phoenicia and Israel.

“It was the later Romans who first called those people by the name of Greeks, from the Latin word Graeci, meaning ‘Orientals.’ Those ‘Orientals’ traced their descent from Deucalion and Pyrrha, who escaped from the Deluge with their three sons. The earliest inhabitants of  Greece were the Pelasgians, who were the erectors of the Pelasgian or Cyclopean stone monuments, which we also find in Britain. Their name indicates that the Pelasgians were the sons of Peleg, the son of Eber (Genesis 10:25). The Hellenic civilization, however, did not commence until the Dorian invasion of about 1200 or 1100 B.C. Dorian, however, is only another form of Trojan, as the interchange of T and D is common to the early Aryan languages. That the Trojans were Israelites we shall see…

“To readers of Homer’s Iliad and Odessey the name of Danai is familiar; in the Iliad the Danai are mentioned 147 times, and it requires no great stretch of the imagination to see that the Danai were people of the Israelitish tribe of Dan. Later Grecian history knows the Danai no more: they moved northward into Europe, and we can trace their wanderings by the place-names they left behind them, such as Danube, Donetz, Danzig, Dnieper, Dniester, and even into Denmark and Norway, where they appear as the Donsk people. Some of them, however, seemed to have stayed in Greece, but under different names, such as Macedonians and Lacedaemonians or Spartans. In confirmation of this we have a passage in the First Book of the Maccabees, 12: 20-22, which mentions a letter received by the Jewish High Priest of the day, about 300 B.C. The passage reads: ‘Arius, king of the Spartans, to Onias, the Chief Priest, greetings: It has been found in writing concerning the Spartans and the Jews, that they are brethren and that they are of the stock of Abraham; to our knowledge ye shall do well to write unto us of your prosperity.’

“Although the Greeks were notorious idolators, yet they believed in one Jove, the Father of Gods, whose name is easily identified with Jehovah. The name of Hellen, the ancestor of the Hellenes is difficult to identify; yet Hellen is said to be a son of Deucalion and is either Shem or Eber. Sir Flinders Petrie in his A Review of History speaks of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Egyptian Dynasties as Hellenic shepherd kings and says: ‘As Hellene is the regular equivalent of the maritime Ha Nebu, ‘lords of the north.’ The 15th Dynasty is correctly named from Phoenicia, whence it entered Egypt.’ As the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Dynasties are also spoken of as Hyksos kings, it identifies, therefore, the latter with the Hebrew-Phoenicians, the Phoenicians with the Hellenes and in all probability Hellen with Eber.  Sanchoniathon, the Phoenician, speaks of ‘Saturn or Kronos, whom the Phoenicians call Israel.’ Kronos had twelve sons, one of whom was Jehud or Jupiter. That Jehud is Judah is not difficult to see. The story of the Greek Hercules is the story of Samson, who was a Danite.”                                      [TRACING OUR ANCESTORS, Frederick Haberman, pp. 72-73]

This posting has sought to set the stage for the Great Replanting of Israel. The movements of the various tribes and sub-tribes was a lengthy one according to time. Further, the migrations were almost a constant, albeit staggered and spread, movement from the “calling out” of Abram in Ur to go south into the land of Canaan to the entry of the first Israelites into America. Even in the latter instance, there is good reason to suppose on evidence discovered that America had been reached by Dan, or an Israelite-Phoenician group, or even by an Israelite-Phoenician-Edom group.

The pyramidal structures found in Central America too closely harken to structures found in Egypt to be ignored. Any of these three groups would be familiar with Egyptian pyramids. If Dan, while still primarily abiding in Egypt during the better times, set sail for the sea beyond the Pillars of Hercules, they may well have landed in Central America. They may have also been familiar with Egyptian pyramid building, imparting this knowledge during a lengthy sojourn. Since the local leadership was familiar with slave labor, their contributions of many thousands of expendable slaves could have lent the one missing element. Parenthetically, it is reported that Hernando Cortez, commenting upon the Aztecs, said that they “were great Sodomites.” If this is factual. it would be consistent with a native population under the baleful sway of Baal-worshippers.

Be that as it may, the matter of Israelite “reach” is important. We know that they were not recluses, hiding from the sinful world while awaiting a messiah. They were a vital people. They warred. They traded, They fished and sailed forth. It is inconceivable that they did not set up trading posts around the Mediterranean Sea. Some of these in time became colonies. This process proceeded as a natural expression of a booming population originally set in a small patch of land.

The prophet Nathan, inspired by the Most High, spoke of a new place. Israel had outgrown the Land of Milk and Honey. Yet, they sensed that the Most High had covenanted with their fathers for a land of their own, and He had prepared more than one. The Lands of Milk and Honey became stepping stones that led directly to the final great Land of Milk and Honey–America. Yet, their journey would be stalked all the way by another people. This was a people of burning malice, who sought to avenge their father Esau. The war between two very different people continued the strife that began in the womb of Rebecca. 

The interesting history of Israel OUTSIDE of the Biblical focus is a story that has been buried by Popes and preachers in a common cause: to anoit Jews as the remnant entirety of the Israelite people. The book-burners and knowledge exterminators have been called forth on their usual search and destroy mission. “Deniers” may be hunted down by the Justice Department’s sinister Office of Special Investigations, as prominent figures such as Michael Shapiro, Washington Jewish Week, wonder aloud whether the OSI should be limited to Nazi-chasing. Qui Bono?  This shameful crime will be righted in time, but don’t look for Establishment “Christian” leaders to participate; they don’t hunger and thirst for justice’s sake.

Gobigfoot, 2008.

BURN AFTER READING : A MOVIE REVIEW

Osbourne Cox on the warpath.

Harry & Linda on a date.

This is the latest addition of the Coen Brothers’ Great Americana Circus, in which various American regions are held up for satiric inspection. As is usual with the CoBros, off-beat humor is readily available. For Americans who would like to travel around America “just to see it all” but just can’t find the time, the CoBros’ DVD film oueve may provide a possible answer, albeit a caricatured one.

As is usual for the CoBros (but certainly not from all other directors), they get good performances from their players. Frances McDormand, not surprisingly, is featured in this film (she’s married to one of the directors) and very amusing as the woman who wants to be more than she can be–with a little help from her cosmetic surgeon. George Clooney reappears, rhis time as a variety of federal bodyguard. Brad Pitt appears as a physical therapist associate who chews gum to the tune of his Walkman. He is showing signs of being beyond “young man roles,” so that he appears to be not quite right here. Still, he has the looks and acting ability to pull the role off. Ever since I saw him in The Army of the Twelve Monkeys, I’ve known that he could act. Still, the role belonged to a young Brad Pitt or to someone such as Ed Byrne, who played “Kookie” in 77 Sunset Strip. The best performance was rendered by John Malkovich as the C.I.A. official who is being eased into “nowheresville” in the pecking order at Langley. Richard Jenkins turns in another amusing role as a sort of lovesick superior to Frances McDormand’s character. I might add that Katie Swinton was nearly perfect as the cool, tough wife of Malkovich’s character, Osbourne Cox.

Parenthetically, one of the most interesting things in this movie was a brief, discreet shot of the C.I.A. emblem, which occurred during one of the scenes at Langley. I had never seen or noticed it before. While I’m aware that the U,S. governmental seals and emblems are sometimes composed of occult symbols, the one shown in the movie was more suggestive of real allegience. It was a white background field in the form of a shield that hosted a red star. This “red star” has been associated with Edom-controlled nations, corporations, products, and–as we see here–the nation within a nation known as the C.I.A., which has diplomatic relationships with congress, the president, and other intelligence-gathering organizations. It has its own gross-national product and balance-of-payments issues. Drug-running became an industry for the C.I.A. to increase its available funds whereby to increase its reach. Shady-doings are now de rigueur in the United States governmental branches, so there is hardly a raised eyebrow about crimes in government today. The nice thing about the C.I.A. is that it doesn’t let you know that it is an ongoing criminal enterprise. That way, people are free to suppose them to be on “our side.” No organization that bears the “Red Star of Edom” is ever anything other than ruthless, brutal, avaricious, and international.

The locale for this latest CoBro film is the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan area. For all practical purposes the scenes take place in or about Georgetown and adjacent areas, the Mall, and Langley, VA. The social milieu is composed of people of the middle level (or lower), who are stuck in the turf of the wannabes and feel a little desperate that they may be sinking–or maybe missing out on opportunities. Using others, betraying others, and even criminal acts may seem justified, due to needs of the moment. With no real God or moral order, it’s anything goes under the obscuring shelter of “family values” and “national security.”

The Film Capsule: In a “slice of caricatured life” in Washington, D.C., rendered through the lives of different sets of people, who, initially, for the most part don’t know one another. As the film proceeds through numerous scene cuts, these people’s lives are made to converge in an array of deadly ways. (The CoBros must have blood–it’s that simple.) The film begins (and ends) with an orbiting “bird in the sky” view of the Langley, VA, and adjacent Potomac river area. The “birdseye” zooms in, until the moviegoer finds himself in a room with a handful of men. One of these men is Osbourne Cox (Malkovich). He is being officially informed that he was losing a respectable slot for a significantly lesser one. For a fairly senior official and son of Princeton University, this was hard to bear. One of the pretects is that he drinks “too much.” He notes that one of his accusers is a Mormon and that any drink was “too much” for him. Anger not availing him any, the clean-pated Cox goes home. He is going to resign from the C.I.A. and write a book. Meantime, his wife, Katie (Swinton) is having an adulterous relationship with Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney). About Osbourne, she’s cool and no-nonsense. She’s got divorce not too far from the front burner. She expects to marry her adulterous partner, Harry, who is also married to a woman who also writes. Hence, she’s conveniently away on book tours or closeted with her word processor. They seem happy. One infers that Harry is perfectly content to stay married to wife, Sandy (Elizabeth Marvel), and also to indulge in as many extra-marital relationships as he can squeeze in. He seems to be good at it, and Washington appears to abound with women of a kindred spirit. One of these is Linda Litzke (McDormand), who, as with Harry, cruises the internet for dating websites. She has signed up on at least one, as the moviegoer observes her on a couple of dates, the last of which is with Harry Pfarrer. She works at a DC spa. Her supervisor is Ted Treffon (Richard Jenkins), who clearly has romantic eyes for Linda, and just as predictably, she is barely conscious of him as a romantic interest. Her friend and associate at the spa is Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt), who is a peppy, gum-smacking sort–a bit lightweighted in the dome, who gets drawn into her machinations. She is obsessed with a body makeover, which will cost a bunch of loot. How to get the loot? There are funny renderings of her at the telephone, trying to make contact with insurance people, etcetera, about financing the surgery. Meranwhile, Osbourne Cox, who is very frequently seen to be drinking, is proceeding with his book. He has an agent and provides him with a DVD draft of his book. This agent loses it at the spa. When Chad gets it to Linda, she perceives it as highly classified material and attempts to blackmail Osbourne Cox for the money to have her operation. Chad is drawn into her extortion scheme. At this point the moviegoer may wonder if the CoBros have ripped off the basic concept from Dog Day Afternoon, directed by Sidney Lumet. It seems that committing a felony to finance cosmetic surgery (never without risks) is evidence of temporary insanity. That’s pretty much what Osbourne Cox tells Chad Feldheimer when they rendevous for what Chad thinks is going to be a bag of cash, paid for the missing DVD. Pitt and Malkovich are pretty funny here. There’s a struggle for the DVD, and Chad gets it back to Linda. She then decides to try to sell the DVD to the Russians at the embassy. She has only one DVD and lets them take a look, implying that there are more where that came from (there are not, of course). This fiasco goes nowhere, but McDormand is funny as she deals with the Russians. For her surgery she’s willing to play for high stakes. She hasn’t gone unnoticed by the C.I.A., as she has visited the Russian Embassy. Also, she has a date with Harry Pfarrer through their mutually used website. All of her first-time webdates seem to end in bed, and so it was with Harry. These two get along well. As all these sets of deceiving, angle-playing people converge, things begin to play out in unexpectedly deadly ways. None of these people are what today’s crowd would consider “bad people.” Harry Pfarrer in his government work is allowed to carry a concealed handgun, which he jokes about openly, saying that he had never had to shoot anyone in twenty years, or some such. But times, they are a-changing! Katie has changed the locks on the doors of her townhouse, thrown Osbourne’s clothes & stuff out, and with her attorney’s help been able to rip-off all Osbourne’s bank-based loot. It makes for disappointing trips to the ATMs. Plus, someone is tailing Osbourne. He is really bent-nosed about all that’s has happened recently and he’s in no mood to take anymore. Harry visits Katie at her townhouse. Finding himself alone, he showers. Meantime, Chad has broken into the Cox townhouse to locate and steal Osbourne’s other DVDs. Seeing that Harry is in the bathroom of the upstairs bedroom, Chad seeks to hide in the closet. It’s safe to conclude a symbolic side to Chad’s move. As things happen, Harry goes to the closet, discovers Chad, reaches for his gun excitedly, and blasts Chad in the noodle. It’s pretty messy and shocking. what to do with the body? He bags it and drags it to the trunk of his car. He’s being tailed also. The moviegoer learns later from a scene at the C.I.A. that he dumped the bag of Chad in the Cheasapeake Bay. The C.I.A. chief concluded that it was best to just forgetaboutit. Meanwhile, Linda has pressured Ted Treffon at the spa to use his skills and break into the Cox home, downloading files to offer for sale to the Russians. She’s still obscessed with her surgical procedure–the makeover that will permanently change her life for the better. Ted is discovered by the already deeply angry Osbourne, who demands to know who he is and what he is doing. This bit of violence leasds up to Osbourne, steaming, going outside his townhouse with a hatchet, furious at someone near his car. Oh, brother! O. Cox gets shot down like a dog. The C.I.A. opinion: It’s best–close the file. The Russians tell Linda, “No thanks.” Harry just wants his “momma” to come home from her tour. He’s been a bad boy. The Washington scene hasn’t changed much. Some players fade away; others rise up to replace them in this modern-day “memorial on the Potomac” to Vanity Fair.

All rights reserved. Gobigfoot, 2008.

WORDPRESS CENSORS AT IT AGAIN

I’d like to mention how frequently my posts are published without any notice given by WordPress on its list of “Latest Posts.” They have now decided to “stifle” my book review of “IN THE SHADOW OF LIONS” by Ginger Garrett. How fearful these people must be, if my words cause such desperate acts of censorship, as the many failures to officially note my posts indicate is happening. Let the sun shine in!

Gobogfoot, 2008.

IN THE SHADOW OF LIONS: A BOOK REVIEW

Anne Boleyn with sharp, suspicious gaze awaits the approach of the reader.

I must admit that I was initially confused, when I began reading Ms. Garrrett’s historical fiction, In The Shadow of Lions. I fully expected to immediately enter sixteenth century England. However, Ms. Garret has chosen to enter upon the body of her romantic adventure by means of a ”story within a story,” which is made to have continuity by the devices of spiritism, parallel and genaeology. For the protagonist, Bridget, her special history lesson, conducted by the Scribe, becomes a touchstone. It will help her to decide whose hand she will take at the border. Ms. Garrett is an imaginative lass.

Although the idea of “guardian angels” for individuals is ancient, Ms. Garrett introduces the idea of guardian angels for families, as well. And, yes! They do influence events. Far-fetched? Perhaps, but the idea of an “invisible hand” shaping events and destinies is also ancient. Hence, the reader may not be entirely surprised to discover that a prominent element in this story is the Scribe’s “Book of Destiny,” touching upon Bridget, Rose, Anne, and others who will be met along the way. Nor is the Scribe the only “not strictly Earthly” being. Beware the Selasals!

One can promptly observe influences from predecessors who have developed variations of this device for relating a tale. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland. L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz, and Tales from a Thousand and One Nights [numerous authors] are just a few of the imaginative forerunners to Ms. Garrett. As a matter of inference, I have no doubt that the “guiding vision” in this story, Scribe, was inspired by none other than Shaquille O’Neal in the film Aladdin.

Allow me to make a grammatical criticism. At chapter ten on pages 104 and 105, I noticed two instances in which the expression “different than” appears, rather than “different from.” This being so, there are probably other instances as well. As this is incorrect usage, it should not appear. One can forgive a writer slip ups here and there, but how could the book’s copyreader not edit out this mistake? It’s not an issue of style.

So, having initiated my read of this book, I found myself in a hospice, where a patient (Bridget) is rendering a first-person singular statement of “life on the border.” The hospice catered to the needs of terminal cancer patients. These are patients who are frequently treated with strong painkillers, such as morphine. They tend to be elderly, also. Hence, not only were they converging on the border of life and death, material and spiritual, but doing so with minds that are now lucid, now cloudy, and now again hallucinatory. As one dies, reality is annihilated. Hallucinations are a human’s last attempt to make sense of it all.

Thus, from the outset Ms. Garrett draws us into this strangeland. It seems to be an unlikely “looking glass,” yet the reader feels compelled to enter. Enter for the mystery of it. Enter for the adventure. Enter for the challenge. Who are these women? I believe that readers will find the mystery worth pursuing. I did.

It isn’t too long before the reader is removed to “jolly old England.” Through the eyes of a young woman named “Rose” the reader is introduced to a strange ritual cleansing conducted by a cardinal of the Church and a gentleman, who was called “Sir Thomas” and “More.” Rose herself had only recently given birth to a bastard lad, and she was still weak, confused, shamed, and depressed. In the rainy April darkness she crept as near as she dared to watch the disenterment of a priest who had “cast pearl before swine.” As the last embers cooled about the remnant of the stake, the men went to their horses to gallop their separate ways. At that very moment Rose hurled her body before the uncoming hooves. Her desperate act of destruction oddly resolves itself in a kind of rebirth within the warm and ample abode of the man called Thomas More.

Parenthetically, ambivalence by the primary women in this story in regard to simply living becomes a recurring emotional attitude that is worth noting.

The reader understands that Rose conceals a secret, which somehow involves a priest and the Church. Further, there seems to be a kind of standard that is operating here, as well as through time, that small deceits are permissible in ordinary intercourse for purposes of persuasion. Few are immune to its allure.

With this dreary, strange introduction Ms. Garrett leads her guests into a fascinating and important period in English history, as well as in the unfolding Christian idea of itself and its mission. The English characters in this novel are heavily influenced by Christian thought, however aberrant, as well as the pecking order of power. An obligation toward duty is magnified, serving also as a shield and brace for the vast majority of people who exist in a weak, submissive condition. This allows an unjust fate to be rationalized by asserting that one has done one’s duty. Mercy is typically the province of Heaven alone. There is little use for it in Tudor England. In fact aberrant theology may conclude that torture, rightly understood, is a mercy! For the reader it is unnerving to see a nation ruled by aberrant theology, superstition, and insidious rumor-mongering. Yet, this seems to be the case in the England of Henry VIII. Less you be mortified, let me say that it still happens in our thoroughly modern times. It is simply not a cultural imperative.

The contemporary colloquy between Bridget and the Scribe, as Bridget transcribes relevant pages from the Book of Destiny, introduces us to Anne Boleyn. In the telling of the tale Ms. Garrett is wonderfully informative, delightful in her imaginative elaborations of scant historical data, sometimes compelling and always from the female perspective abiding. One must recall how important perspective is at determining the truth of something. Truth must be hemmed in, corralled, triangulated–and even then it may defy precise understanding. Ms. Garrett’s addition is very helpful.

In her tale the meeting of Henry VIII and Anne Bolleyn gets personal under shady circumstances and partial anonymity, as if Zeus had hidden himself in a humble human shape to engage a comely woman. The interlude, however, is characterized by pain and compassion, rather than lust. Yet, one thing leads to another.

Rose and Anne are women from different cultural planes in English society. However, as their lives unfold, they converge. The twin vortexes of national sovereign and religious sovereign each forcefully drawing them and compelling them to choose. The reader gets a good insight into the general life of women during Tudor England, as well as the major figures caught in the wake of that great ship of state–Henry VIII. Sir Thomas More, Lord Percy, Cardinal Wolsey, Catherine of Aragon, Jane Bolleyn, Jane Grey, and many others are woven into the developing image as Bridget and the Scribe “burn the midnight oil.” There is no music playing in the background, save the unsung words of the old coal-mining song: “Whose side are you on, whose side are you on.”

Seemingly unimportant characters in Ms. Garrett’s book can become, in retrospect, more influential than one would ever have suspected.

“I want a home where books do not matter as much as love.”

I believe that this line spoken by Margaret More holds true for all the women encountered. Tension, however, is created by the context, which for all must be lawful. The law springs from either Scripture or the minds of men. For the Tudor-era women love has not been perfected until sanctioned by formal wedlock. Even Rose, who is sexually experienced, does not confuse this unlawful experience as love. In some noticeable degree the legal/familial duties that create dramatic opposition between Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn recapitulate the conflict between King Creon and Antigone. In both cases civil law challenges a “higher” law, which is of a moral or religious order. In both cases the kings attempt to misrepresent their orders as also being of a higher order. This makes compromise or concession difficult. Where neither can concede, tragic conflict become inevitable.

In this tale Anne Boleyn’s family isn’t really lofty, but might be compared to that of an upper middleclass woman today, who had been well-educated, had taken a year’s study at the Sorbonne, and had returned to the U.S. to take an executive position advising David Rockefeller, while sending dust flying with her wit and decollete’, and thus provoking spiteful rumors. In such a scenario the only missing ingredient is the permeating Christian faith, as well as Reformist challenges to it, that characterize sixteenth century England and the Continent.

On the other hand Ms. Garrett’s Rose is alone and a “street person,” hustling her youth and wits to make her daily subsistence wage. For Sir Thomas More, a very prominent and ”enlightened”  figure at King Henry VIII’s court, Rose becomes a “social experiment,” which resonates with the Pygmalian tale and, of course, My Fair Lady. Sir Thomas and Henry Higgins have similar goals, differing primarily in the crucial idioms of their cultures, which each attempts to recreate in a lesser specimen. For God, for science, for country and for vanity do they proceed with their “enlightened” (and speculative) experiments.

At least Rose finds and offers companionship within the More household. She finds it in Sir Thomas’ daughter, Margaret. Sir Thomas proves to be a kindly patron also. Through Rose’s eyes, primarily, are we provided with the contrasting, sometimes contradictory, characteristics of Sir Thomas More, which make him finally the most intriguing figure at a court which includes not only Henry VIII but Cardinal Wolsey, the spymaster Cranmer, and the queen, Catherine.

On the other hand Anne Boleyn seems strangly alone. She has a family that possesses a degree of prominence. Yet, they recede in Ms. Garrett’s tale to a hazy reality which is not given much more than passing mention. Anne’s brother George is mentioned a few times, yet he is hardly more than some generic kid. Allusions to George’s misdirected libido are made, and the reader is informed that the power of the sovereign’s sword falls most certainly upon heretics and “doers of unnatural acts.” Still, it is not her familiai influences that we note as shaping her character so much as religious faith and feminine imperatives of that time– and perhaps all time.

Ms. Garrett provides the reader with one year in the life of Anne Boleyn. That year, however, begins with Rose. In fact the reader doesn’t encounter Anne until the fifth chapter.

The Tudor tale by Ms. Garrett is framed by and interacts remotely with a contemporary colloquy between a woman in a hospice and a “vision,” which I have mentioned above. These opening pages in which “Bridget” expresses herself did not please my ear, altogether, due to vocabulary and obscurity. Bridget was a literary agent/editor, who loved, envied and sabotaged her most promising client, “David.” Perhaps these initial pages suggested why she was an agent/editor and not a writer. Nevertheless, as Bridget, her visitor, and the Book of Destiny settle in the reader’s mind, her story, although somewhat thin soup, becomes more savory. By the end of this tale Ms. Garrett achieves an unexpectedly moving conclusion to her story of Anne, Rose and Bridget.

I certainly encourage others to give this book a try, because I think you’ll like it. I think that this is especially true for women.

Lastly, not to be overlooked are the notes by the author in regard to her tale, which are found immediately after the epilog. All in all, In The Shadow of Lions is a very satisfying way to spend a winter’s day.

All rights reserved. Gobigfoot, 2008.

W. : A MOVIE REVIEW WITH COMMENTARY

The Presidemt meets the press.

George W. Bush at messy Yale

This film is about the sitting President of the United States, and it is a biographical sketch. As such, it is selective in the “shaping events” in the life of George W. Bush, which it offers as evidence of the “real” man. This film is directed by Oliver Stone, who is known to be a bit tendentious in tone and loose with historical data. He is, nevertheless, an effective director, achieving memorable films. This may be one of them for many.

Oddly, he rendered “George W.” (Josh Brolin) as a rather likable individual. High-spirited and irresponsible as a young man, he finds himself repeatedly involved in messy or awkward situations. The father, “George H. W.” (James Cromwell), aka, “Popie,” repeatedly comes to the rescue. Cromwell renders George H. W. Bush as a stoical sort, who is completely framed by his family name and sense of duty. As there are few men who have not displayed a few “wild hairs” in their youth, few will think the worst of George W.’s transgressions. ["He who is without sin cast the first stone."] Nor will the steadfast, patient, stoical George H.W. be ill-thought of by the moviegoer, as he tries to deal with a faux pas or contretemps of “Junior’s.” On the other hand this may be a sort of sub rosa method of Oliver Stone to suggest that “H.W.” was actually a chronic and habitual “fixer” in everything he did.

Quite frankly, I don’t buy into the George H.W. image provided by Oliver Stone and his writer, Stanley Weiser, nor that of “W.” for that matter, but that’s not the issue, since the movie stands as a thing itself. Also, when does a Hollywood film “based on a real historical event” ever cleave to the “historical event?” They are usually very loosely connected to such events. They cannot be trusted as accurate depictions. Still, they must connect with a few. So it is with this film. One is safest when viewing it as a caricature and social satire. From this perspective the film has some amusing episodes and vignettes.

The film divides into two parts: firstly, it deals with the young, often intoxicated and wild W., where a taste of Texas culture is served up as well. Secondly, it deals with the “born again,” sober, married and now politically ambitious W. Frankly, the giving in to Christ and giving up of alcohol would be entirely admirable, if entirely true.

This leads to another matter. One may infer that Oliver Stone, in so much as W. is a menacing hypocrit, is fingering Christianity as an unindicted co-defendant. This would be at one with the relatively contemporary effort by “Holocaust” mongerers to blame Christianity for the death of “six million Jews.” These deceitful postulations cannot stand on the evidence. There is nothing more certain than that W.’s Administration is filled with “neo-conservatives” whose founders, Irving Krystal, Norman Podoretz, et al, were former Trotskyites or fellow travelers. They became “born again” conservatives for the sake of advancing Zionism and the “Jewish World Agenda” (a phrase employed by N.J. politician Corzine). The Bush Administration, as is typical sense FDR’s, is disparately weighted with Jews, and those that are not profess the same or similar “neo-conservative” geopolitical views. Thus, one finds Condoleezza Rice, Richard Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld. Two out of three of these may have Jewish antecedants. Speaking of which, W., himself, has Jewish features. His Christian faith may be quite ernest, and, then again, it may be a ruse. Oliver Stone chooses the first option.

This allows the Levantine intrusion to be likened to a Middle Age crusade. This characterization is embraced by some Muslim spokespeople. Thus, the struggle can be tagged as a “Christian vs. Muslim” battle. However, bona fide Christianity in America has no vital interest in the Levant upon which to go to war, assuming preemptive war-making were ever a Christian way. Christianity has no special interest in the “holy land” which is a God-forsaken piece of arid turf, ruled by people desperate to find a river. Qui bono? Who benefits from America’s going incredibly deep in debt to annihilate potential enemies of Israel, create “democracies” guided by Jewish/masonic puppets, and expropriate Levantine oil in the name of the “world community?” Go figure!

Also, there is a substantial gap in this film dealing with the Bush family’s rather marked affinity for Latino culture. In fairness there were a couple of scenes of W., speaking Spanish to a Tex-Mex compatriot. Yet, Oliver Stone/Stanley Weiser leave out quite a lot of important details which are important in understanding the Bush family. George H.W. had named his oil exploration company Zapata Offshore, after the Mexican revolutionary. W. had named (or another member of his family) another oil exploration company Arbusto Exploration. Arbusto is a Spanish form of Bush. Cute? The Governor George W. Bush’s administration was noted for its large number of Latin administrators. I believe that among these was Alberto Gonzales. Can anyone imagine a honest sketch of the political rise of W. in Texas that left off Alberto Gonzales? Further, George H.W. was familiar with the likes of Noriega of Panama (and many more like him) from at least his days as Director of the C.I.A. As Reagan’s Vice President, George W. was put into a position of “Drug Tsar” of America’s fight against drugs. There were big splashy accounts of drug busts in Florida at the very time Barry Seal, well-known C.I.A. operative/contractor, was flying cargo planes filled with cocaine from clandestine airstripes in Panama and Columbia, which allegedly had been built by Army Special Forces personnel ”loaned” to the C.I.A., to Mena, Arkansas, where “brother” Billy Jeff Clinton, the governor, knew “nothINK about it!” No wonder that the rumored C.I.A.-linked Clinton and George H.W. got along so famously. But even with all the vigilance in Florida, the D.E.A.’s planned sting of an incoming flight from Latin America had to be aborted, for the politically sound reason that two sons, including W., of George H.W. were on that plane that was the D.E.A.’s target. Folks, the affinity of the Bush family for the people and culture of Latin America, especially the revolutionary/criminal elements, and their facile deeds (which appear criminal), as they go about making a buck and/or “serving” their country, should warrant a tad notice “in this here film.” [Let's not even bring up the relationships with the Bin Laden family, Saddam Hussein, et al.]

The Story Capsule with Commentary: The President of the United States, George W. Bush, comes into office on January 21, 2001. From this period to about 2005 the story unfolds with well known political events such as 9/11, the unseating of Saddam Hussein, and the progressive involvement of U.S. occupational forces both in Iraq and Afghanistan. During this period Preident W. is shown initially as a popular president, whose popularity wanes as deaths and debt increase sharply. It is something Popie can’t fix. Naturally, the President has reflective moments during these years. By means of these, flashbacks allow the moviegoer to see the “making of the president” by describing bits of his young manhood at Yale and at various locales within Texas. The Yale scene was largely the inducting of new members (including W.) into the Sigma Alpha (or some such) fraternity. Oliver Stone implies here that the bedrock pools of money controlling America are controlled by the families of these young men. W. is shown to be a chronic drinker of alcohol, as were many of his associates. The ill-effects of alcohol aren’t so apparent, but there are scenes of W. being jailed, crashing his car into trees, and so on. He is presented as just a fun-loving fellow out for a good time. Popie gets W. a number of jobs, but W. can’t seem to hold them.  One example is as an oilrig roughneck. He walks off the post, as he’s very hot, tired and thirsty, and fetches a beer for a self-given “take ten.” The rig foreman (Randal Reeder) ordered him back to his post. Reeder was a large, dirty, and no nonsense presence. Not daunted, when he couldn’t cojole the break, he just finished his beer and said that he didn’t need this job. Besides sewing wild oats, W. is trying to establish himself as a regular Texan, rather than a guy born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Still, he had to confront the accusation of being a carpetbagging outsider. He has a fling with a blonde who liked to hang out at the honkytonk favored by W, Finally. he meets the lady librarian at a party who would become his first lady and then eventually the nation’s. Laura (Elizabeth Banks) was a pretty gal, and moviegoers may admire the convincing country accent of Banks. His outsider moniker came to the fore soon. This was well illustrated in his first run for elective office against Democrat Kent Hance (Paul Rae). This was one of the better scenes in the flick. Paul Rae was good as “Hance.” Constant adviser Karl Rove is seen here for the first time. His influence is inferred, although no specific plan of his is stated. Oliver Stone probably doesn’t want to bring up his Latino block strategy.  Parenthetically, throughout this film there are references to brother Jeb, who is characterized as brainy and goal-oriented. There is an unspoken statement that W. is neither. Also, on a few occasions in this film there were “visions” by W, of his being in the outfield of the baseball team he came to partially own. He is seen typically as accepting the applause of the imaginary fans or dropping back to catch a deep centerfield fly. There is a sense of a man yearning for popular support–even love. This image seems to strengthen W. to proceed with the real tasks at hand. He does have an athletic side, and each day sees him jogging three miles. He is a man reared as an Episcopalian, or sometimes Presbyterian, yet, apparently doesn’t feel that he’s really Christian. He hears a preacher, “Earle Hudd” (Stacy Keach), who stirs him to ask for a few moments of the preacher’s time. W. confesses his “something’s missing” feelings, gets counseling and support, becomes a born-again Christian, and begins a more settled, businesslike lifestyle. He helps his Popie as he runs for President, including approving the famous “Willie Horton” ad on TV. Was this ad a sign of W.’s Christian renewal?

It seems that Stone is inviting the question. However, W.’s brand of Christianity was also one that revered the Ten Commandments. He is also likely to be a “Zionist” in his “Christian” thinking. Hence, the real unspoken causa belli was the unwillingness of Muslim countries to give the Israeli state their love. “Without love–where would we be now?” W.’s neo-conservative advisers might well counsel him. “Maybe,” they advised, “what is needed is a shotgun wedding.” The idea of “shooting anyone who wouldn’t come to the wedding ” seemed to seize the President’s advisers. And why let them strike back? A Pearl Harbor event in America has already occurred. Now, armed with knowledge of the fruitfulness of dropping A-bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, lets “light up the Levant!” Rumsfeld, Rice, Cheney, Wolfowitz, et al, must have expressed themselves exultantly. Incidentally, some of the performances by the actors given the roles of Cheney (Richard Dreyfuss), Rumsfeld (Scott Glenn), Wolfowitz (Dennis Boutsikaris), et al, were drool. The best character lampoon was Thandie Newton’s rendering of Condoleezza Rice, which was outstanding, savory, and very rewarding to observe. There was a scene when George Tenet (Bruce McGill) of the C.I.A. was being criticized by another adviser at the President’s Conference table that evoked wonderfully amusing mugs from McGill’s Tenet. There were other amusing scenes of W. leading his counselers along a dusty road on his Crawford ranch. There was the famous “Cheetos Incident.” Increasingly, as the Iraq adventure seemed to be a madding dustdevil of improvised bombs, the mood at the White House became more tense. Colin Powell (Jeffrey Wright) is the only cautionary voice among the advisers. The more dismay the public shows in regard to White House policies, the more the President and his staff talk of “weapons of mass destruction” and bombing Iran. Is there a failure to communicate? The President believed in action. War is action. Why can’t the American people understand that.

Josh Brolin provided another good performance as W. Tobey Jones did a curious Karl Rove, as the “boy genius” never said much to make the moviegoer think he was exceptional. He is a fairly quiet, background presence. Jones utilizes facial expression to fill in the lack of script provided by Weiser. His frequent presence with W. is the only indication that he may be important. There is overall good supporting performances in this film–often with a comical side–which tends to make this an enjoyable “slice of biographical life.” Elizabeth Banks does a fine job. Too bad that Weiser could not have worked in some of her edgy isolation at the White House, leading to her comment that “They hate us.”

Lastly, W.’s repeated comments about the “fundamental soundness of the American economy” during the early months of 2008 will be remembered as the essential statement, which displayed for all the world to see, the twin options: his dishonesty or his obtuseness. This movie pales by comparixon.

All rights reserved. Gobigfoot, 2008.

THE LONGSHOTS (2008): A MOVIE REVIEW

Curtis coaching Jasmine in The Longshots (2008)

This is a relatively simple film of personal discovery, healing and transient triumph. The film is set in a small southern town. As I recall, it is specifically Louisiana, but it could be any town in the South (or America). It is rather neatly directed, moving the story bits along at a suitable pace. Although the important elements of the story have appeared in many films over the years, the moviegoer will not feel discontent or annoyance. The quality of acting is uneven. The film is directed by Fred Durst.

The focus of this film is “Jasmine” (KeKe Palmer). I thought Ms. Palmer was effective as a somewhat alienated teenager whose studious, intellectual inclinations (reader) and withdrawn personality are awakened to a new Jasmine, when her uncle (Ice Cube) sees something unexpected in her. She is naturally athletic. A secondary story line involves this uncle, Curtis Plummer, who is down-n-out, since he lost his job at a factory which had shut down. As a major employer of the locals, the company’s departure hurt many. Oddly, Curtis’ recovery was made possible by his brother’s walking out on his wife and daughter. It is the precondition for his getting to know his niece better and seeing her hitherto unknown gift. They develop it and mutually recover in the process.

The story capsule with commentary: A single mom is trying to work a low-paying job, while keeping her daughter moving onward and upward. Sometimes she needs a little help from her friends. When they aren’t there, well–there’s her brother, Curtis. The film opens with mom, Claire (Tasha Smith), preparing to send her daughter to school and herself to work. The camera follows Jasmine to her high school, where she is seen to be quiet and not interacting with others too well. At her school locker she finds herself approached by two of the schools “popular girls.” On a pretext they lure her to another location for the purpose of ridiculing her. One may say that a constant theme in high school flicks is the tyranny of cheerleaders or “the rich & beautiful” set. Regular people are–well–regular. Those who aren’t either are destined for the role of “it.” Jasmine’s quiet, deferential manner makes her a juicy target. She turns away from the abuse, going her own friendless path. Yet, in all this one sees an inner strength of character. Perhaps one of her sources of strength is the fixed idea that her father is a good and loving father who will return to her when he can solve his personal problems–whatever they are. By this I mean that she has “faith.” With it, then, all she needs is to grow enough to recognize where it is misplaced. Her yearning has an element of a young woman trying to create “a knight in shining armor” out of a man who was actually a player, a user, and an abandoner. The father, “Winston,” effectively acted by Glenn Plummer, pays no support to his family, and he humiliated his wife, Claire, when she sought him out to help his family with some money, if not love. He is viewed by the locals as “no good.” Yet, Jasmine clutches a memento that her father gave her and refuses to believe any negative comments about him. At this time in her life he represents hoped for, fatherly support. It so happens that Curtis Plummer is destined to displace that hope for a better and more real one. There comes a point early in the film when Claire turns to her “down-n-out” brother to look after Jasmine for a day or two. When the camera focuses on Curtis, he seems to be living on the streets, so to speak. There is a sort of shantytown, whereat the moviegoer pays witness to the pain that comes when “free trade” decrees that it is good sense to shut down a factory and flee across the border where low pay and “life in hovels” is the norm. Meanwhile, Americans are encouraged to adapt to world standards. Curtis’s friends such as “Cyrus” (Dash Mihok) and the “Rev. Pratt” (Garret Morris) are keeping body and soul together by fellowship and humor. Curtis does dress a bit as one would aspect of a man long unemployed and nearly pennyless–but not completely. He has a cocky little hat that sort of symbolizes the man. When he was in high school, he was a local hero. He still has some pride within him, as one deduces (or is it vanity?) from the sharply edged beardline he sports. No real street person would bother to have a sharp, clean edge to his beard. Still, his expectations are low. When his sister asks him to watch Jasmine, he agrees only reluctantly, and his skids had to be greased a bit to do it. Jasmine doesn’t think too much of her uncle. He really comes up short when compared to her fantasy image of her father. He has little use for her nor for the burden she represents. However, if nothing else, they develop a better idea of one another. He shows up with a clean football jersey and shows her where he lives. She sees pictures, including her Dad. At school Jasmine seems to be well-thought-of by the pretty young teacher, “Ronnie Macer” (Jill Marie Jones). On an occasion when Curtis goes to the school, she invites him to talk to the class, thinking he was Jasmine’s father. Some of the kids razz him a little as a liar, as he makes up a position. Any way, the fact that Jasmine sees him razzed by the other kids must have quietly drawn her closer to him, as she had experienced some of the same treatment. It also served to introduce Curtis and Ronnie, and Curtis knows something about teamwork. It doesn’t take too much to make him want her on his team. Jasmine plays cupid here. So, as things progress with uncle and niece, the background, smalltown culture of Friday night high school football marches into prominence. When football season arrives, the townpeople gear up for a run at State Champion. However, the local team isn’t doing too well. “Coach Fisher” (Matt Craven) has a willing team, but it can’t get the job done. Curtis played under Coach Fisher and his and other’s presence at practices wasn’t uncommon. Curtis on an occasion of “watching Jasmine” took her to watch the practice. She knew most of the football players, and some, including the quarterback, were nasty to her. This quarterback was no all-state, and Jasmine would soon have a measure of revenge. Curtis had watched her toss a football he had along with him, and he saw she had an arm. Wheels began to turn in his head. “Ask not what your football team can do for you; rather, ask what you can do for your team,” may have been his thinking. His solution for a team with quarterbacking problems? His niece, Jasmine. It was a revolutionary thought for a Southern smalltown culture. A girl quarterback!? No one but Curtis saw this as possible. Further, as a result of Jasmine’s gift, Curtis was being reborn as a decisive coach-father figure. He made her practice, practice, practice. He taught her the tricks of the quarterbacking trade. She now had a strong and accurate arm. She knew how to take the snap, drop back and set. She knew how to pick her open receiver and wing it to him (or her).[ Her practice receivers were images over the center of tires, such as Beyonce.'] When the time was ripe, Curtis approached Coach Fisher about giving Jasmine a chance. At first resisting the idea, Fisher’s team losses and the right mood and moment conspired to allow Jasmine a shot. She was greeted by a general mocking hostility, but her pluck and obvious ability soon won over her teammates. Meanwhile, Curtis had also taken Ronnie Macer out on a date (on a quid pro quo deal with Jasmine), and she began joining Curtis at the Jasmine routing club. Now the moviegoer was left wondering who would score first: Jasmine or Curtis. As things happened, Jasmine’s abilities reenergized her team, and, wonder of wonders, were headed to the championship. There was some sort of high school superbowl being played that year in Miami. Jasmine was leading her team there. She had by now picked up a lot of local, and some national, media coverage. Lo and behold! This brings home the runaway dad, Winston, to “make it up” with his daughter. Although Claire and Curtis both tried to warn her, she had no ears for any negative comments about her “Dream Dad.” However, she soon begins to experience some of her dad’s “not there for meisms.” And his lying excuses. Nevertheless, she leads her team to near victory in Miami. Her dad couldn’t make it. More excuses. Jasmine was now a gal who didn’t need the crutch of a fantasy dad; she had the support and respect of real people. She didn’t need a “jive turkey” absentee dad. One of the unique aspects of this film is that writer Nick Santoro resisted any temptation to cause Winston to change for the better at the end. Some things never change. The moviegoer will leave satisfied that Jasmine has bloomed into a promising young woman and that Curtis, now one of the high school coaches, with Ronnie at his side, will issue a better day into being for a town that needed a lift.

All rights reserved. Gobigfoot, 2008.

TROPIC THUNDER (2008): A MOVIE REVIEW

Damien & Four Leaf Confer

Tugg Speedman and the gang

This is a movie within a movie. Interestingly, both movies satirize other movies, which need not be in the same genre as the movie hosting the making of a movie. It is a rather liberating concept. Director-writer-star Ben Stiller makes this project work, due primarily to his keen satiric aptitude. It’s a fun project. Stiller has no problem, apparently, in inducing a boatload of familiar actors to do brief scenes, or cameo roles. Included amongst these is Jon Voight and Tobey Maguire. Many of the film stars are graduates of the “Saturday Night Live Comedy College.” Well, they may not have actually graduated but did “have fun” for a year or so.

The film opening can catch you napping, as it begins with a series of seemingly unrelated video subject matters. Pop, pop, pop, and pop. One after the other are scenes of “Tugg Speedman” (Ben Stiller), a film superhero of the Superman sort; “Alpa Chino” (Brandon T. Jackson), doing a MTV type of gig; “Jeff Portnoy” (Jack Black), doing all the roles in a “fat family that farts” film; and “Kirk Lazarus” (Robert Downey, Jr.), doing a topical scene from a movie “study” of young monks mutually “mooning” at matins.

Now all of these various “teasers” from their respective films are genre satiric. Readers should note that “Alpa Chino” is a name play on Al Pacino. All of the names were selected for a purpose–mostly to imply something of the character’s personal traits, as “Lazarus.” Naturally, this fits an actor whose career is “dead” and is trying to “rise again.” Also, it fits more generally the white man “born again” as a black man. And so it goes with the names of players, generally. Tom Cruise plays “Les Grossman,” which is a pretty good character moniker for more than a few of the Hollywood moguls.

Character types are not the only sources of humor, of course. Ben Stiller almost overdoes his satirization of “Platoon” and in particular the scene of Willem Dafoe’s trying to reach a helicopter while being pursued and shot at by Viet Cong. While racing, staggering, and with arms reaching up to the sky, he receives numerous shots in his back and falls dead. Stiller himself does the “arms reaching” bit at least twice. Generally speaking, all the movie-within-a-movie shots were either “borrowed” from the Platoon or Rambo flicks, and reworked with Stiller’s satiric eye.

However, the making of the movie is also a grand parody of this sort of film. The recent, Peter Jackson version of King Kong (2005), in which Jack Black was a star, is a case in point of a movie-within-a-movie. Hence, it seems likely that he had some comic contributions to make in its usage here.

In Tropic Thunder the Downey character is so committed to his role that he undergoes an operation to darken his complexion so that his portrayal would be more authentic. This calls to mind the almost luny commitments of actors from Lon Chaney Sr. to Robert De Niro and Renee Zellwanger to achieve almost physically exact types of the character being played, exclusive of special effects and make-up. Folks, some actors are very  committed.

Since I found parts of this film very funny, I can hardly condemn it. It also makes you feel better about the acting professing. After all, how many professions regularly make fun of themselves?

A Small Capsule: A group of disparate actors and entertainers sign on to make a film being produced by tight-fisted Les Grossman. They rendezvous and get to the Southeast Asia locale for shooting. Naturally, the talent elbow each other a bit to establish a “pecking order.” They confer with their director, “Damien Cockburn” (Steve Coogan), who is a rather “unstructured” Aussie. Earlier, by means of print, the moviegoer learns that the movie to be made is based on the “real life” story of Viet Nam hero, “Four Leaf Tayback” (Nick Nolte), who claims to have lost a hand in combat. He is present as an “advisor.” Nolte plays him as a grizzled, no-nonsense, and possibly dangerous individuals. Once the actors realise that Cockburn is uncertain in his direction, they all want to dance to their own motivational music. Grossman has to step in. Tough, crude and tyrantical, he keeps the film going more or less on schedule. Even the capture of Tugg Speedman by Golden Triangle drug peddlers does not particularly bother him. They have a movie of his (satire of Forest Gump ) on DVD and recognize him. They both hold him for ransom and compel him to entertain the drug militia with “stage” acting. This drug warlordship is ruled by a young, mini-Ho Chi Minh named ‘Tran” (Brandon Soo Hoo). Grossman listens to their ransom demands and then gets tough himself. Ultimately, “Tugg” is expendable. Tuggs agent, “Rick Peck” (Matthew McConaughey), is forced to “wheel and deal” to save his premier “property.” In a sense the film revolves around Les Grossman, who becomes as weighty and central as the Sun in our solar system. But Stiller and Downey command the most attention in terms of filmtime, which is what you’d expect of stars playing stars. Still, Stiller generously doles out filmtime to the others–and they all seem to enjoy the fun of it. The “realistic” film tribute to the bogus ‘Nam hero, Four Leaf Tayback, turns into a real war flick between rescuing actors and the hardnose, drug-pushing militia. Fantasy turns into bloody reality early in the film with the “accidental death” of director Damien Cockburn. This serves as a prefigurement that the movie is turning real. However, since nearly everything is played for laughs, the moviegoer is not too upset about anything in the film. When life imitates art, where is painful reality to be found? When the Great Architect is a Special Effects Man, what can be taken seriously other than the magic of sound and fury. Incidentally, this film ends with the “sun” – Fatima-like – dancing with the stars.

All rights reserved. Gobigfoot, 2008.