Category Archives: Film

UPDATED: MUNICH (and More)

Film, Hollywood, Pop-Culture, Psychiatry, Terrorism

This is the time of the year when one desperately needs relief from the fare television offers. It’s essential to make a trip or two to Blockbuster during the holiday season for some mindless entertainment—which is a step up from the stomach-turning, sappy, deeply silly Xmas films whose screening began as early as late in November.

As it is, it’s impossible to watch the assorted estrogen-oozing action dramas and crime series inflicted on the TV viewer. The phony heroine lords it over meek meterosexuals with fussy falsettos. Men know their place. Dare-devil women run the show, which makes the show dull, because 90 pounds of botoxic, silicone-plumped flesh in stilettos can’t run very fast (in real life, and I’m a sucker for reality). And you just know that back on terra firma, the 200 pounder she’s cuffing with seeming ease would have flung her as far as the equator, or coshed her to death.

A leading man is invariably a mentalist (I don’t know what that is), a gentle doctor suffering from low-sperm count, or a buffoon (“Burn Notice”).

Did you know that Daniel Wroughton Craig is quite a capable actor? Since I’m not a fan of the film industry, discovering that the latest James Bond is more than a Pierce Brosnan (although not nearly as good looking) or a Timothy Dalton and Roger Moore was a pleasant surprise.

I mention Craig, as we were watching Munich, directed by Steven Spielberg, and based on a book by Canadian journalist George Jonas, Barbara Amiel’s first husband.

Munich has a decent script and actors, their main attribute being that they are not American, so the acting is understated, not ego-centered and embarrassing. A bit of that unique Israeli humor is captured occasionally. Munich “shows how a squad of assassins, led by former Mossad agent Avner (Eric Bana), track down and murder a list of Black September members thought to be responsible for the eleven Israeli athletes’ murders. The second part of the film, which depicts the Israeli government’s response, has been debated a great deal by film critics and newspaper columnists. Spielberg refers to the film’s second part as “historical fiction,” saying it is inspired by the actual Israeli operations which are now known as Operation Wrath of God.”

Daniel Craig plays Steve, the South African get-away driver. He manages a heavy South African accent the likes I’ve never heard before. At first, I did not recognize him and thought Craig was an obscure actor from the Old Country. From their non-existent acting repertoire, younger American actors exclude accents. (It’s “too much like hard work, besides; doesn’t’ everyone speak English with an American accent?”) An East European dialect in “Law and Order SVU” sounds like the “Direct TV” commercial.

The depiction of the Munich massacre is hard to take for those of us who remember the lack of German security, the free pass that government gave the butchers, and the same peoples’ decision to continue the fun and games in the aftermath of the gruesome murders.

An excellent series also well-worth renting is “In Treatment.” Reading the credits, I saw the words, “Betipul,” which is Hebrew for “In treatment.” It figures that these nuanced portraits of people in therapy were adapted for the small screen from a foreign script. It has nothing of the Oprah, Phil filth—the two charlatans whose worldviews guide interpersonal relationships in the US.

Wikipedia confirms that, “The program’s format, script and opening theme are based on, often being word for word translations of, Hagai Levi’s successful Israeli series BeTipul, which won every possible award for a drama series at the Israeli Academy Awards.” I seldom watch TV becasue I get so bored. “In Treatment” is riveting TV. It’s deep but not labored.

UPDATE (Dec. 18): My thanks to Nora for fleshing out the context of Munich’s release. You can see how far behind I am in my film viewing. As we were watching, I did mutter to my husband about the facts that had been omitted (see above). It’s my understanding, however, that both Spielberg and Jonas are pro-Israel. Jonas most certainly is. And Spielberg is behind an enormous Holocaust project, so he is most sensitive to the arguments for Israel’s founding and survival. The Palestinians were definitely the butchers of the film; Israelis were the bunglers—I did get the impression of a inexpert mission, but then technology was primitive in those days.

To repeat, the Israelis were the sympathetic parties in the plot. Any statement to the contrary in the German press must have been a product of that press’ wish-fulfillment projections. Some of “the other side” came through in the rather smug, second-rate arguments presented during a chance meeting between the Israeli protagonist and a Palestinian terrorist. The Israeli came out on top.

All in all, it’s a decent effort. The horrific replays of the Munich massacre displayed the heroism of some of the Israeli athletes. Perhaps not enough.

The "Real Rush" Joins The Blogoshpere

Celebrity, Communism, Film, Hollywood, Intelligence, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Pop-Culture

My good friend and WND colleague Erik Rush has joined the blogosphere. Erik is the author of the column titled, “The Other Rush.” But he’s the “Real Rush” to me. Erik’s is a great-looking blog. I’m looking forward to checking it out daily.

Beings super squeamish, however, I almost fainted at the image Erik has posted of a Hollywood celebrity undergoing the mandatory commie programming. From the spouse this photo will elicit the kind of laughter he lets out when we’re watching one of our a favorite programs, “1000 Ways to Die.” (Mr. Rush likes it too.)

Or “Thinning The Herd,” as we call it. (You just know that the writers and editors of “1000 Ways to Die” would have adopted that title, but there’s just so much these good folks can get away with.)

Alas, as fabulously brutal and graphic as Erik has been in “Why Entertainers Go Left: The Real Story,” I’m less inclined to the school of thought that holds liberalism to be a mental disorder, or a condition developed under duress. Sadly, because it has such strong emotional appeal—the masses seem to experience a rush at the ideas of collectivization and confiscation—left-liberalism is probably the default position of humanity. A hostility to reason and reality guarantees liberalism’s top-dog position in political philosophy. This, of course, relates strongly to intelligence, but, dammit Erik, that’s too much to brood over on the Sabbath.

I strongly recommend Erik’s important new book, with this unbeatable title: “Negrophilia: From Slave Block to Pedestal – America’s Racial Obsession.” When I catch my breath, I will treat you to a Mercer Interview (click the Interview Category in the Search Window for a sample) with Erik about “Negrophilia.”

Don Draper In Love

Feminism, Film, General, Hollywood, Pop-Culture

“It’s refreshing to see a Golden Age of Hollywoodish leading man like tall, dark, and handsome Jon Hamm, who plays creative director Don Draper as the strong, silent type” in “the cable period drama Mad Men.” So wrote Steve Sailer.

The character Hamm plays is a complex character. And he does not talk a lot. My favorite people ration speech.

The nostalgia the production triggers is also “nostalgia for the days when women had soothing, soft voices, spoke in complete sentences, and seemed so much smarter and refined than their modern-day, emancipated shrew sisters.”

Now, Don Draper finds himself in love with just such a lady.

Dreamy.

UPDATE II: Hollywood: Let’s Call It Quits!

Art, Energy, Film, Free Markets, Hollywood, Propaganda, Science

I’ve always shied away from calls to boycott an entire industry; it sounds so, well, stupid. Now I see no other way with the Hollywood cretins. Watch the latest antics from the nation’s prime pea brains:

The evidence is in. Activism has now replaced acting, and sermons have supplanted stories. I don’t know about you, but given my own intelligence, I refuse to be lectured by “tards.” Unless these cerebrally compromised egotists can promise me a GOOD STORY sans politics—I do not patronize their “art.”

And while I’m at it: Theirs is not art. Idiots; you are nothing more than public entertainers; glorified circus animals, show critters. Amuse me–make me think less about my daily political reality—or f-ck off.

There are some superb, new TV series that showcase the best of entertainment: strong acting, no abreacting; fabulous, apolitcal scripts. “Justified” is one. “Flashpoint” is another.

“Law and Order” in all its permutations sports PC elements, as does “CSI.” But generally, these excellent series offer kick-ass scripts and actors. Give me a good narrative. But I will not tolerate some prancing, decked-up, self-styled Goth twenty-something (allegedly) inserting herself into the story, and selling what goes, in these sorry days, for “originality” and “individuality.”

Other than the ladies who always offer up their cleavages in the interrogation room, and everywhere else (you want respect when you go into a situation boobs first? Not from me, bubbles), “Law & Order,” “CSI” (but not NCSI) and “Criminal Minds,” especially,—are all top-notch productions.

Vote for such quality with your time and money; withdraw your vote from the rest.

UPDATE I: MORATORIUM ON MINDLESSNESS, please. In what is high-level deception, the administration co-opoted and doctored scientific opinion rendered in the matter of the so-called moratorium.

Via KansasCity.com:

“A group of engineers and oil experts said Friday that the Interior Department changed the language of a high-profile oil spill report after they’d signed it, falsely signaling their support for a drilling moratorium that they thought went too far.

The new language called for a stronger and wider moratorium on some oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico than the experts thought necessary. In fact, one said Friday, the stronger moratorium might instead increase the risks slightly.” …

UPDATE II (June 14): PHILOSOPHER KINGS. What, you may ask, is entertainer Gloria Estefan doing at the “Merage Foundation for the American Dream and the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars’ National Leadership Awards Gala held at the National Press Club”? Carrying forth against the Arizona immigration-enforcement law, of course. Boycott the bitch.