Just as an FYI, there was no way I was EVER going to follow a link to anyone’s self-referenced blog when that person could have posted the content HERE but instead decided they need more clicks elsewhere, but now that you’ve said there’s a defense of pedophilia?!? I have to go look exactly once to see which of you is full of shit and in what quantities.

Lawrence of Arabia

Sooooo gooood.

Thank you!

I was crossing over from French to German stuff last week, but I’ll start with the unrelated before getting to Germany.

• Z for Zachariah (2015): the plot is not that of book by the same name but rather seems an update on The World, the Flesh and the Devil, which was too cautious about race issues. In a way, this fixes that, but there’s a (spoiler) detail that made it irritating.

• Hard Truths(2024): Bitter and scared woman bitches about everything. Poignant and sardonic, it doesn’t feel right to label it ‘bittersweet comedy’ because it felt deeper than that. Exceptionally good.
• I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2020): Charlie Kaufman twisted this story into a nonlinear mashup of times and faces, but the theme might be summarized as an introspection on desire and one’s own shortcomings. After viewing, it needs time to settle, and possibly to rewatch in a year or two.
• Submarine (2010): Fails bechdel test. Many films do – including the previous Kaufman piece – but here I really wanted some female voices instead of yet another tale of a boy’s first love from only his point of view. It’s a perfectly fine film if that’s what you want, but it left me flat.
• Pete Seeger: The Power of Song (2007): Documentary on Seeger. Good info, some song clips. I wasn’t engrossed, but I did learn interesting bits.
• Our Man in Havana (1959): Graham Greene story starring Alec Guinness in satire of spy stories before we had any 007 flicks. Set in Cuba at a time when Castro only allowed filming if the Baptise rule was shown in the negative. Cast also includes Noël Coward and Burl Ives. Not bad except for an editing issue near the end that bothered me, but generally skippable if it weren’t for the historical aspects.
• A Covenant with Death (1967): Mediocre movie about a Hispanic judge protagonist with non-white culture. So innovative!? Maybe then, but strained now.
• Peter von Kant (2022): French! Ozon! After watching this, I had to rewatch its source, and after watching both, I decided that this was tighter and more ‘fun’, but it blows the point of the whole movie in the final minutes… but perhaps by condensing the possible interpretations of the original into fewer possibilities gives more people satisfaction.
• The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972): German! Fassbinder at his best! Petra rants about herself while commanding her silent assistant. I much prefer this version to its remake.
• Fox and His Friends (1975): Fassbinder. Ignorant carny buys lottery ticket while hooking up with upper class gay guy – and wins! Now introduced to a more sophisticated set, he doesn’t realize he’s getting used. It’s a compassionate look at the tragedy of it. Also, there’s a fair amount of full frontal male nudity, but no sex. Moderately recommended.
• Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974): A look at race relations at a time when the older generation remembers WWII, a German widow (with her Polish immigrant husband’s last name) falls in love with an Arab. Everyone freaks out. What to do? Fassbinder handles it perfectly.
• World on a Wire (1973) (Welt am Draht): I wrote about this last week over here. Highly recommended, but veerrrryy long and probably only interesting to people wanting to study film. Notice the use of glass and mirrors. Both this and the totally skippable The Thirteenth Floor are based on the book Simulacron-3 – but this version is the good one.

I haven’t seen that since in played in cinemas, but I remember it being a rather good and thoughtful for a mass-market film. Since it is no longer fresh in my mind, might yuo compare it to Conclave or some other film?

Almost a third of Americans who could vote don’t – either by not registering at all or registering but not casting a ballot. Do you really think people who don’t have the time to vote – people with jobs and/or kids at home – want to “do research” for their down time? They aren’t ‘going’ anywhere. They flip on the boob tube and catch whatever has made it to cable/free-streaming. Then they are disappointed because they liked the first one and this new one is so bad by comparison.

I’m retired, so I do research, and while I’m not the one complaining, I DO sympathize with the complainers that don’t want to invest as much time as I do on inspecting the lineage of a film and what might make it worth viewing.

I’ve seen interesting remakes and sequels – like just this week I rewatched Fassbinder’s original The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant because I hadn’t yet seen Ozon’s remake, Peter von Kant, where the main characters reverse sexes. There’s more crossovers with those two directors and I care about it, so I watch all those. What I didn’t see was all the Spidermans, Batmans, and Marvel movies.

Ah, but the production money doesn’t flow to many original movies, but almost always gets invested in existing franchises. The result is a bunch of original movies that would have been better if they’d had a bigger budget. Add to that the issue of marketing: no one is going to the film that doesn’t advertise, have guests on talk shows, and gets limited distribution. The big studios have contracts with the theaters and tiny films are frequently relegated to art houses.

Lastly, I don’t think it is fair to ask people to do homework on which movies to watch. I mean, I do that, but I’m a freak that way. Most people don’t have the time, and they aren’t looking for the next Citzen Cane, they’re looking for a light escape from a difficult week. Ideally, people would follow a critic that has tastes similar to their own, but in the fractured world of the internet, that gets hard. There are too many voices and they rotate in and out too often to figure out who’s currently matching your tastes.

Reminds me of this site (which offers no answers):

https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

I must. I feel compelled to remind people that there’s over 100 years of cinema out there, and while most of it was trash, some of it shines – and some of it isn’t great, but is still interesting because it was groundwork that lead to other things.

In this particular case, I was in a Fassbinder binge and stumbled onto the fact that World on a Wire – an item I only saw once over a decade ago – was going to be easily viewable with no commercials this weekend without the need to sail the high seas to find it.

Also, I adore Peter Green.

• Link to song Albatross: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPW9yn8KCww
• and then for a contrast in style, his song Oh Well, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yq-Fw7C26Y

The author understands their sources don’t know the shooter’s current thoughts on anything because he became isolated over the years. Older thoughts include:

Asked about the inscription on the bullet, the friend said: “Josh was an edgelord who wanted someone to get blamed. I think he tried his best to write something goofy … to rile people up.”

Another friend showed me a Facebook post describing how Jahn had flooded his friends’ comment sections with rape jokes — “playful shock humor,” the friend said.

More nuanced:

That said, one friend recalled that when Trump first came to power, Jahn “was not a fan” — though he had contempt for mainstream politicians in general. His friends say he had more of a libertarian bent, with one recalling an interest in the libertarian figure Ron Paul.

And finally:

“If you’re having trouble finding people besides immediate family who knew him, that’s part of the story,” one friend said. “Every mutual friend drifted away over that kind of edgelord behavior.”

I watched a bunch of French films last, but some relate to a German director, so I’ll save those for next week. This week’s French films weren’t too too ‘French’. I must clarify that I notice a trend in French cinema for revealing characters through mundane activities or conversation, such as discussing dinner plans for 10-20 minutes and letting the viewer see one person enthralled by the wine while another is silently preoccupied with the events of the day. Do that a few times and you have a very ‘French’ movie, such as last week’s award winning Blue is the Warmest Color.

• Conclave (2024): The games played behind closed doors to elect a new Pope. Rather good, but the ending felt sus.
• Daliland (2022): An assistant’s view of Salvador Dali in his later years. I’m glad I saw it, but wish it was better.
• Yessongs (1975): concert footage. If you like Yes, you’ll like this, but not filmed that well.
• Night and Day (1946): Cole Porter biopic. Meh.
• De-Lovely (2004): Cole Porter biopic that admits he was gay. Meh.
• The Glass Bottom Boat (1966): Wacky Doris Day comedy with Paul Lynde. Hated it.
• Tengers (2007): Whimsical claymation story of brutality and crime in Johannesburg/South Africa. Maybe if you’re under the influence of something, this might be hilarious, but seeing it straight rubbed me the wrong way.
• L’enfant (2005): Cannes Palme d’Or winner about a street hood whose girl has a baby. I wanted to smack him upside the head repeatedly, so you know the film works. A bit french, but not too much.
• Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001): @LemmyThinkAboutThat@lemmy.myserv.one recommended this a little while ago, and I’m glad I listened. Action fans will probably wish there was more of that, but the action isn’t the point: we need to find the culprits. I’ve no idea how close to what legend this ranked, but it was an interesting somewhat french film, if a bit long.
• La Belle et la Bête (1946): I rewatched this famous Jean Cocteau take on Beauty and the Beast because I hadn’t seen it in a while. It still holds up.
• Orphée (1950): Since I was rewatching Cocteau, I had to rewatch his take on Orpheus, too. This was better than I remembered from my confused youth. Very French, but good if you can tolerate that.

You’re kidding, right?

We rode without seatbelts in the back of stations wagons. Worse: just ready to fly free in pickup beds. It was almost expected that people would drink and drive.

All that said, you can still eat, drink, and change stations in most places and it is far, far less distracting than phones.

Well, you got me to look it up myself. I think it was both.

From CNN, Sept 17:

“Regardless of ABC’s plans for the future of the program, Sinclair intends not to return Jimmy Kimmel Live! to our air until we are confident that appropriate steps have been taken to uphold the standards expected of a national broadcast platform.”

From Deadline, Sep 17(worth a full read):

The two largest station groups, Nexstar and Sinclair, wielded their influence over ABC‘s decision to pull Jimmy Kimmel‘s show from its ABC stations.

Nexstar strongly objects to recent comments made by Mr. Kimmel concerning the killing of Charlie Kirk and will replace the show with other programming in its ABC-affiliated markets.”

Nexstar’s announcement was followed soon after by ABC’s decision to pull the show indefinitely.

Sinclair Broadcast Group, the largest of ABC’s affiliate groups, said that it also objected to Kimmel’s comments, and said that it would “not lift the suspension of ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ on our stations until formal discussions are held with ABC regarding the network’s commitment to professionalism and accountability.” It also called on Kimmel to make a direct apology to the Kirk family, and for the network to make a “meaningful donation” to them and Turning Point USA.

Wasn’t this the initial ‘threat’ that got ABC to pull Kimmel? I thought Sinclair made this threat, then the FCC chimed in, then everyone else objected.

So now Sinclair is following through, and we’ll see what the FCC does.

Citizens United and dark money PACs. As you can see from any given time Trump opens his mouth, people will belive any crazy lie so fast that an sincere politician without massive funding will be smeared with whatever the moneyed interests can dream up. To make sure money wins, they do stuff like remove polling places from poor areas so the lines get so long voters have to choose between getting to work and casting a ballot – IF they can even get to the distant polling place. Texas just did that again a month or two ago.

Tadnobu Asano is a personal favorite actor of mine and he just chews up the scenery whenever he’s on screen. I LOVED it. My dad complained that the pacing too slow, but I’m not sure if his real issue wasn’t reading subtitles fpr so long.

I’ll have to try that!

Note that the newish Zatoichi movie is based off the old series of movies, and that Hara-Kiri is a remake of Harakiri (both of the latter based off the novel Ibun Ronin-Ki).

There’s the Zatoichi series. The first, The Tale of Zatoichi (1962) is required but I gave up after the first three. @falidorn@lemmy.world mentioned that Kazuo Miyagawa was the cinematographer for some of them in this thread.

The Sword of Doom is a classic. Same for Harakiri. Maybe Bushido: The Cruel Code of the Samurai, too (depends on one’s tastes). If you don’t want to get stuck in the 60s, Twilight Samurai is more modern.

I’m forgetting some that are worth a mention, but I’m totally skipping some titles I think are just ‘meh’.

We learned this in ‘Computer Science 101’. It WAS tested before use, but the issue was missed because when the machine was initially tested, no one was particularly fast at using it.

An experienced operator could edit treatment parameters so fast that the software skipped a safety check due to a ‘race condition’ between the input handler and the radiation beam logic.