...the History Channel has a 7-parter in the form of essays on Christianity. I caught the last one on the history of Antisemitism in the Church. Tremendous, edifying stuff.

You know, these twats who rail against the Jews would do well to see where their Gothic, inane views come from. If it wasn't so vicious and cruel, it would be laughable.

..the L&C thing is pretty well done. Stephen Ambrose is featured, who wrote Undaunted Courage, one of my fave L&C books. Get it.

He also wrote the D-Day book upon which Saving Private Ryan was resourced, and Band of Brothers. Tremendous history writing. Anal retentives would call it popular history, but I call it heroic.

Good two-part history of Eisenhower. Also Nixon. He's dead just now.

Pay attention! I said a plague on *all* such savagery and superstition.

But it's time for a major assault on Catholicism in particular. Those evil bastards should all have been done for when Pope Paul IV's image was despatched to the bottom of the Tiber.

...doing such things.

Look up the history of 'Vlad the Impaler' or 'Ivan the Terrible' for example.

You mean the Catholic Church are a bunch of hypocrites? We knew that.

There is modern gruesome torture too, Pol Pot in Cambodia for example.

And similar things are still occurring to this day in North Korea!

Of course the Catholic Church spends so much time preaching against the evils of consumerism and global warming, they don't even worry about such things still happening in the world.

I've just been looking this Inquisition series up. Evidently last night's was Pt 3, not Pt 2. Obviously I missed Pt 1. Pt 3 focussed on the Roman Inquisition. It told the story, among many others, of a Venetian heretic, a young law student who was sympathetic to Luther, who was boiled in a mixture of oil, tar and turpentine. It took him 15 minutes to die.

In looking up the TV series I came across this. I'd long ago, as a child in fact, read Ingersoll's horrific account of the methods of torture used during the Inquisition, but something like this really brings the unforgivable and beyond-evil nature of it home. Unless reminded, one forgets just what filth the Catholic Church, the Church of Pedophilia, is. And of course, you get ostensibly secular Inquisitionists like speaker-banner Robert Campbell blanching at my description. Funny that.

A plague on all such savagery and superstition, including Protestant:

1. Mamma Mia!

2. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Why buy the last two films, but not the first one? Must be the Obama groupies!)

3. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (ditto)

4. Planet Earth (BBC TV series by Attenbother)

5. The Dark Knight (over-hyped crap)

6. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

7. The Bourne Ultimatum (over-hyped crap)

8. Star Wars Trilogy

9. Band Of Brothers

10. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (over-hyped crap)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/tec...

Pt 2 at 9.30 tonight, History Channel, Secrets of the Inquisition. Last week we were told how, when the torturing was done in church, veils would be placed over crucifixes so that Jesus wouldn't see what was being done in his name.

Makes one burn, so to speak, anew with revulsion at Catholicism and all superstition.

I'll have the recorder set.

Just caught Arsenic and Old Lace on TCM. It's in my private collection but there's something extra about seeing one's faves on TV. It's a combo of Rocky Horror and Fawlty Towers long before either of them and with better lines. Beyond hilarious.

In looking to see if it were on tomorrow I discovered that it isn't, but The Student Prince is, featuring some of Mario Lanza's most beautiful singing, including Drink! Drink! Drink!, Serenade and I'll Walk with God. 8.30 pm, prime time!

on Meriwether Lewis, William Clark and the Corps of Discovery is playing on the History Channel. First one was last night. Made by Ken Burns and Florentine Productions. Beautifully narrated.

Turns out that when Jefferson paid Boneparte 15 million dollars for all that land West of the Mississippi, doubling the size of his country in one hit, it equated to 3 cents per acre!

... on TCM right now.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programme...

However, it may well not be available outside the UK.

Anyway, if that is the case or not, here is a youtube clip edited together of his scientology documentary, showing how he came to his TV famous 'tomato explosion' interview.

Here is his review of Valkyrie in which he does he does a piss-take of his interview...

Brandroids would fault Mr. Sweeney for shouting at the Scientologists and the Stalinists. They would have nothing to say about Scientology or Stalinism. Babs would write a bio of Mr. Sweeney fixating on the fact that he shouted.

Let's have more exploding tomato moments, I say.

...the BBC journalist.

Tonight he presented a BBC documentary, called 'Stalin's Return', whereby he went to the former Soviet Union and faced down Stalin apologists.

He politely questioned them and then reminded them that Stalin was a mass-murderer - he got quite angry and passionate about it at times.

I'm thankful that a journalist does not mind reminding the public that left-wing dictators like Stalin were just as evil as Hitler and that we should not tolerate those who still try to glorify or venerate them.

John Sweeney is famous for having been filmed by scientologists angrily screaming at them in a very shrill voice - while making a documentary about how crocked they were. He called it his 'exploding Tomato' moment.

Look out for this documentary when it comes to you on the History Channel or elsewhere.

Here is a news clip which gives the idea of some of the subject matter of the documentary.

Rhapsody, 4.40 pm today, TCM. Lotsa Rach, melodrama, twists & turns, great ending, and Elisabeth Taylor. Even a Randian theme. Ross ... worth switching from the cricket for.

... damn good movie. Bummer, albeit effective, ending. How Thelma looked like you, Lady Slapper!

when Brad Pitt does a sensual pelvic thrust whilst eyeballing Thelma's bastard of a husband and says "I like your wife..." - just absolutely kills me every time.

... 6.20 tonight, SMG. Worth the price of admission for Brad's butt.

...... believe it or not, I'm not keeping a diary of your viewing habits.

I do believe it. But I had ventured to imagine you'd been paying attention. It seemed bizarre when, after I'd made a slew of recommendations based on what's on TCM, you said you hoped I had TCM ... and recommended something that, as best I can tell, is not on there right now. Do you mean MGM? I can't see it there either.

Finch is Beck.

No doubt. But he reminds me of me, which was your question. Beck, whom I can no longer bear to watch, cannot complete a sentence and yells all the time. I can at least complete the sentence "I'm mad as hell and not going to take it any more," and frequently did on the PI Show, with due acknowledgment to Finch. And I know what pianissimo is.

But enough point-scoring. Camille (Greta Garbo/Robert Taylor/La Traviata) *is* rotating on TCM currently, and I highly recommend it.

...believe it or not, I'm not keeping a diary of your viewing habits.

Finch is Beck.

Most of my posts here have been about movies I've caught on TCM.

Then someone says to me "I hope you've got TCM."

I've been getting a lot of this lately. What am I missing?! Is the rest of the world on drugs?

Network is not on right now. I'm watching the History Channel. More wall-to-wall Hitler and Churchill. Camille is on TCM later, though, and I'll be switching back.

I expect Peter Finch reminds me of me.

...I hope you've got TCM and are checking out Network.

Remind you of anyone?

... I came in part way through a Clark Gable movie on TCM where he played an oil tycoon charged with something or other under the Anti-Trust laws. He gave a Roark-like courtroom speech defending entrepreneurs and lauding all the things oil exploitation had made possible. He was acquitted. It hasn't been on again since. Anyone know it?

Edit—Got it: Boom Town. Spencer Tracy and Heddy Lamarr star as well.

...the real story:

http://blogs.america.gov/rumor...

Tim Fleming
13 February 2009 at 19:13 EST
Permalink
I just got finished watching Discovery Channel’s re-staging of the JFK Assassination, ghoulishly titled “Inside the Death Car,” and it’s filled with so much illogic, distortion, and one-sidedness that its evidentiary value is minimal. It left me wondering what is the purpose of such a program, who really funds it, and why is it being broadcast? If its purpose is to sway the uninformed and uncritical to the “lone-assassin” side, it may have succeeded, but why is this of value? Whose purpose does this serve? Certainly not history’s, because the program left out a ton of known facts and happenstances that, if included, would have contradicted the show’s obviously preconstrued premise. In other words, in 2008, who is still so avidly invested in covering up the truth?

I perused the credits for funding information, but found nothing. Apparently, it’s a Discovery Channel production all the way. I leave it for others to divine why TDC wants so desperately to finger Oswald as the lone assassin, when 80% of America believes he was not.

Anyway, the funny stuff began right away when somebody who contracts with the Australian (did TDC have to go all the way to Australia find an idiot who would agree to do this?) defense industry recreated what was claimed to be an exact replica of JFK’s neck and head. Just one problem with that–the fake head swivels and bounces like one of those bobbleheads they give away at baseball games. The brain matter? Oh, they injected that right before the test firing. That’s right, TDC hired a world-class marksman to shoot at the replica. But get this, they did not do it in Dealey Plaza, though they had Dallas police close down the Plaza for a limousine run-through; they “re-created” the shooting out in the wilderness somewhere, claiming that it was exact duplicate of Dealey Plaza’s dimensions. While the participants admitted it was clear that a shot could have come from behind the picket fence (the most logical locale for the head shot given all the facts) in the Plaza, they had the marksman shoot from what appeared to be a burm in an open field at some undisclosed place. And instead of shooting from the front-right position from which the actual picket fence shooter fired, the marksman shot from a right angle, virtually perpendicular to the JFK dummy. The shot blew a hole through the through the left side of the president’s fake head, and the narrator (one Gary Mack, I’ll get to him later) gleefully exclaimed, “…this does not correspond to any known wound on the president.” Of course it did not, because the marksman shot from the wrong position. Interestingly though, the wound had the exact size and shape as the one Dallas Parkland doctors described the president as having in the back of his head on Nov. 22, 1963! Without realizing it, the TDC bunglers provided substantion for a shot from the front and, thus, a conspiracy.

Other little tidbits that unintentionally prove conspiracy are included. One is the Secret Service agent who wiped off the back seat of the death car at Parkland Hospital. Against all logic, the TDC show tries to convince us that this proves there was only one gunman because the agent wiped away only evidence which would prove that JFK’s brain matter flew forward. The agent inexplicably left only the blood, skull and brain matter which indicated a frontal shot. I guess the Secret Service just wanted to make it harder for the Warren Commission to hang it on Oswald? Wow, not even Arlen Specter would lay claim to that one.

To assimilate the 15-20-mile-an-hour winds in Dallas that day, TDC wheeled out a huge fan to blow on the limousine. That one made me howl. An electrical fan duplicating the winds of a city…how scientific!

But the best was Bobby Hargis, the motorcycle cop who was riding to the left rear of the limousine on November 22. Apparently, he is still alive and still breathlessly exclaiming how he was covered in JFK’s blood, skull and brains when the fatal shot hit. I guess the producers never considered that this is some of the best evidence of a shot from the front right. The exit wound made by a picket-fence shot would have splattered anyone to the immediate left rear of the death car.

Presiding over this whole mess was Gary Mack, curator of the Sixth Floor Museum in the old Book Depository Building. Mack was once sure that he saw a rifleman wearing a badge shoot from the shadows on the grassy knoll. Now he’s certain that the kill shot could only have come from behind. I suppose he’ll sway with any wind, even one from a giant electrical fan in the middle of nowhere, to drum up ticket sales for his museum.

Tim

Having been to Dallas and having stood on the grassy knoll and the place where Kennedy was shot (dodging cars is so much fun) I can only conclude that Oswald did it.

The grassy knoll is a piss poor place to hide and then bring out a long rifle IMHO. More than that, there is a large open car-park behind it. Ditching the rifle and attempting to leg it through that car-park after cutting loose with several rounds of large calibre ammunition would have been bloody difficult to do without looking out of place. That's assuming that you can remain undetected waiting for the shot when you are only concealed from the front and one side.

Lying up in a building with concealment from all sides (including from police and several hundred civilian observers in tall buildings that ring the Plaza) is a far better idea.

If this was a 'professional' job, then the professional would have wanted to make a clean get-away. The grassy knoll IMHO is a shitty place to snipe at someone and then make a get away.

Also, it's an easier shot from behind and above than it is perpendicular to the direction of the motorcade. From the book depository you have a larger panorama. From the grassy knoll, you have to swing the rifle in order to draw a bead on the target so that you can judge how much to lead it. Movement is not a snipers friend.

One more thing, IMHO, a professional would not have wanted to be within range of the Secret Service agents and their side-arms in case the whole thing went to shit. The knoll is well within pistol range of the motorcade.

The second shooter theory, and the rush to link Timothy McVeigh to a larger conspiracy, just strikes me as part of the anti-individual sentiment, in an odd way: just as individual achievement is discounted, it seems people can't accept individual acts of destruction or assasinations, as if only a group or collective is capable of important assasinations. It's wierd, but consistent, at least.

Kennedy assassination doco on History, Inside the Target Car. Purports to replicate the conditions exactly. I always thought the Zapruder film of Kennedy's head exploding indicated a shot from the right front. Here they've fired two shots from two likely spots on the grassy knoll (right front). One would have destroyed JFK's head utterly, the other would have gone right through him and hit Jackie. The shot from the equivalent of the book depository (behind and above right) however, caused the exact same effects observed in the Zapruder film and by eye-witnesses: part of the head flying every which-way. Conclusion: it was Oswald, and only Oswald, after all.

... just ending on TCM. Clark Gable has just delivered his most famous line: "Frankly, my dear, I don't *give* a damn."

... on TCM currently. Early Paul Newman movie based on the Tennessee Williams play. Wonderful! Quite Randian.

Thank you Kasper. And I'll take it you didn't mean that the Heller book is poor taste.

What great taste you have there Gregster

The Anne Heller book arrived. So I'll put my feet up and try a few glasses of Craggy Range.

The Cole Porter "bio" is on TCM right now. It's a load of old rubbish. An adorable load of old rubbish. One of 5 Cary Grant movies I have among my DVDs. Cary's a great Cole. Porter himself said there was little reality in it, but I doubt he'd have wanted one that told the whole story. This one is all class, charm, and of course, great music. Any halfwit could infer from that alone that its subject was gay, without needing it to be spelled out and obsessed over. Not to mention Cole's gay-as-Gertie friend Monty Woolley's delightful portrayal of himself.

Finally got a DVD of this that played on my player.

6/10 - okay.

Any movie with Tom Cruise loses a point because he was such a wally on Oprah's couch, no matter how well he acted in the movie, which in this movie was pretty good.

But it was missing something all up. I never felt tension when I was watching it. I think the mission was noble, but in cinematic terms, the movie did not take me along with it.

Perhaps at a stretch 7/10 as I'd had a bit much wine first and was feeling a bit sleepy.

... following the "Churchill's Bodyguard" series on the History Channel? I'm in Heaven. All that Churchill. Wotta hero. Wotta speaker.

With Richard Burton. Goodness! Now *that* was a good yarn! (SM Greats)

SM2

I rented Valkyrie to watch last week, but the DVD wouldn't play in my player. Going to have to source another copy. I've been looking forward to watching it for a while.

is excellent. Tom Cruise may be a fully fledged flake, but the man sure can act.

Hadn't seen this one before. SM 1 tonight. About to repeat on SM2. Very well done. Good job, Mr. Cruise!

... replaying on SM1 & 2 today.

... on TCM right now. Isaac Stern on the soundtrack. Never noticed before: doesn't Joan Crawford look like Ayn Rand?!

Frost had a battle on his hands selling his Nixon interviews. In the event they were a smash hit. Just two men talking.

Rand had a battle on her hands selling The Fountainhead. "Too intellectual." We know what happened.

Hollywood were panic-stricken about The Great Caruso. All that opera. It broke all existing box-office records.

Will pragmatists ever learn from what works, does anyone suppose?

Frost/Nixon was riveting. That's a movie I'll watch again (1.30 pm today). Of course, the real-life drama, with similar lines (and Nixon faring better), was even more riveting. I watched the original interviews when they played, and several times since. I vividly remember the extraordinary events of Nixon's presidency. No reproduction, however skilled (as this one is), can compare.

One could spend a lifetime trying to figure Nixon out. To paraphrase one of Frost's lines, a cascade of contradictions.

Oh, and the All Blacks won.

... nearly kills me every time.

Tomorrow night: Frost and Nixon. Clashes with the All Blacks. Oh dear!

... on SM Greats right now. Funny as a fart.

... she'll have to be switched to Shiraz.

And we'll gladly watch it again. Annie my flatmate loved it too. She gets pissed off with my playing of the LP version and other classical stuff that I'm discovering. Says I've taken the whole SOLO Perigo thing too far, but that's usually when she's had too much Station Road sauvignon. I in turn try to steer her from the more mystical realms of her aromatherapy studies.

Was it on again or did you rent it?

My bro-in-law had shied away from TGC 'cos he knew it was stuffed with opera. But through trickery on my sister's part he got hooked into the Fri evening screening. He sat rapt through the whole thing.

We watched this tonight. What a great life-affirming film it is. Mario is extremely likeable and then there's his voice! Very good recommendation. Not a musical either - I hate musicals.

Ah YES!

"Batman spying on every Gotham citizen" hi-tech spying device in "The Dark Knight"?

This was seen as similar to the debate over electronic eves-dropping by the super-secret National Security Agency, that the feckless/wreckless New York Times outed.

This tool was used by the Bush Admin to stop terror plots, spying on cell-phone intercepts around the world, then advertised in NYTs front pages, was another clear parallel to real world angst.

After this leaked out,. OBL stopped using cell-phones. He's a courier only man now, and that's one major reason why Bin Laden is still at-large.

”The Dark Knight” director, Christopher Nolan, is Hollywood’s finest director over the past 10 years.

The Following (1998)
Memento (2000)
Insomnia (2002)
Batman Begins (2005)
The Prestige (2006)
The Dark Knight (2008)

Nolan is the director today who most closely works in the tradition laid out by the classic autuer Alfred Hitchcock.

Consider three aspects. Nolan’s films are made by a familiar film-making ”family.” People like editor Lee Smith, composer David Julyan, cinematographer Wally Pfister, production designer Nathan Crowley and wife-producer Emma Thomas. His filmed stories revolve around men facing a challenge and some psychological problem to overcome. And like ”The Master,” he is not averse to casting non-Americans in uniquely American roles. In fact, it is rather a habit for Nolan.

Like with Hitchcock, if you do not enjoy the film noir or ”suspense” tradition, you may not enjoy Nolan’s films. Unlike Hitchcock, Nolan typically co-writes his scripts.

Here a couple of quotes showing his personal psychology to be startlingly similar to Alfred Hichcock’s:

”Yes, to me that's one of the most compelling fears in film noir and the psychological thriller genre - that fear of conspiracy. It's definitely something that I have a fear of - not being in control of your own life. I think that's something people can relate to, and those genres are most successful when they derive the material from genuine fears that people have.”

”I never considered myself a lucky person. I'm the most extraordinary pessimist. I truly am.”

Here, one is reminded of Hitchcock’s story from his boyhood, where his father takes him to a police station. Once there, he’s led to a jail cell. The door closes and he spends the night. The experience marks him for life. His corpus explores this scarring, as if to purge this disconsolate memory trace.

Nolan is a big James Bond film fan, with ”On Her Majesties Secret Service” his favorite. And directors Ridley Scott, and especially Stanley Kubrick
four out of six films Nolan directed are on the IMDB.com top 250. Nearly 400,000 online visitors have rated ”The Dark Knight” 8.9 out of 10.

A common underground interpretation of the Dark Knight in the US is held by the right-wing. That is, it is an allegory about the GWOT. George W. Bush as Batman? Osama Bin Laden as ”The Joker’?

Bruce Wayne: Criminals aren't complicated, Alfred. Just have to figure out what he's after.
Alfred Pennyworth: With respect, sir, perhaps this is a man that *you* don't fully understand.
- - -

Alfred Pennyworth: A long time ago, I was in Burma, my friends and I were working for the local government. They were trying to buy the loyalty of tribal leaders by bribing them with precious stones. But their caravans were being raided in a forest north of Rangoon by a bandit. So we went looking for the stones. But in six months, we never found anyone who traded with him. One day I saw a child playing with a ruby the size of a tangerine. The bandit had been throwing them away.
Bruce Wayne: Then why steal them?
Alfred Pennyworth: Because he thought it was good sport. Because some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.

It is a parallel that is far from perfect, but it is suggestive of how vile the anti-Bush asperions had become, and yet how necessary and unsung the heroic work of confronting real-world evil had become that many leftists who praised ”The Dark Knight” later blanched at the thought that their praise reflected well on their political enemy.

Here’s why one conservative thought ”the Dark Knight” was, at least, anti-Leftist: this comic book villain ran too close to imitating reality of 9/11:

[H]ere is where “The Dark Knight” strikes me as a conservative movie.

Liberals live in a world of “and.” Full security and full civil liberties. Universal health care and the best quality with no waiting. A dynamic economy and full welfare and unemployment benefits. Liberals, in other words, live in that scene in “Spider-Man” in which Spidey, forced to choose between saving a tram car full of innocent civilians and saving his girlfriend, chooses both. Liberals live in a fantasy.

Conservatives, though, live in a world of tradeoffs, of either/or. For having this relationship with reality, conservatives are caricatured as grumpy, stingy and negative. Surely all it takes is a bump in taxes on the wealthy and everything will be affordable? Where’s the Hope? Where’s the Dream? Yes, we can!

“The Dark Knight” lives on a razor edge of tradeoffs. In the coin flips of Harvey “Two-Face” Dent there is a message that not only can’t you choose both heads and tails, but sometimes you’re up against a trick coin that ensures you lose either way.

Innocents get killed, civil liberties are infringed, and Batman ardently defends lies over truth in the pursuit of propaganda. Extremism in the defense of liberty is Batman’s virtue, and he ventures much farther into the wilds of lawlessness than any politician would dare. Moreover, his Gotham is a place where some [like liberals] believe that chaos can be managed, that giving into a simple demand from the Joker that Batman turn himself in might be a workable alternative in the long run.

Why “The Dark Knight” Thrills Conservatives

The interpretation of ”the Dark Knight” as aGWOT allegory endures because of how blatantly the Motion Picture Academy snubbed this great film at Oscar time.

The Dark Knight one lots of pre-Oscar awards. And then wasn’t even nominated, despite being as popular and more sophisticated than ”Titanic” and ”Lord of the Rings,” both awarded Best Picture. So, why was ”The Dark Knight” shut out? Were the election year overtones irrelevant?

Regardless, both new Batman movies stand as the deepest and most reflective comic-book heroe turned into cinematic art now possible. These are truly not films just for children, but for adults too.

They sure as HELL don't make 'em like that any more. On again, 5.15 pm.

Wall to wall opera. The music just doesn't stop. The MGM brass were worried it was too highbrow and would tank. It was a smash hit. Lanza on screen almost the whole movie, utterly enveloping it with his charisma.

Since this thread has morphed into a general one for movie recommendations and alerts, I'm going to leave it stickied near the bottom of the blue area.

My own alerts will be short-notice. I hate reading the Guide and knowing what's on for the whole month ahead. I *love* surfing the movie channels every day to find out what's on. Hence even The Great Caruso took me by surprise.

Best Pagliacci ever on RIGHT NOW!

...is Sky giving you a percentage?

... starring Mario Lanza, of course, 1.20 this morning, TCM. And 9.15 am and 5.15 pm. Watching it now - beautiful clear print. I'd suggest recording if you're able.

It's the 1944 Cukor one! Wow! DON'T MISS IT folks. On RIGHT NOW!

Perrental Warning thing still just kills me!

... tonight 8.30, TCM. Not sure if it's the 1940 or 1944, but they're both good. Garland on right now: Perren and Holder gay orgasm territory.

Nothing wrong with making fun of Catholics. Not as effective as The Magdalene Sisters.

My God Linz! You are becoming a Catholic, after all!

On again tonight, 6.45 MGM.

I got Pleasantville recorded. And Larry Flynt was good again the other night. Well-paced.

Isn't that going to clash with all our comic lovers commitment to The Fantastic Four: Silver Surfer on channel three?

(Oh, no, that's tonight.)

Agreed, Pleasantville is in my top 20 movies of all time. Excellent and inspirational.

... this afternoon, Mon Oct 19, 4.50, Sky Movie Greats.

... on at 6.20 tonight on Sky Movie Greats.

Great murder mystery last night on MGM: The Rosary Murders.

...they by and large have been drawn in to the same nihilistic post-modern garbage that society has sunk into. But there are still excellent examples of heroism and heroic ideals out there, just not "The Dark Knight" or "Watchmen"...

Bingo.

... comic culture has gone the way of the culture-at-large. So the problem is not comics as such.

I had a longstanding boyfriend, 14 years younger than I, who was a comic fanatic. Collected first editions and the like, but from his generation. I couldn't help but notice that the stuff in his collection was just effing weird, as opposed to what I read as a kid which was hero-orientated and/or funny.

"I'm sick an tired of movies that rehash the comics. For me, I've decided to boycott the modern bullshit and watch movies that focus on real life heroes. One's who don't wear tights and stupid Mardi Gras costumes in the pursuit of their goals. And don't even get me started again on Brokeback fucking Mountain."

Tights comment aside, if the movies WERE simply rehashing the comics...actually, I don't even know where to begin with that....let's just say the MODERN comics, especially post-WATCHMEN, betrayed the original comics. Superman and Batman weren't always that way (just compare the Christopher Reeve Superman to the recent incarnation in SUPERMAN RETURNS.) The original superheroes, like Superman and Captain America, were created during WWII and were closer to the cowboys, the Zorros, and the like.

All my DVDs *are* worth watching. And I certainly won't be adding Dark Knight to the collection. But I do love to discover new worthy candidates. Pleasantville, for instance which I was completely unaware of till it came on TV last night. I caught History Boys the same way. As a rule, though, "modern bullshit" is just that. I was watching the Mark Twain bio-pic on TCM earlier—they just don't make 'em like that any more.

Mind you, they don't make people like that any more either.

Hunt down Reach for the Sky starring Kenneth More or World's Fastest Indian. Both are about real heroes! Men who refused to give up on their dreams.

I'm sick an tired of movies that rehash the comics. For me, I've decided to boycott the modern bullshit and watch movies that focus on real life heroes. One's who don't wear tights and stupid Mardi Gras costumes in the pursuit of their goals. And don't even get me started again on Brokeback fucking Mountain.

Just back from the Black Hills of South Dakota after having viewed the mountain sized Sculpture of Crazy Horse as it takes shape. The beauty of that project is that the artists who are undertaking the mammoth project have refused on principle to accept a single penny of government money in the pursuit of their goal. The man who started it in 1948, worked alone for 20-odd years to blast the superfluous rock from the mountain. It's taken 50 years, but his kids are carrying on the work. I've got no idea if they will complete it, but they are giving the project a bloody good go. There they were, in the teeth of a snow-storm (global warming - pah!), drilling and setting the charges for another blast. All the while hanging from a harness off the side of a precipitous horse shaped cliff of their own making.

A very heartening spectacle. May it long continue in the same manner!

So Linz, my advice is to stock up on DVD's worthy of watching. That way, you don't need to bother with the dross on the TV channels. That's what I'm doing!

... quite believe what I was seeing to begin with. Had to pinch myself. Now I can't wait for it to screen again. It's wall-to-wall Dark Knight right now, but I refuse to watch it a second time. When I think of the downer that was Brokeback Mountain, and now this—which is worse at a deeper level—I'm not at all surprised that poor Heath met the end he did. If it were not suicide it might just as well have been.

Cheers! I love that movie.

Ellen

is a wonderful film! Was a huge hit when it came out. Noble in theme and execution, and beautifully acted. The whole thing is Objectivist in spirit.

The movie that came on after was called Pleasantville. Much better! How the hell did this escape our collective attention, or was I just asleep?

I should imagine the orthodoxy would dismiss it as "subjectivist," especially since it so cruelly (and inadvertently, since the makers I'm sure have no clue about the Objectivist orthodoxy and didn't have it in their sights) pillories them. Since it's now 4.30 in the morning I'm going to bed, but I shall follow this up tomorrow ... er, later today.

It's not even coherent in advocating evil or amoralism. For as compelling a villain as Heath Ledger's Joker made, he was also shown to be the hypocrite, claiming he was the only one without a plan, while obviously having the grandest plans of all. And arguably the climax of the film - one part I did consider strong and well done - was the Joker's failure in his assessment of people. Not only the average Joe's didn't bomb the boatload of criminals, but the criminals threw out the detonator. However, the ends-justifies-the-means about the butler hiding the truth from Wayne, and Batman spying on every Gotham citizen are awful. The end with Batman taking the fall is inexcusable, morally and in the sense of basic movie logic. Even accepting the wrong premise that you need to cover up Harvey Dent killing a handful of people to let people have a false idol of goodness - hmmm, there's hundreds of people dead all around town due to the grand schemes of one villain, however will we explain the death of 5 more on the same night? Clearly the only logical explanation is to throw Batman under the bus.

...and I thought the movie was terrible.

Not just in terms of morality and sense of life, but also just poorly made.

Inchohernet is exactly the right word for the plot of the movie.

I find that lefty liberal types slober over the movie in particular without really giving a reason why, apart from, Heath Ledger makes a good joker - as if that were a rational argument.

Yes, truly the most over-hyped, over-sold piece of fantasy since Barack Obama!

The bad guy coherent and righteous in his chaos and amoralism, the good guy a masked, weasel-worded Christ who doesn't kill the bad guy and takes the rap. Ugh! The world is fucked. Heath Ledger reminded me of leering Brandroids and Ahmadinejads, Batman of Obama.