‘Priest’ the movie

Two hours of mindless entertainment, just what I needed.

I enjoyed the visual side of this film, very well made indeed. I didn’t like the music at all, it was pompous and outdated. I enjoyed Tron soundtrack much more.

About the plot – I’m amazed that yet another SF film is really about the Absolute. In this one, there were actual references to God. It even was straightforward about our direct relationship with God. Wow. (This is exactly what I’m being taught in my Catholic studies BTW. No excuses – talk to Jesus directly.)

The amusing part was how the RC can look in a Manga. Very funny. Bleak like the most cruel Scottish Protestant communities. I guess it’s fashionable after the Dan Brown books. Or some of what the American Baptists think about the Catholics got through to the Manga writers (at least the American Baptists I’ve lived with in Alabama)? Who knows.

And Paul Bettany was playing very well, especially with his facial expressions.

Red Riding Hood the movie

It was so pretty! Every shot taken with such care, so colourful! I think that it was the most perfect rendition of a Germanic European folklore tale.
Do you think that the folks in the old days really liked shagging in the hay? I thought that there were severe punishments for that in your cultures? I’ve just been in Gent, and I’ve seen the Count’s castle with all the evil machinery in it. I think that this culture in general was quite unforgiving, so it’s curious while would there be teenage dating in a fable?

Sucker Punch – what’s cool about it?

I read that the all girl crew was new, and it’s so fantastic etc – but really those girls are fantasizing about fighting – all barbie blond warrior princess fantasies come to the climax in this movie. Not as cool as I thought it would be.

Angelina got a much better role lately, in Salt, where she even got to do some acting. One observation though – so make a character smart and ferocious and beautiful, you have to make her Slavic. Damn right.

The respectful ‘Eagle’

I’ve just been to see ‘The eagle’ movie. I must say that I was impressed – the way that the Briton/Roman relationship was portrayed as respectful was beautiful. A story of two orphaned boys who became heroes – very good.

I disagree a little with how the northern British tribes were portrayed. If you look at Eskimos, they are dressed in seal skins, but they are not shabby, ragged or dirty – on the contrary, the life in the countryside means that they should have a lot of time for adorning their clothes with embroidery, beads, signs etc.

It was amazing how the Roman town was portrayed – I’m not sure there would be women in the circus, even if it was countryside though.

And the best thing about this film for me was the eagle being brought back. I was watching this with a catastrophic attitude, because I’ve looked it up and I knew that the legion was lost in reality. So I enjoyed the fantasy about re-discovering them a lot.

Watching Blackadder

‘wait a moment! I think I may have a plan to get you out of this marriage.’

‘yes, but it’s a stupid plan Percy, let’s face it!’

‘yes, yes, maybe you’re right.’

‘but… tell me what it is anyway!’

‘no. atually I don’t think I’ll bother, my lord!’

 

He hehe! I wish I’ve known this series before. But it’s probably like ‘In Bruges’ – you have to know them at least a little to catch some jokes. Everything in due time.

 

Exegesis of Solomon Kane

LEt’s be honest – this one is so straightforward that it does not need one.

The only tricky bit here is recognising that the entire action is really a psychological action. It’s a dream that someone had. The castle that it all takes place in is the Tower of the Soul. We all have a house like this in our subconscious.

The Father figure and the Warlock figures really show how socialized the person is and how accepting of the law in real life they are.

The fact that the Amish girl remains with her mother instead of marrying the hero means that the person who dreams is 11 years old and is not ready to meet women.

The attitude towards the chtchonic realm is negative and means that it’s not been reconciled with their shadow, and may be destructive.

Really it’s an incomplete study of a young person.

But visually it was very well made. Luke is thoroughly impressed with the quality of the mud. I remain awed at the courage to show the figure of Satan. Impressive.

I would have liked it better if we were drunk, but I prefer my own dreams.

Exegesis of the Daybreakers

I’ve been to the movies. I was sober. I have not made notes, but have CONCLUSIONS. I will generously share them with you.

As usual with the SF, Daybreakers is deeply submerged in the subconscious, mythical, ancient way of thinking. It is really a modern fable. Let’s see what meanings can I get out of this entertainment, to see what understanding of the reality is available to people on the everyday, effortless level.

There is a high culture level of art, like Bertolucci, and on that level the matters of great importance are addressed with great skill and respect. I will think about the more common experience for the rest of us.

What do we have in the movie: vampires, the powerful subconscious symbol, but a little different that in the Interview with the Vampire. Those vampires, dead, cold, without pulse – are living in a very metropolitan world, just like many people do in great cities. They hold jobs. They build houses, they drive cars. The whole world is theirs.
I take it as a hint that those creatures are representing the condition of people in the real world: we are dead. The writer had used important symbols to explain this death – there is no heart beat, no warmth, the eyes are ravenous. The meta-quality of those creatures is that they can’t stand light, it burns them to ash.

It’s easy to explain what does it mean if a person has no beating heart – they are emotionally impaired, unable to have the normal life of a human. They are cold-blooded, that is usually what we say of cruel people. They are ravenous and they prey on humans: this indicates that people in cities are abusive towards one another. Moreover, this abuse comes out of the hunger that they have, the want to take somebody else’s life, emotions, strength. This want is not possible to be sated. Once somebody dies emotionally, they will still crave the warmth that they no longer have.

The curious thing is how this death spell is cured. It’s the sun that they so fear, applied reasonably. Ed the Vampire submits himself to a sunning procedure, and gains his salvation. Other vampires are submitted to sunning, shackled, and they die. The first is penance, the second is punishment.

Curious, huh? How the modern filmmakers use the old concepts and illustrate them. Does it mean that we want to watch the fables, and something in us is responding to the humanity’s original culture?

I hope so.

I’ve seen the Inglorious Basterds and I’m scared

We went to see it this weekend in Rugby. I was shocked.

There is a scene in the film when the Nazis are watching a propaganda movie – one German soldier kills hundreds of American soldiers – and the whole room laughs with triumph at every death.

But – it was like that in reality. The whole room full of Britons were laughing at every scene when a German had been bashed to death with a baseball bat, shot with a series, tortured with a knife etc. You know the Tarantino style.

I think that in the war that can always come – we will be the Spectators this time. There is a hatred that we don’t participate in.

Another thing that was shocking: this is a parodious take at what Jews who live in America today would like their ancestors to have done, but they haven’t. Burn, bash, pillage and murder. But the thing is precisely that they haven’t. This film is about how Jews would like to have done what Polish AK was doing – rob the trains, ambush the cars, assassinate the German troops. But – it’s not even necessary. It would be truthful enough to take the story of Jewish Poles in the Polish AK, that is partisan army. Of robbing and burning warehouses and ambushes and fights.

Too bad – this is not possible. We do not hide that we see the holocaust of Palestinians, and that apparently makes the whole nation ‘Anti-Semitic’, even though Jews had became Poles once, and received help. Even though the bloodbath in the Middle East is true. Even though theoretically everyone accepts the right to say the truth, the free speech. Or that we have cross-married. Or that we still like Yiddish music – all that does not count if we don’t hate the Arabs on racial grounds.

I’m surprised that any German actor wanted to star in a film as butchering meat to be laughed at. I understand that it’s Tarantino, and that there are lots of butchering films, but this time, again, they were butchered on racial ground. It’ not right, and it’s not fair, even though their ancestors voted for the Nazis. It’s not ‘my time to kill’. I’ve done that once in my life, fighting with my sister. I said something like ‘it’s my turn to beat her up’ to my Mother – and got the biggest beating ever for that. That is still not fair if adults do it.