I wrote some ramblings years ago about having a “Bambi Burger Bash” in my backyard. We could have one Bambi hanging in a tree and another on the grill… We could also have a bucket of KFC along with some other snacks and appetizers. Later, we could have some home made ice cream. Milk – it does a body good.
What about Vegetarians?
But what about my vegetarian friends that I invited to my burger bash? Hmmm? I could call one up before hand for a consultation to see what is and what is not acceptable for their palette. They all seem to have different rules. (more…)
Czech filmmaker Jiri Menzel adapted, in 2008, yet another novel by Bohumil Hrabal–this time, I Served the King of England (with English subtitles). Though I haven’t read the book, I find it impossible to doubt that it’s a very good film version, one for which a talented man is responsible. Dark satire is here but no contempt for the characters, and a fun-loving style springs up, even to the point of exhibiting a peculiar, silent-movie mode for an early sequence.
Menzel’s hero, Jan Diti, initially sells hot dogs in Prague but aspires to become a millionaire; and moreover, working as a waiter for years, he does everything right. Nothing is too challenging for him; he even brings ecstasy to the prostitute he beds. But things go wrong, patently, after Jan meets Liza, a Hitler-loving German girl, with the hideous merger of Nazi-blessed religion and clinical science taking place. And things go wrong after Jan finally makes his millions and Communists enter the picture.
Ah, well. As a misanthropic, 60-year-old Czech professor tells Jan, “Man is the progeny of Evil [by “Evil” he does not mean God]–criminal and stupid.” Indeed, the situation is “worse than that,” he says, because–and this is interesting–“all philosophers and prophets exclude Jesus Christ.” Assuredly the film is about the (often efficient) enemies of civilization.
Plenty of artistic prowess is here. In one scene, rich old men, while dining, gaze at a half-naked girl lying on a revolving platform. Afterwards she quietly strips for head waiter Jan so the two plebs can have their own funtime. Another bit of footage offers a shot of Jan and Liza sleeping in bed after lovemaking–the Czech fellow fully surrenders to the German woman–before the soundtrack produces a solemn radio announcement about Czechoslovakia’s late-Thirties surrender to Hitler. And then there’s Menzel’s success at getting expert comic performances from his actors. Ivan Barnev is buoyant and unself-conscious as a young Jan, Oldrich Kaiser is convincingly subdued as an aging Jan. Julia Jentsch, as Liza, is a perfect political fanatic, listening without conscience to prophets who exclude Jesus Christ.
It will probably be a long time before I see another tragicomedy as palatable as the absorbing I Served the King of England.
When I first saw The Da Vinci Code, I thought it was just based on a novel. Well, it is,
right??
Image via Wikipedia
But maybe not.
I started finding out all sorts of interesting things, like how for hundreds of years, it has
been common knowledge in France that Mary Magdalene traveled there, lived out her
life, and raised her offspring who were apparently fathered by Jesus. Huh?
I never heard that in my church.
But in France, where Saint Mary Magdalene is the patron saint, people have always
believed this. Unbelievable!!
I took a trip to a local bookstore and found a whole section about this! And books about
the Knight’s Templar, the age old group who vowed to protect the Bloodline of Jesus,
and books about the Holy Grail being the Sangreal – the Holy Bloodline, NOT a cup!
Wow, and this was right here in my own city …. This whole section of books I had never
seen.
In The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown references a shadowy group known as le Prieure du
Sion, or The Priory of Sion. This group is apparently a secret society who guards these
esoteric secrets.
But how would I go finding out more about these secrets?
I love secrets!
More information followed. I got turned on to this cool radio show called NightVision
Radio hosted by Rene Barnett. Hey, cool! The lady that produced the movie Bloodline,
all about this mystery involving Mary Magdalene and her pad in France! The movie
even included this really interesting guy, Nic Haywood, a ‘hip-in-an-esoteric-way’ kind
of guy, who is the official spokesperson for The Priory of Sion. Guess what? I tuned
into her show and Haywood was on it live!
Listen to more
Image via Wikipedia
So now I’m looking forward to tomorrow night, Wednesday, May 23 2011. At 8:00 p.m.
Pacific Time, Nic’s gonna be on again! There’s even a live chatroom so if I might wanna
ask him some questions and get some really interesting answers on the air, I can! How
could anything be cooler than that??
Bloodline Mystery Tour 2011
I’ll tell you what could be cooler! Barnett and her business partner, Gloria Amendola,
are hosting a Esoteric Bloodline Mystery Tour this May to the U.K. where you can tour the important sites involved with this whole Mystery. Like Glastonbury, Rosslyn Chapel, and even Tintagel, the old
stomping grounds of King Arthur.
Best of all, Nic Haywood himself will be on the tour!
Tune in to the show. Come to the chatroom. Hey, we could even chat there! And if
you’ve been wanting to go to the United Kingdom, this tour’s for you …
Released recently (March 2011), Battle: Los Angelesis a fairly decent war movie, or war actioner (whatever it is), wherein a platoon of brave Marines take on murderous extraterrestrial beings that are unexpectedly invading various countries. Aaron Eckhart never makes a false move in his role as a military man, viz. Sgt. Nantz, and the movie’s special effects are, I think, just what they should be. Battle has been criticized for its shaky-cam, but shaky-cam or not the action footage seldom disappoints. One potent scene, for example, has Nantz rush out to put several children on an ascending helicopter, only to witness the helicopter get horrifically blasted by the space aliens before it can re-land for the children.
One might object that the characters are made of cardboard, but there is no real place for individual human complexity in battlefield sequences.
Directed by Jonathan Liebesman, Battle: Los Angeles is not a great entertainment, but there is fun to be had. It is hardly free of banality, but it means business. Too, it sincerely honors the Marine Corps.
English: McDonalds’ sign in Harlem. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
How long has it been since you had some fast food? In the drive through did you get some good service? I’m ‘thinking’ you probably have a story to tell about it… Am I right?
I recently tagged along on a road trip with my groovy lady friend and I suggested we stop at a McDonald’s so I could go to the rest room. I was craving a little snack too… Uh… Mistake.
When I got done in the restroom…Which in itself was not all that great I noticed there was some people ‘waiting’ in line. Some to put in an order.. Others waiting on their order…
We decided we would check it out… again… Mistake… (more…)
I don’t find Noel Coward’s comic play, Hay Fever–performed in Tulsa in 2011–very funny, but I do enjoy and respect it. It’s rollicky, inventive and properly, indeed brilliantly, structured. It would be nice if there were at least one really honorable character in it, but the barbed satire can be appreciated. Among these well-to-do English people of the 1920s, there is false emotion, narcissism, and caddishness.
Good show. Kudos to costume designer Claremarie Verheyen.
The Davis Guggenheim film, Waiting for “Superman” (2010-now on DVD), is a good if imperfect documentary about public schools in the U.S. Guggenheim is a liberal who is rightly critical of teachers’ unions.
The Village Voice‘s Melissa Anderson, who didn’t like the film, mentions in her review that the doc-maker asks the question, “What is our responsibility to other people’s children?” She answers the question thus: “Maybe, for starters, demanding a stronger, securer social safety net”–and she knocks Guggenheim for failing to bring this up. But how, exactly, do we obtain this stronger safety net, Ms. Anderson? By increasing spending for unemployment benefits, Medicaid, CHIP, the food-stamp program, and Social Security? Sorry, that just adds to the 14 trillion-dollar federal debt. Do we hike the minimum wage? I actually believe in the existence of a minimum wage, but hiking it now (or even later) is very inadvisable. No, it’s fine that Waiting for “Superman” avoids demanding Anderson’s safety net.
She also writes that “few would disagree that the unions’ bloat and bureaucracy have often had a deleterious effect on public education . . .” Why, then, haven’t people from the liberal elites voiced their opposition to the teachers’ unions?
The parents of five lovable children in the film try to get their kids into charter schools–public schools independent of the public system. Anderson says these schools “do not have high success rates,” and if that’s true, it is to her credit that she points it out. Frankly, it means things are even worse than Guggenheim realizes. Do see his documentary, though. It’s worthwhile. It does our society more good than do the impracticalities of armchair Progressive idealism.
In honor of Fat Tuesday I thought I’d take a little study on Catholicism, Protestants. History and the Bible.
People go for many years studying the Bible (sometime just one version at that- KJV only ) Guess what? – The Catholic Bible is NOT the same. It has all of the same books the protestant one does, plus a few that the protestants took out.. Now what’s that about?
Then I heard that Constantine ‘started’ Catholicism, uh….. that’s a newsflash.
I think folks may be getting Constantinople and Constantine confused, Constantinople was a Roman Church hub in the early days. Sure, he was a big player in the Catholic Church, but he didn’t ‘begin’ it. And yes, these ‘books,’ (included) or rather, letters, were written before that time, along with scores of OTHER ones. (more…)
Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine (2011) deals with the deeply troubled marriage of Dean and Cindy (Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams).
Have you ever seen the Swedish film, The Passion of Anna, by Ingmar Bergman? It, too, has a lot to do with relationships between men and women. I don’t consider it a success because, for one thing, it’s too talky, but it makes Blue Valentine look utterly lousy by comparison. At least Bergman (in Passion) cared about character development; Cinafrance doesn’t. We learn very little about Dean and even less about Cindy. (Why, really, is their marriage such a failure? The movie more than hints that it’s all Dean’s fault, but that explains nothing.)
At least Bergman fashioned quite a few powerful scenes; too many of Valentine‘s scenes get boring. Ross Douthat of National Review finds the couple’s courtship “very charming.” I don’t. Usually, when people in movies are shown falling in love, it’s sleep-inducing.
There is a certain degree of artistic strength in Cianfrance’s film, but mainly it’s a draggy work of pseudo-art.
American Girl has always been one of my favorite Tom Petty songs. It’s from his first album. I have been puzzled about this song on a couple of different fronts… Is it about suicide? And is it in the movie “Fast Times at Ridgemont High”?
Cover via Amazon
Let’s talk a little about the Suicide theory first.. It goes something like this:
Hey Dave.. I went to the University of Florida… This chick..She jumped out of a 4 story dorm to her death… Ya know, Tom Petty wrote a song about it.. “American girl” I think she was tripping on acid and thought she could fly…
Well, how about all that? Hmmm?
Check the lyrics:
Well, she was an American girl Raised on promises She couldn’t help thinkin’ That there was a little more to life somewhere else After all it was a great big world With lots of places to run to And if she had to die tryin’ She had one little promise she was gonna keep
Tom petty is from Florida… It’s excellent songwriting material, isn’t it?
I’d write a song about it – uh…. maybe.
I Dunno…. If ya asked Tom he’d probably deny it… Just Google it.
My main question is about the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Prob the best high school movie ever made. My gang from high school used to go see it weekly at the “Midnight Movies” Even then (early 80s) it was a cult classic. We used to throw stuff and holla at the scream in our teenage angst.
What’s funny is our lives are reflected in the charterers on the screen… Can you guess which ones?
I distinctly remember the song “American Girl” being played near the beginning of the movie… The part where we’re just getting introduced to the school…… The kids are throwing toilet paper and stuff…
Teenagers…Geeze…..
………………………
HEY!! I just found it!!!
Now… Go rent the movie or watch it on TV….. I guarantee you it’s not in the film!
