Horror. A police officer investigates a missing child on an obscure island of Puget Sound, only to discover the island is controlled by a mysterious pagan cult. This is a story that shows Feminism/neo-paganism/Gaia Earth worship as evil. Hollywood always shows patriarchy as the oppressive subjugation of women by abusive men. But this movie is rather unique in that it communicates the opposite: that matriarchy is the oppressive subjugation of men by abusive women. In this story, little school girls are taught to recite that the purist form of the male is the phallic symbol. Men’s tongues appear to be cut out and they are reduced to breeders and physical laborers who are forcefully uneducated. These men-haters of this isolated isle disparage patriarchy and then attempt to replace one form of perceived oppression of women with their own oppression of men. The writer/director, Neil LaBute uses this commune to make his point that the “earth” religion that Wiccans, witches and radical feminists all point to as the glorious original pristine Garden of Eden is actually a Garden of Snakes that is rooted in the same human sacrifice that all paganism is ultimately rooted in. A sacrifice that is a twisted parody of the need for atonement that the living God has embedded into the universe. This is a unique and original voice. Put into Pomo lingo: This story is a subversive narrative that delegitmizes radical feminism and its neopagan counterpart as gynophilic male-hating imperialism.
Thriller
The Illusionist
Romantic Mystery. In turn-of-the-century Vienna, a magician uses his skills to win the heart of a woman above his class status. Paul Giametti plays the police captain who tells the story and is torn between his loyalty to a corrupt prince and justice. I found this story engrossing. Although one could tell that all the illusions were simply camera tricks, not true magical skill, which sort of made it harder to believe. On the other hand, it was still a great story of love and the pressure of social standing.
The Lady in the Water
Mystery Thriller. A pool man at an apartment complex discovers at nymph-like woman in his water, who is a mysterious figure of change in people’s lives. In fact, she is to mystically influence a man who will write an important book that will change the country in its effect on a future leader. But there’s one problem, there is a beast that wants to kill her before she can find her freedom. The movie starts with Neanderthal cave-like drawing animations of a New Age myth of how “land people” lost their way into wars and evil by losing their touch with the “water people.” So if we can only connect with the water people, we will find redemption and cure the evil in the world. Being a Shyamalan film, this is unapologetically mythical. So fans of realism will react with dread as obvious connections are made of the various allies that are predestined to help the nymph achieve her freedom. The Guardian, the Healer, the Circle of Sisters, the Interpreter, etc. I actually liked that about it.
It was also quite self-aware. A writer character in the story helps Paul Giamatti discover who should fulfill each of the roles from the characters at the apartment complex. And as he explains, it is an obvious explanation of the literary genre of myth for the viewer. It was a great character because, as a movie critic, he was a cynical know it all, who could not appreciate any movie cause it was all the same and there is nothing new. He just could not appreciate the power of genre. No doubt, a jab at the film critics who don’t like Shyamalan’s movies. A particularly funny moment is when the writer, who is a jerk, is caught in the hallway with the monster and he talks to himself about how this is just like a horror movie, where the jerk gets cornered, but gets away just in time, etc. etc. But of course, he doesn’t. He gets chomped by the monster. A very clever postmodern “Scream-like” play on stories about stories.
Being mythic, this tale has many references to “predestined purpose,” “finding your prupose is a profound thing, but its something that’s not what it seems,” and “man thinks he’s alone, but it’s not true. We’re all connected.” Also, “The universe will give us signs to reveal we’re on the right path.” I really liked how it stresses the quirky uniqueness of each person, with each of their faults, but they turn out to each have unique purpose in working together. The crazy Korean woman who knows the myth that this story embodies and helps Giamatti figure it out; the crossword puzzle guy whose sensitive son turns out to be the code breaker interpreter, the bizarre guy who is building the muscles on only one side of his body becomes the Guardian. And Giamatti, the broken man (from his family’s murder) is the healer in his brokenness. The scene where Paul is supposed to help heal the Nymph, he is supposed to do some kind of incantation, and he doesn’t have any idea what that is, so he just confesses his feelings of failing to his family. This purging of the soul becomes the source of healing. Nice touch. There are these tree monkeys that are the guardians of the laws of the world, who bring retribution on those who do not follow the “rules.” A nice symbolic reference to the lawlike nature of the universe in relation to good and evil.
All this mythic storytelling is really more of the Hindu pantheistic elevation of an impersonal fate-oriented universe invested with magical fortune that Shyamalan was raised to believe than it is a symbolic reference to the living God. New Age gobbledygook. Although, I reckon in true relativistic pantheistic nature, Shyamalan would say that it could be a symbolic reference to God if you like, I don’t think it rings with that kind of connection. At least not to me. This is more of a pantheistic play of magical characters in an impersonal universe that is harmonized in a “mother earth” type of harmony (land and water united) than it could be a reflection of a loving personal Creator who is in control of all things and cares for us—Which is more like his previous movie, Signs. But this only makes my point that Shyamalan’s worldview believes all religions reflect the same ultimate truth, so that is why he can make a “Christian worldview” in one movie, and a pantheistic worldview in another. I really do appreciate though his sense of they mystery of life and indeed, the magic of it all. It’s just a different kind of magic than I believe in. I believe in the Deep Magic of Aslan.
The DaVinci Code
Thriller. A cryptologist and a symbologist stumble upon a conspiracy by nefarious Catholics to cover up an alleged secret that God is a woman and Christians are cold blooded murderers who want to keep people from having fun, especially women.
All right, here’s the scoop. I did some research and found out that the director of the movie, Ron Howard, the writer, Akiva Goldsman, and the producer, Brian Grazer are all part of a vast conspiracy called “I IN GAME,” which just happens to be an anagram of “Imagine” Entertainment. Check it out for yourself. Really. Religious scholars say that this secret order is an atheist bloodline of soldiers who have a long line of connections and aberrations through history going back to the Ku Klux Klan, White Supremacists, the Nazis, slave holders in the antebellum South, Hezbollah and Al Queda, as well as all the way back to the Baal worshippers of ancient Canaan, who sacrificed their children in the fire. And it’s all right there in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Gnostic Gospels. Somewhere in the Tripartate Tractate or the Trimorphic Protenoia, and other serious sounding scroll titles.
There are some who believe that at the same time as he was playing 6 year old Opie Taylor on TV, Ron Howard may have had a part in the assassination of JFK—most likely as a messenger boy for the mafia, CIA and Cubans Against Castro, though some believe he may have actually been the unseen trigger man in the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. There is a “Hanks” family tree that goes back to some slaveholders before the Civil War who beat their slaves and raped them.
“I In Game” is a phrase that means, “I am in the game of world conquest.” It seeks to achieve this by spreading hatred for Christians so that people will rise up and imprison them and create a new Colloseum to throw religious believers to the lions, jut like Nero did in the First Century. Which is not the least bit ironic since Goldman’s Jewish ancestors did that very thing to Christians, by betraying them to the Romans. It’s all true and I found it out from scholarly respected books like “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”
Some documents recently discovered show that Howard, Goldsman, and Grazer, and even Tom Hanks and Ian McKellen have been members of this organization for many years, and the fact that there is no documentation to prove it only shows how secret they are. Even though both Howard and Hanks appear to have good marriages, it is entirely possible that they actually beat their wives regularly and their entire family covers it up. If you doubt this, just ask them, “have you stopped beating your wife?” and see what answer they give. Besides, he has worked very closely with Russell Crowe on A Beautiful Mind and Cinderella Man, who has been arrested for his violent behavior.
But the oldest secret Academy that may be connected to Dan Brown himself (the original author of The Da Vinci Code) is one uncovered by journalist Bill Federer (He writes about it on WorldNetDaily.com under the article “Dan Brown and the “Voltaire Code.”). He reveals that the famous God-hater Voltaire started this secret academy around 1728. Timothy Dwight, president of Yale from 1795-1817 gave an address in New Haven on July 4, 1798 wherein he uncovered this conspiracy of “Voltaire’s Code.” His address is available in Encyclopedia Britannica’s Annals of American, Vol. 4. In it he exposes Voltaire’s plans to “fabricate books of all kinds against Christianity, especially such as excite doubt and generate contempt and derision.” Dwight reveals the astonishing fact that these false books that Voltaire proposed “were formed, altered, forged, imputed as posthumous to deceased writers of reputation and sent abroad with the weight of their names.” The Gospel of Mary Magdalene? The Gospel of Judas? Obviously counterfeits imputed with false authority in order to attack Christianity. Now, The Da Vinci Code, another in a long line of such conspiracy propaganda.
Ron Howard, as most Enquiring minds already know (reported trustworthily on the internet, Dec. 6, 2001) left his kid behind at a donut shop. What they didn’t tell you was the rumors that he may have been wanting to get rid of this child so he can divorce his wife and marry a mistress. This may be just legend, but it fits the picture perfectly, doesn’t it? Grazer of course, most likely has a string of venereal diseased “girlfriends,” but some reporters disagree. According to some sources who remain unnamed and therefore unverifiable, Ian McKellen once met a guy at a Hollywood event that was an alleged member of a militant gay group that has burned down churches and may have been the financing source of the Roman Catholic circle of predatory homosexual priests. The goal: to topple the Roman Catholic Church by infiltrating it with its secret members.
Now wait, you tell me. This is hate-filled racist propaganda, lies, legends and rumors. Oh, you mean like saying that the essence of Christianity is oppression, misogyny, lies, murder, rape and power? You mean like saying as Langdon does that wherever the “one true God” has been preached, “There has been killing in his name,” as if the heart of monotheism is murder? So, all of a sudden now, history needs to be verified beyond conspiracy theorizing and bigotry? What’s sauce for the goose of Da Vinci Code is sauce for the gander of I IN GAME. I’ll just say what Dan Brown says—my story here is only fiction. But every detail is based on facts. Try to nail me down on that one. But isn’t it slander to attack someone’s character like that when it is not true? Answer: Slander is only acceptable when it is against Christianity. Hate is only allowed against Catholics, Evangelicals and Republicans. Intolerance is only acceptable against the politically incorrect. I’ll just answer with the wise words of Hanks’ character, Langdon, “The only thing that matters is what you believe.” So if I believe it, who cares if it isn’t true. It’s true for me.
So, now you know how it feels.
G.K. Chesterton once allegedly said, “He who does not believe in God will believe in anything.”
And those same conspiracy theorists gripe that Christians believe in fairy tales? Sheesh.
p.s. the best line in the film, uttered by Teabing: “You can’t trust the French.”
Mission Impossible 3
Action Adventure. Tom Cruise must rescue his new wife from the clutches of an evil criminal who wants some secret weapon that Cruise has. Well, in terms of action, it delivers, but so what. Most of these James Bond movies have a cliché criminal who wants to take over the world with some elaborate plot. This one, you don’t even know what it is about. The McGuffin that Cruise is trying to retrieve has some biohazard markings on it, but we never know what it is. All we find out is the conspiracy theorizing that an Executive branch representative is trying to sell the biohazard thing, which is basically a WMD to some country that will then allow the US to invade it in the name of WMDs and establish democracy, because “that’s what we do best,” the Judas betrayer says. So this is a not-so-subtle political agenda by the storytellers that the US is empire building in the name of democracy. Anyway, it had some good stuff about courage and loyalty and trust under high pressure. But ultimately forgettable to me because it lacked the real humanity that can make an action movie so much more.
Firewall
Suspense Thriller. Harrison Ford as a computer security executive for a major bank whose family is kidnapped by a bank robber who wants Ford to break through the bank security for him or his family gets killed. This is a formula thriller, but I loved it. And particularly the very strong value that the story incarnates on a personal as well as societal level: FIGHT TERRORISTS/CRIMINALS TO THE DEATH, DON’T SUBMIT TO THEM. Let’s Roll!!
Matchpoint
Erotic Thriller. A middle class Englishman falls in love and marries a woman from a wealthy family, but continues in a passionate adulterous affair with an American actress that results in dire consequences.
This is virtually a remake of Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors from 16 years ago. The acting of all, especially Jonathan Rhys Meyers (as Chris) and Scarlett Johansson (as Nola), is superb. Allen’s capture of the spirit of adultery and obsession is profoundly revelatory, surely a result of his real life mirroring his movies, or shall we say, his movies are obviously expressions of his own experience.
In some ways, this movie explores redundant territory, but in some ways, it depicts the destructive nature of unfaithful obsession. It is the classic “boring kind wife versus passionate unstable mistress” story. But I gotta say, I was not enticed. Scarlett’s character was sufficiently realistic in her competing exclusivity to make this a lesson in consequences for those of us tempted to be unfaithful. Nola, unlike so many stupid women who actually think the adulterer is going to leave his wife, becomes jealous and demanding of more attention. This is more like the internal tension that most likely occurs in affairs, unless of course, both participants are pure hedonistic nihilists. But the point is that the temptation of adultery would be much easier to avoid if one would take the time to think through the kind of consequences and what one would lose if one did so. That is the power of these kind of movies, they play it through so we can receive an imprint in our minds of the consequences, which should come to mind whenever we might be tempted.
Unfortunately, this is a Woody Allen movie, and Allen is a Nietzschean nihilist, so the movie does not end well. Chris realizes that if Nola reveals the adultery to Chris’s family, he would lose his entire life of wealth and comfort and live in poverty with his passionate mistress. So he takes the only way out for a pragmatic nihilist: kill the mistress and return to normal life. Chris is shown early on, reading Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky, which is about Raskolnikov, a student who kills someone as an expression of his belief in the Overman of Nietzsche, the man who is “above society’s petty constructed moralities.” So, back to the movie, after Chris kills Nola and successfully makes it look like a drug killing, he muses to himself that “you learn to push the guilt under the rug. The innocent are slain to make way for a grander scheme.” In the beginning of the movie, Chris says, “I’d rather be lucky than good.” And he ends up “luckily” avoiding being caught for his crime.
What is so important about this film is that it marks a deeper comittment to Nietzschean nihilism than his previous existential film, Crimes and Misdemeanors. Crimes is about a “good” Jewish doctor who hires a killer to kill his obsessive mistress to protect his comfort and image, just like Match Point. But there is a significant change here. In Crimes, the hero wrestles with his Jewish religious heritage and concludes that religious guilt is mere convention that can be overcome with time. In Matchpoint, there is but one reference in the movie to religion and that is scorned by the aristocratic class as the “despair of faith being the path of least resistance.” So, in this movie, God is truly dead in not even being part of the conversation, he is assumed to be dead, whereas in Crimes, Allen tried to prove he was dead. In Crimes, he has the “hero” hire a killer to do the dirty work, in Match Point, the “hero” does it himself. This is important because it marks a logical step in that if there is no morality that is truly binding on us, then we ourselves should not feel guilty in killing those who are in our way. In hiring a killer, you are still admitting a measure of guilt by having someone else do the dirty work. But here, Allen is saying we should be able to kill with our own hands and get over it.
A very interesting thematic exploration is going on in this movie between luck and purpose, chance and determination. Throughout the film, the characters argue over whether it is all luck and chance or purpose. The dominant view seems to be, as one character concludes, “All existence is blind chance, no purpose, no design.” As a Nietzschean, this is exactly what Woody Allen believes. And the character appeals to the indeterminism of Quantum physics to justify the worldview. Allen uses a very clever metaphor at the very beginning of the movie for his belief in chance. He uses the experience of tennis players, when the ball hits the net and there is a moment when you don’t know if it is going to fall on either side of the net. He freeze frames on an actual ball at that moment. Very ingenius. Anyway, this is a beautiful real world example of an actual Quantum Physics “slit” experiment of alleged indeterminism where light is shown through a slit and supposedly there is no way to know if a photon will go to one side or the other of the split. Allen has always had a brilliant ability to translate his philosophical concepts into real world dramatic experiences and metaphors.
I say, “alleged indeterminism” because not only do Quantum physicists say that what happens on a quantum microlevel does not necessarily apply to the macrolevel that we live in, but also that the philosophical conclusion of indeterminacy from this scientific experiment is indicative not of ontological reality but of man’s finite epistemic knowledge. To suggest that our inability to determine reality with our crude measuring tools or finite and impaired observations is somehow the nature of reality itself is pure prejudice and imperialism. Just because WE cannot determine reality does not necessarily mean reality is indeterminable. That is placing our pathetically inadequate finite capacity as observers at the center of the universe, the now-discredited superstitious ignorance of Enlightenment modernity.
Anyway, the hero/killer stole jewels to make it look like a drug robbery. So at the end, when the hero/killer throws the jewels into the Thames we see a ring fly through the air and hit the rail by the river, just like the tennis ball in the beginning, and fall on the ground instead. It is this ring that frees the killer because just when the detective figures out the crime, they find a drug criminal with the ring in his pocket proving it was a drug crime, but really the criminal found the ring on the ground.
So the hero/killer muses at the end that “it would be fitting if I were apprehended, it would give a sense of purpose,” but alas he is not apprehended, because according to this view, there is no purpose in life. This a clear monologue to the audience telling us that our desire to see the criminal pay for his crime affirms in us the mythology that there is purpose in the universe, and that evil will be punished. So because it is not, he is thumbing his nose in our face. This is a very dark evil worldview but in a way, it is also a very clear admission of the logical conclusion of such thinking. If you believe that morality is mere social convention, then “getting people out of our way” which amounts to killing them if we have to, is ultimately justified. And it is the superior men, the overmen, who live above society’s morality and are “brave” enough to defy it. They carry the future with them, according to this depraved worldview. Odd, this is exactly how the Nazis thought, and would have cremated Allen himself were he around Germany at the time. Also interesting that Allen had to determinedly craft a story with his purpose and predestination of his characters trying to prove there is no determination, purpose or predestiny. Kinda makes him a bit hypocritical don’tya think?
Boy, I would not want to be one of Allen’s friends. No telling what manner of action he might take would he consider you in the way of his career or conscience.
Hostel
Horror. A couple of American tourists happen upon a hostel in Europe that captures unsuspecting tourists and uses them as torture subjects for high paying mafia customers. Nihilistic survival of the fittest worldview. I walked out. These are the kind of movies that truly scare me, knowing that there are people out there, mostly kids, who are entertained by this, as it breeds heartless violence against people as entertainment rather than moral lesson. And I might add that this movie highly profiled Quentin Tarantino as its producer, which does not surprise me in the least, given his postmodern-nihilistic-B-Movie-video-store-clerk worldview.
Flight Plan
A great basic thriller about a woman, played by Jodie Foster, who accompanies her daughter and the casket of her dead husband home from Germany on a huge airplane. Jodie falls asleep and wakes up to discover her daughter is not only nowhere to be found, but no one remembers her being there. Is this all a delusion of Jodie’s or is there a conspiracy to sabotage the plane? Well, one very annoying element was the obvious red herring that they put in the film. A group of Arabs are made to look suspicious and then are accused by a Joe Average looking American to be terrorists plotting this whole thing, because Jodie remembered seeing them in a hotel looking at her earlier. Well, the trick here is to play off our prejudices and show that our biases blind us and that the real terrorist is yet again only after money. This is a cliché Hollywood gimmick that I remember even from the days of Die Hard. Hollywooders do not believe in true believers. They still actually believe (even after 9/11) that everything, even religion and ideology, is motivated by money. Now, the real sad fact is that all Arabs are not terrorists, but most all terrorists are Arabs. So what other movie or tv show other than 24 has portrayed this reality? None. Instead they make movies and tv shows that show how bigoted people react against Arabs unfairly accusing innocent people. While this is definitely a concern, it is clearly the LEAST concern in light of the actual thousands of innocent people being killed by ARAB TERRORISTS. Why do they suppress the truth? True to form, Hollyweird is more concerned about hurting criminals’ feelings than the innocent victims they murder. I reckon the real reason why they have no problems making evil criminals out of fundamentalist Christians while totally avoiding the reality of evil criminal Islamofascists is because they know that Christians won’t put fatwas on them and blow them up. Hmmmmm.
The Constant Gardener
Not Recommended. Story of a political lobbyist of some kind (Ralph Fiennes) who seeks to discover why his wife was killed in an accident only to discover a cover up by drug companies who are using the poor in third world countries as guinea pigs for drug experimentation. The film is visually creative and acted well, but was boring as a story. They revealed the twist about the drug companies experimenting on the poor at about the half way point or less and then failed to reveal anything beyond this for the rest of the picture, unless I missed something when I dozed off, but I don’t think I did.