These past three weeks have been very demanding of me work-wise. I've averaged well over 100 hours each week and my favorite unwinding mechanism has been watching movies on the Chilean cinephile channels which have movies from all over with Spanish subtitles.
Sometime early this morning I saw something that I think is called "Domino," at least that was what it was called in Spanish on on-screen cable info guide. It is a Tony Scott film and is one of these post-modern film-within-film conceits about this plucky, inter-racial band of tech savvy bounty hunters who sell the idea of a bounty-hunting reality show to an avaricious producer played by Christopher Walken. There is also a matter of a robbery they commit, $300,000 of the proceeds of which are ear-marked to pay for the medical care of an ill nephew of one of the team (sniff, sniff). Oh, the money is stolen from someone drawn to represent Carl Icahn.
The show is a runaway success and becomes married to the federal law enforcement apparatus in some way. The feds in this movie are sympathetic to the plucky, inter-racial, tech-savvy, band of bounty hunters, with whom the viewer is supposed to identify and for whom the viewer is supposed to root.
With apologies to the Progressive Traditionalist whom I took to task at Jonestown for taking the side of a mall-owner over that of an old dude who got hassled for wearing an anti-Iraq War t-shirt, let me say that I was rooting agaisnt every single one of the plucky, inter-racial, tech-savvy, band of bounty hunters throughout this movie, knowing in vain that I would be disappointed with the ending.
The sympathetic characters in the movie to me were, one supposes, the villains in the script. There was the Carl Ichan character, a casino-owner who wasn't the friendliest guy in the world (what casino owner is?) but not a creep certainly and he had $10mm stolen from him by the plucky, inter-racial, tech-savvy, band of bounty hunters. The $10mm belonged to the guy, not the plucky, inter-racial, tech-savvy, band of bounty hunters. Gee whiz.
The other characters who seemed sympathetic to me but were supposed to be villains to the audience were this mafia capo, his wife and their two sons who lived at some frat-house in some "exclusive" college, the kind one assumes that would not accept any member of the plucky, inter-racial, tech-savvy, band of bounty hunters. With the assent and aid of the FBI, the plucky, inter-racial, tech-savvy, band of bounty hunters torture and murder the boys, leaving both parents grief stricken (yay! fuck whitey!) and the father out for old-country revenge, which, sadly, he doesn't get. Instead he gets blown to smithereens by the plucky, inter-racial, tech-savvy, band of bounty hunters (yay! fuck whitey!) for his troubles.
I guess I kept waiting for an Amy Goodman or Greg Palast kind of character to come in as a deus-ex-machina and save the day. Christ, I would have settled for Rush Limbaugh or Pat Buchanan!
There's one last sympathetic character in the movie, Tom Waits klnd of playing himself, but sort of a villain, as kind of an angel of death who warns the plucky, inter-racial, tech-savvy, band of bounty hunters that they have sinned and will face the fury of hell one way or the other, which does indeed happen to all but the title character, played by Keira Knighley who emerges from the wastage without a scratch on her.
Aside from being preposterous, the movie troubled me on a lot of levels. First of all, I realized exactly how much of an old fogey I've become, no matter what my personal politics are. Christ, who roots against the plucky, inter-racial, tech-savvy, band of bounty hunters and for the casino owner and the mafia family with their two over-privileged frat-boy sons? What a disappointing ending. I was hoping some kind of sanity would kick in and the capo would avenge his sons' torture/murders by halving the Keira Knightley character with an AK-47!
Yes, friends and neighbors, I'm sorry to report following that movie I took a look in the mirror and saw a racist and class-ist looking back. That was kind of a depressing realization. Even though I suspected it all along about myself, I still needed two valium to get past the moment.
The ship got righted a little as the following movie was something called Pierrepoint starring Timothy Spall about Britain's finest executioner (as a trade) who late in life comes to realize the uselessness and immorality of capital punishment. I certainly agree with that.
There's no getting around the earlier movie, however. Even though the casino owner and the mafia family were not presented in a particularly bad light, the whole vibe of the union of the plucky, inter-racial, tech-savvy, band of bounty hunters and the Feds troubled me. But that's no excuse. As stupid as that movie was, I really, truly disliked the plucky, inter-racial, tech-savvy, band of bounty hunters and felt quite a bit of sympathy for the capitalist and the capo.
I guess I have to accept the truth and nail my colors to the mast: I am a racist and a class-ist and I guess I'll always be that. Or maybe an old fogey is just and old fogey. Maybe given this post and the last one, I'm in this brooding, anti-kneejerk liberal mode I get from my left-wing father -- a mode of thought FAIRLANE and I share from time to time, as well.
At any rate, a truly minimalist youtube fuck-you to the conceit of that wretched movie and to plucky, inter-racial, tech-savvy, bands of bounty hunters everywhere by a class-conscious old-fogey folkie, Patrik Fitzgerald.
Kelso's Nuts love you
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24 comments:
what is funny Kelso is we all find away regardless of our class, race, sex, gender.
We all find a way.
I saw Domino. I loved the shroom or peyote scene . Tat made the rag tag band of plucky tech savvy inter raial freedom fighters way more appealing.
Kelso we live in a world with no rules, just guidelines.
you know that i know that.
Classism is simply the winner talking trash. it's Larry bird in the 3rd quarter.
Racism-the unequal or unfair distribution of wealth property and or privilege benefitting one group. In America,and the rest of the modern world that happens to be white people.
The dynamics oracism are relatively new. we throughout the history of man ter ws very little emphasis put o ones color.
It was the magic and majesty that mattered.
Dave:
I agree 100%. I see that every day down here.
Ah, "down here". How funny is it that I wrote this post BEFORE the shit hit the fan. But I have to give the Progressive Traditionalist a point or two about one thing: I am boring. I don't mean to be. The problem is that I don't speak very much English anymore, so THIS has been my outlet for the ideas and concepts and jokes that build up in English in my head while I'm speaking Spanish.
But this fracas has taught me another valuable lesson. The debate for me isn't that interesting. A bunch of people like yourself and Fairlane, for example, express great thoughts in very poetic ways and I appreciate that a lot. But a debate is useless because I (personally) cannot win. If I have the wrong side of the argument, I lose it and if I have the right side...well, you see what happens. I may be boring as sand but I am able to present an argument. And if I've presented it well and have "won" the debate, even doing the gentlemanly thing such as pretending to have lost it for the sake of harmony doesn't work either.
Bottom line: I came down here to do work I could no longer do stateside and to build new businesses. I didn't come down to play.
I should take the advice of my own post and realize that Spanish is the language I speak and write now and that's not changing any time soon. I assume writing English is like riding a bike or jerking off -- once you learn, you never forget!
hooray, your writings on theater and writing much missed!
hooray, your writings on theater and writing much missed!
hooray, your writings on theater and writing much missed!
hooray, your writings on theater and writing much missed!
hooray, your writings on theater and writing much missed!
hooray, your writings on theater and writing much missed!
hooray, your writings on theater and writing much missed!
hooray, your writings on theater and writing much missed!
hooray, your writings on theater and writing much missed!
hooray, your writings on theater and writing much missed!
hooray, your writings on theater and writing much missed!
hooray, your writings on theater and writing much missed!
hooray, your writings on theater and writing much missed!
hooray, your writings on theater and writing much missed!
hooray, your writings on theater and writing much missed!
hooray, your writings on theater and writing much missed!
Keep the faith, my Internet friend. You are a first-class writer and deserve to be heard.
Keep the faith, my Internet friend. You are a first-class writer and deserve to be heard.
Keep the faith, my Internet friend. You are a first-class writer and deserve to be heard.
Keep the faith, my Internet friend. You are a first-class writer and deserve to be heard.
Thank you for sharing!
Keep the faith, my Internet friend. You are a first-class writer and deserve to be heard.
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