Movie Review: The Outlaw (1943)

Posted on August 16, 2019 by Brian Wright

A movie so bad it’s fun to watch[1] ___ 4/10

Reposted from the previous post on October 22, 2014. — ed.

Prologue: “The Outlaw” is a story of the untamed West. Frontier days when the reckless fire of guns and passions blazed an era of death, destruction and lawlessness. Days when the fiery desert sun beat down avengingly (sic) on the many who dared defy justice and outrage decency.

Yeah, right. Avengingly?! Outrage decency?! Who wrote this stuff?

THIS MOVIE outrages decency!

Written by Howard Hawks and Ben Hecht
Screenplay Jules Furthman
Directed by Howard Hughes

Jack Buetel … Billy the Kid
Jane Russell … Rio McDonald
Thomas Mitchell … Pat Garrett
Walter Huston … Doc Holliday
Mimi Aguglia … Guadalupe
Joe Sawyer … Charley
Gene Rizzi … Stranger

From the gitgo, you can search far and wide for a connection between Billy the Kid (William Bonney, played by Jack Buetel) and Doc Holliday (Walter Huston) and you’ll never find one. But who knows whose idea it was—the director Hughes or the writers Hawkes and Hecht—to mess with history so blatantly. My guess is Hughes.

Another thing: the musical score is the first-movement theme of Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Opus 74, ‘Pathétique’ by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1893). I kid you not, Hughes goes positively surreal on the music. About the only connection to that period in the American West is that it’s the second half of the 19th century. This symphony by Tchaikovsky has been standard fare in orchestra halls in the West, like forever, appealing to the wealthy urban elites with refined and educated musical tastes. Pathetique has this connotation of majestic sadness… totally disjoint from a bunch of goofy hillbillies wandering around bantering inanities in the New Mexican desert. Continue reading →

Movie Review: The Fountainhead (1949)

Posted on June 12, 2019 by Brian Wright

Ayn Rand’s sui generis movie still stirs the heart of passionate individualists

If I had to describe the A-list movie production of The Fountainhead in one word that word would be ‘unbelievable:’ it is literally beyond comprehension that such a stark silver screen portrayal of important ideas—with world class acting, directing, score, production design, costumes, and of course writing—could ever be made… much less a movie about the epochal conflict between the individual and the collective (and the parallel ethical conflict between reason-based egoism and faith-based altruism). The second word I would use is ‘moving.’

Lately, The Fountainhead is a DVD I’ve been watching with regularity, simply to recharge my emotional batteries and reaffirm my sense of life. As the astute reader knows, we live in a world where the collectivists of the Toxocracy are hammering the individualists right and left… trying to close in for the kill. [I believe the individualists—full humans—will win, however, and relatively soon, due to a powerful cosmic jujitsu maneuver that I’m happy to be a part of. Ref. esp. Thrive. More on that in my novel soon to be released, The Truman Prophecy.]

And elsewhere, of course: 2016 is the Year of Conscious Evolution, which necessitates psychological independence, which necessitates the full flowering of the individual human conceptual faculty, which necessitates the wholesale adherence of humanity to the nonaggression principle. No this isn’t a dream, it’s real and it’s going to happen. Because of bold creative acts of people like Ayn Rand and those who live by her ideals—not as mere abstractions, but as real people struggling to create a benevolent world that makes sense.

The Movie

The Fountainhead, the book, was published in 1943, a couple of years before the end of WWII. Through the 1930s around the world, and especially among the Western intellectual elites, collectivism in the form of socialism and state socialism—notably the Soviet Union—was held in increasingly high regard. Many Americans felt that US president Franklin D. Roosevelt’s socialistic New Deal was what liberated them from the misery of the (capitalism-caused) Great Depression… plus he was such a good, caring man, with his handicap and all, that everyone loved him without reservation. .AND. he boldly led us to victory in war; that cuddly superpower ally, the Soviet Union, then helped to finish the task of defeating the Nazis. Continue reading →

Movie Review: Amreeka (2009)

Posted on May 29, 2019 by Brian Wright

A tale of dispossession, emigration, hope ___ 10/10

Review initially posted October 2014. It remains topical today, except 10 years of slow genocide and ethnic cleansing by Israel have made matters much, much worse. — bw

Immigration Official: Occupation?
Muna Farah: Yes… 40 years.

“What’s with ‘the Wall,’ man?”

After watching Amreeka, I can put faces on the effects of a twisted foreign policy that sends American tax funds to the Zionist occupational government (ZOG) of Israel.[1] And they’re friendly faces, too… at least the Palestinians. The film begins with Muna Farah (Nisreen Faour) performing some errands in her Palestinian village amidst the rubble and random patrols of ZOG police and soldiers, ca. 2003, just before the American invasion of Iraq. You see the story germinating right there; her husband has taken up with some hottie and basically abandoned Muna… who, with her young teenage boy Fadi (Melkar Muallem), lives with her mother and other extended family, scraping by.

Written by Cherien Dabis
Directed by Cherien Dabis

Nisreen Faour Muna Farah
Melkar Muallem Fadi Farah
Hiam Abbass Raghda Halaby
Alia Shawkat Salma
Jenna Kawar Rana Halaby
Selena Haddad Lamis Halaby
Yussuf Abu-Warda Nabeel Halaby
Joseph Ziegler Mr. Novatski

Muna works as an administrator in a bank. The Wall—this monstrous despoiler of anything resembling human communities erected by the ZOGs in the West Bank, for, well, the same reasons the communists erected the Berlin Wall, or that any state erects barriers: apartheid, dispossession, genocide—is going up. What used to take 20 minutes now requires two hours. More, if she is stopped and questioned at the numerous ZOG checkpoints.

We accompany her and her son on a weekend shopping trip. The digital video camera captures the essence of any occupation: “Papers?”

A couple of ZOG security officers interrogate her for no reason, they want to know her street address. She informs them they don’t use house numbers where she lives. It’s obvious the officers are aware of that fact, and, indeed, they make a point of it, proceeding to ridicule her and the boy as members of a race of inferior beings… so savage and primitive they don’t even use house numbers. Ha Ha Ha.

Then Fadi talks back to the ZOGsters. They don’t like that at all, and proceed to get him out of the car, forcing him to lift his shirt up time and time again, as if to prove he’s not carrying a bomb. It’s humiliating, it’s dehumanizing, and Muna pleads with the ZOGs to let them go. “He’s only a boy, he’s sorry, he didn’t mean anything by it.” She realizes these uniformed guys can cart away her son without so much as a “Have a Nice Day.” And she’ll never see him again. Happens all the time. Continue reading →

Movie Review: The Corporation (2003)

Posted on May 8, 2019 by Brian Wright

Some camera tricks but hits target well enough ____ 7/10

Directed by Mark Achbar

Noam Chomsky ….Himself
Peter Drucker ….Himself
Milton Friedman …. Himself
Kathie Lee Gifford …. Herself (archive)
Michael Moore ….Himself
Franklin Delano Roosevelt Himself (archive)
Steve Wilson ….Himself
Others….. Almost all themselves

In a continuing quest to determine whether the corporate person is conducive to the life of real breathing human persons, I picked up this 2004 movie from the Netflix queue. It has the look and feel of a Michael Moore movie, and accordingly is a lesser effort for some cheap camera tricks.

Nonetheless, I come away with an appreciation of new information that, along with what our informal tribunal of citizens has already learned, is certainly enough for an indictment of the corporation in extremis.

Basically the camera trick is as follows: In the course of a narrative the viewer is shown images of something utterly devastating, so the viewer wrongly believes the images connect to the narration.

My favorite is a guy complaining about sinus problems at a business conference near a polluting company. Then we see this river full of suds—heck, it looks like a toxic Tide commercial—then pictures of a big ol’ fish being poisoned and falling to the river floor.

For all we know the images could be from the former Soviet Union. It’s unfortunate the producers undercut their case by faulty logic, or at the very least undocumented footage. Still, as scrupulous attenders we have to consider the totality of their message.

For most of the analytical description, the movie is on solid ground. It goes through the history of corporations and successfully makes the case that they have acquired unintended privileges (which have become fundamentally dangerous to human life).

As we observe from a book review of Unequal Protection, the Founders never intended corporations to have any but temporary powers granted by the state for specific purposes, such as building bridges. Now they’ve wrongly become “persons” and have set themselves above any law or constitution—buying off public officialdom en masse. Continue reading →

Movie Review: The Tillman Story (2011)

Posted on April 17, 2019 by Brian Wright

He gave his life for this… and THEM?! __ 9/10
Review by Brian Wright

A rerelease of the original review seven years ago, on the threshold of the 2019-20 NFL draft. Let’s keep in mind every time you see the flyovers of military jets at your next football game. — Ed.

Pat Tillman: (per Russell Baer) “I’m Pat Fucking Tillman! I’m Pat Fucking Tillman! Stop shooting! Stop shooting!” (April 2, 2004, Afghanistan)

Pat Tillman, in case you were away, was the former NFL safety who enlisted in the Army to fight terrorism overseas. He was killed in action 4/2/2004, which later was discovered to have been ‘friendly fire.’ The government and military did their best to cover up and contain the truth of what happened to Pat Tillman; this movie lays open the harsh reality.

Screenplay by Mark Monroe
Narrated by Josh Brolin
Directed by Amir Bar-Lev

Pat Tillman … Himself (archive)
Dannie Tillman … Herself (mother)
Russell Baer … Himself (soldier)
Patrick Tillman Sr. … Himself (father)
Philip Kensinger … Himself (General)
Stan Goff … Himself (career soldier)
Jason Parsons … Himself (soldier)
Marie Tillman … Herself (wife)
Richard Tillman … Himself (brother)
Kevin Tillman … Himself (brother)

Stan Goff: [retired soldier, who helped with Dannie’s investigation] I run a blog, so I wrote something about the Tillman case, a commentary piece about perception management aspect of the war. She realized I’d been around: Vietnam, Guatemala, Grenada, El Salvador, Peru, Columbia, Somalia, three assignments with Ranger units, two assignments with the special forces unit, one assignment with the counter-terrorist unit. It wasn’t just that I had experience in Pat’s unit, also that I could sort of help them read the hieroglyphics in that special operations world. Because it is a culture.

Don Rumsfeld: [In memo to subordinate generals after he’s sent a special letter to Tillman thanking him for enlisting.] This Tillman kid is special. We might want to keep an eye on him.

Stan Goff: “‘Pat Tillman’s been killed.’ 45 minutes later, ‘he’s been killed by fratricide. Oh shit, what do we do now?’ Okay, let’s spin this as an heroic action, turn his dead body into a recruiting poster.”

Pat Tillman Sr.: They [the Army] destroyed his helmet, his body armor, his diary, every piece of evidence that could ever be used to determine what happened was eliminated. Continue reading →

Movie Review: The Happening (2008)

Posted on March 6, 2019 by Brian Wright

3/10 … and that’s because I don’t see too many 2s

Principal: [to concerned teachers] “Alright, there appears to be an event happening. Central Park was just hit by what seems to be a terrorist attack. They’re not clear on the scale yet. It’s some kind of airborne chemical toxin that’s been released in and around the park. They said to watch for warning signs. The first stage is confused speech. The second stage is physical disorientation, loss of direction. The third stage…is fatal.”

Most of the movies I review I enjoy and recommend to the attention of others. Occasionally, I’ll go slumming and to try to gather page visits from the masses… e.g. RV, Talladega Nights, Fool’s Gold, and a few others—actually these all have some redeeming critical qualities IMHO. But I’m going to go out on a limb and state that of the popular movies I’ve seen, except for the absolutely atrocious Mars Attacks, this latest effort from M. Night Shyamalan should either a) not have gotten off the cutting floor or b) the metaphor is so esoteric and deep that my modest intellect cannot fathom it.

Written by M. Night Shyamalan
Directed by M. Night Shyamalan

Mark Wahlberg … Elliot Moore
Zooey Deschanel … Alma Moore
John Leguizamo … Julian
Ashlyn Sanchez … Jess
Betty Buckley … Mrs. Jones
Spencer Breslin … Josh

Like M. Night’s popular Sixth Sense with Bruce Willis and Signs with Mel Gibson, I assumed that The Happening would be a movie that was difficult to discuss without giving away an important revelation that gives meaning to the story and people’s bizarre behavior. In the case of the two former movies, we saw that the thoughts of the protagonist(s) were all a big, beautiful, though troubling, metaphor for the reality of things. I enjoyed Sixth Sense and Signs for that reason. The viewer stumbles along saying, “Okay, that seems a little puzzling there, but this is science fiction, so I’ll suspend disbelief.” Until in the final few scenes the author gives you the final piece of the puzzle, and it’s “Aha!” Continue reading →

Movie Review: Alice (1990)

Posted on February 20, 2019 by Brian Wright

Entertaining film of troubles with the gilded cage, by Woody Allen
Reviewed by Brian R. Wright ________________ Rating 9/10

Set in the posh East Side/Fifth Avenue world of wealth and youth, Alice (Mia Farrow) has been married to Doug (William Hurt), a millionaire businessman, for 15 years. They have two kids, with a nanny, and live in what looks like a $5,000 to $10,000 per month apartment. After having the chauffeur drop off her kids at the elite private school, Alice basically spends her weekdays in an epicurean montage: manicures, pedicures, hair styling, massage, acupuncture, shopping, gossiping with her similarly situated girlfriends.

What instigates her initial discomfort is a back ache that won’t go away. One of her friends recommends a Chinese ‘herbalist,’ a Dr. Yang (Keye Luke) , who serves more as a psycho-therapist and deliverer of tough love… in conjunction with ‘natural substances’ to cure the various dramas that are Alice’s unfulfilled life. She starts with something that opens her up emotionally and sensually toward an apparently single man, Joe (Joe Montegna), she finds attractive who brings his child to the same school that Alice’s kids attend. Good writing, and very good acting—I consider Alice to be a major tour de force of Mia Farrow’s career. She’s simply magnificent, and hilarious, as the dominating presence in her initial conver-sation with Joe, which moves the relationship to the next step.

So much more, as Alice starts to break out of her shell and leaves behind her insecurities, seen in her various relationships…with Joe, of course, but also with her first love Ed (Alec Baldwin—quite the handsome stud in 1990), her sister Dorothy (Blythe Danner), a woman friend Nancy Brill (Cybill Shepherd) who has ‘made it’ as a TV executive and to whom Alice goes to to propose a writing project, and so forth. All these relationships are drawn finely and fittingly into the general plot of Alice trying to find fulfillment away from the superficial life that she knows she’s leading but is afraid to let go of. Continue reading →