I Have Returned!!!

It has been exactly thirty days since my last blog post, and now I see it fit to post again, on the current film, "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" or for the sake of this blog "Dr. Strangelove." Now first things first, yeah the film was amazing. I know everyone is probably praising it, but with all seriousness, a film that can make a man committing suicide, a guy plummeting to his death on a live warhead, and the subsequent annihilation of most civilization funny; now thats just genius. Any other film would be dark, moody and graphic; but not Dr. Strangelove, its hilarious. Its not even a black comedy, its just pure satire.
Despite its excellence, in the entirety of the film I realized one minor blemish, which is the title. Why is it called Dr. Strangelove, he has a total of three minutes of screentime, I mean what gives? Albeit Strangelove is the most interesting character in the film, and Kubrick was probably very proud of this zany character that he created, but he isn't the centerpiece of the film. It makes as much sense as calling it "General Ripper: How I Learned to Drink Rainwater, and Avoid Flouride" or " Major Kong: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Ride the Bomb." Its really just nitpicking, but its sort of irksome.

Kicking It Old School

So far we've seen two films from the film noir genre, the first of which being Asphalt Jungle, starring Sterling Hayden as Dix Handley, a complex hooligan (but lets not kid ourselves, Sam Jaffe really steals the show as Doc Riedenschneider.) Asphalt Jungle is in many ways the quintessential film noir, because it satisfies all of the cliches associated with the genre, such as the dark wet streets, the prostitute with a heart of gold, crooked cops, and everything happens at night. Some people would say that the caper gone wrong plot is cliche too, but really, its not cliche, its a classic formula for a kick-ass film. Really, besides the standard fare for film noir, Asphalt Jungle is anything but, for two reasons. 1.) The film has high production values, or at least higher than the other films from the film noir genre at the time. I can't really verify this, but I'm going to take Mr. Bennett's word on this one. 2.) The film has balls. The hero shoots first, there is a calendar with hot babes on it, and the main characters blow up a fucking safe with nitro. These are all rather practical special effects, and "perks" but this film has more panache than any of those generic Hollywood special effect cluster fucks that are invading American cinema. The fact that this stuff got past the censors is another thing to marvel at. Huston does a great job of making the "good stuff" get past the censors. Dix and Bob Brannom shoot nearly at the same time, nitro is called juice, and the women on the calendar aren't even naked.

Tomorrow I compare Asphalt Jungle with Dark City.

"The N Word"

In today's viewing of Unforgiven I noticed something very peculiar (not so much anymore because Mr. Bennett had to point it out to the whole class). When Ned and the Schofield Kid have an argument about the Schofield Kid's poor vision, I was almost sure that the Kid was going to call Ned "the n word" but he didn't. The Schofield Kid seems like the ignorant type who would say something like that, and it looked like the conversation was going that way. Maybe Schofield is above racism or something, or there is more to the character that we will find out about later. Maybe it was a statement about the West how racism wasn't as rampant there as it was in the South. I don't know, maybe it will show up later on in the film.

Divine Allegory

Now the couple Jof and Mia as well as their son Michael are a part of a thinly veiled allegory for Joseph, Mary and Jesus. First off Michael, the infant is born to do great things, and is almost predestined. His father Jof even said that the boy will become an acrobat. He doesn't really have a choice, but did Jesus have a choice to become the savior? Jof too, because of his name among other things has come to represent Joseph. The man is a cuckold, plain and simple. Early on in the film we see Scat sleeping next to Jof's wife Mia, and you as well as I know that they were doing more than just sleeping. Joseph too is a cuckold because hi wife cheated on him for God, but really didn't know or care, and just treated Jesus like his son. The way that Mia fits into this is that she is Mary. Why, because Mia sounds like Mary, is married to "Joseph" and her son is "Jesus".

The USS Mount Hood

I might have mentioned this naval disaster before, so forgive me if I'm sounding a bit redundant, but for the occasion of veterans day I find this rather suitable. The USS Mount Hood was munitions ship that was docked near New Guinea during WWII. As a munition's ship its job was to supply battleships with ammunition for the Philippine offensive. To say the least something went very wrong with a routine ammo refill when all of a sudden the Mt Hood was erased from existence by two blinding and deafening explosions. My Uncle August who was on a neighboring small battleship was knocked off of a ladder by the shockwave of the hood exploding., His ship was one of the lucky ones, because a small fueling ship next to the Mt. Hood was also reduced to smithereens, and sailors on other nearby ships were killed by the explosion and debris. When my Uncle August regained his senses, he went above the deck to witness the full scope of the carnage. There was a huge mushroom cloud where the Mount Hood once was, and there were human remains in the water. Despite this traumatic event, my uncle still loved his time in the service and refers to it as the best time of his life. Now I'm sure that he's meeting with his fellow WWII veterans on Veterans day and reminiscing about these dark events as well as some of the brighter ones, like the time him and his comrads stole a tub of ice-cream from their superior officer and "ate the whole damn thing" or the time that he shot at aquatic surface mines with his buddies as target practice (it was also his job to be on a lookout for mines and subs.) I just wanted to bring this up because Mr. Bennett used to assign an interview assignment to his students, where they had to interview a veteran. While I couldn't track down the elusive U-boat captain, "Captain Stine" (or something like that), I took the liberty in talking to my uncle about his time in the service, and it proved to be quite the eye opener.

A Quote That Shall Transcend Time

Forgive me if I'm copying Mr. Bennett or some other famous person, but I just thought of this quote and I truly think that it might be a gem. With no further pointless drivel building up to it, here it is "God is a madman, and will stop at nothing until we are all dead." I know that this was for sure just a blurb pertaining to my outlook of monotheism, I just wanted to share this revelation with my peers.

What is Freedom?

It seems at the end of the film when Manny chooses to free the main engine from Buck and Sara's car and sacrifice his own life to take down Ranken, there seems to be a strange motive about this decision. Why didn't Manny escape to the other car and leave Ranken for dead? I believe that he did this in the name of freedom, in the sense of gaining his freedom for the first time in decades, and depriving Ranken of his freedom. To understand why Manny did this, we need to understand what freedom really is. According to dictionary.com freedom is "the state of being free or at liberty rather than being under confinement or under physical restraint" which I believe is valid, but if so freedom would be rarely achieved because society is a restraint on its own, and the goal of society is to confine people. Personally I believe that freedom is when someone can do anything they want, and make their own choices with no unwanted consequences imposed by society. Freedom is when there are no boundaries to what one can do. In a way Manny achieved this because on that runaway train, the characters had no control in terms of direction, but were free because they couldn't be stopped. When he chose to take down Ranken with him and stand upon that train like Christ the Redeemer, he had no duties to anyone except himself, because he was in control, and wanted to die. I also found it interesting that Ranken was Manny's prisoner on that train. When Ranken plead for his own life, we saw his true colors. Ranken was a coward and a bully when he had power, but without that power he was a weak man.