"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.

Obligatory Halloween Post: Frankenstein

Happy Halloween folks. To get into the Halloween spirit (which admittedly I completely avoided this year)  I decided to do a bit of film comparison. Frankenstein (1931 Universal) and Mary Shelly's Frankenstein (1994 Tristar). To keep this as brief as possible the classic Universal take on Frankenstein completely shits all over the source material. I honestly doubt if the producers and director (James Whale) even read Mary Shelly's novel Frankenstein. Nothing is right! Not to say that its a bad film, it is just a bad adaptation of the novel and its a rather shallow film. Well at least it got Karloff's film career off the ground, because if it wasn't for his performance as this lumbering doofus monster he wouldn't have been in such films like "The Man They Could Not Hang" or "The Body Snatcher". The 1994 Frankenstein film adaptation on the other hand mostly follows the source material, but falls flat in other areas. In the case of the 1931 version I didn't complain too much of the acting because it hasn't aged too well, and that would be like smacking a cripple in the face (and yes that was a reference to Romero's "Monkey Shines"), but this one has no excuse. While the acting wasn't bad in Branagh's 1994 film adaptation, the characters weren't to memorable or were just formulaic characters. Kenneth Branagh is probably the only memorable character because he is probably the best portrayal of Victor Frankenstein to ever grace the silver-screen. The man is ignorant to advice, completely self absorbed, and hypocritical much like the Victor Frankenstein from the novel. Robert De Niro as the monster was alright too, but nothing to write home about. He was goofy like the Karloff's interpretation, but was a lot more skillful in his killing, and practically omnipotent (just watch the film for yourself, its actually somewhat creepy). De Niro also brought some of his wise-guy charm to the role of the monster which was really cool. I'd like to see Al Pacino as Dracula and Joe Pesci as the Wolfman though, now wouldn't that be awesome? All of the other characters were completely underutilized, and type-casted. Helena Bonham Carter's Elizabeth was the typical love interest, Tom Hulce was the quirky friend, and John Cleese was the broken-down mentor.  I've seen these characters before, show me something new! In short the 1931 Universal film Frankenstein was stupid but forgivable (and a classic), and Branagh's 1994 adaptation could have been great but a few forgettable performances held it back from greatness.

Smoke and Mirrors... but Mostly the Mirrors

Ahh those mirrors. Much like what Kane did by walking past two parallel mirrors, I tried the same thing in my bathroom yesterday on a smaller scale. To say the least the effect was jarring. When I placed my hand between the mirrors it multiplied into an infinite number of hands on an infinite number of planes of existence. To say the least the visual effect was quite jarring, but of course I knew that this would happen because I've done this experiment before, and been in a house of mirrors before. In a way though when we saw Charles Foster Kane on screen for the final time, we saw Charles Foster Kane and his innumerable number of mirror duplicates too. This visual trickery made this moment resonate in my mind and raised questions of what this means. Does it mean that Kane is infinite and everlasting in his own right? Does it say that we have only seen one "reflection" of Kane's life and that there is an innumerable amounts of other facets to Kane? Can it mean that every aspect of Kane is not real, except the one true Kane that is indistinguishable from the rest? Honestly I can't say, but what I do know is that Orson Welles took this secret as well as many more to the grave with him, much like how the secret behind "Rosebud" will remain a secret to rest of the world in Citizen Kane.