Change Your Image
ThePHNX
Reviews
Sandra Maischberger trifft Leni Riefenstahl (2002)
A Bit Unfair?
Got this interview as part of one of Leni's - of whom I am a great admirer - film DVD's "White Hell of Pitz Palu". There is no doubt Leni Riefenstahl has been treated badly and unfairly but Sandra's interview seemed a good one that brought the truth (that Leni was no politician or a 'Susan Sontagg 'Fascist' (everyone who was not a collectivist was a "Fascist" to Susan)).
Got the impression Ms Riefenstahl enjoyed the interview.
How I wish we who admire her had a chance to tell her we understood what unspeakable crap her defamers spake and how obvious their motives.
I sometimes think good Jewish men and women have to work doubly hard to overcome the base acts of Zionism.
HBH
The Aviator (2004)
Bravo Mr. DiCaprio, Mr. Hughes, The Entire Cast and Story, Bravo!!
This is the movie changed my mind about DiCaprio - he is positively brilliant as Howard Hughes a man whom I've always held in the highest regard. Having said that makes me also focus on the films one flaw. the compulsion to portray the exceptional as eccentric or flawed psychologically. At the beginning of the 20th Century we much admired the brilliant and extraordinarily productive; now the trend - indoctrinated by the NEA schools and academia - is to find them abnormal and praise, instead, conformity. All part of Dewey's plan for education to create a docile compliant citizenry. How VERY wrong that is. Fortunately the gifted people who produced this film and the superb acting by all make this a truly memorable experience. HBH
Mystic River (2003)
Superb!
As someone who knows with some intimacy the area and its people (Charlestown / East Boston) the acting has special impact and it is SUPERB as is Mr. Eastwood's direction - it is somewhat regrettable Clint caters to the anti-gun rhetoric of blaming 'a New Hampshire gun dealer' for the stolen gun (there are plenty of gun dealers in Mass. the gun could have been stolen from, citing NH is Massachusetts propaganda stuff) but then it is much the brainwashed mindset of the Boston area to demonize guns and anyplace like New Hampshire that is still free. All else about this film is first rate, gripping and worth watching more than once. Even the overrated Laurence Fishburne turns in a good performance: but Robbins, Penn, and Kevin Bacon are brilliant in capturing the essence of their characters and the area. Four plus stars (I reserve five for only the rarest, very best) HBH
Into the West (2005)
Into The West?
Into The West A Stephen Spielberg Dreamworks Production
An Epic orgy of contemporary racism. All the bad guys wear white (skin) It seems the sage message is, nothing wrong with prejudice long as it's the WASP gets stung.
Mysticism is restored to its pinnacle whence a new inquisition, this time the swarthy turn the screws. Doing dope and self mutilation is in, industry and technology are out, even the wheel takes a hit. All the while, Mr. Spielberg's Royce rolls merrily to the bank. We are served several scenes where reporters distort the truth to sell stories and then immersed in the most horrific Yankee version of the Lawrence Kansas raid. It seems the sage message is, nothing wrong with propaganda long as it serves the right (left) purposes. Edi Bernays YES, Joe Goebbels NO! Seems a bit slippery to me to glibly slide from extolling the virtues of one set rebels, the Lakota, to damning another, the Confederate. Suppose we need nip in the bud the growing awareness the South was not all wrong and it was not really about slavery: Lincoln back to sainthood, Quantrelle to hell (here on earth). So how do we rate this thing? Rank it rank? Not really, for there is much skill and talent evident, although the actors seem encouraged to smugness, especially the ti-pi dwellers - one suspects their new house in Malibu has sliding glass doors and plumbing - the costumes and sets are near perfect, the cinematography magnificent, the sound superb, and, yes, there is much excitement and entertainment. So we can't go too far south of five on a scale of one to ten. On the other hand, would be monumental hypocrisy praise Stephen Spielberg whilst Leni Riefenstahl is condemned. And as with "Olympia" there are some truths found "Into The West" (not as many, but some). Namely, you invade peoples land, drive them from their homes, destroy their way of life, expect them to get hostile. Would that Mr. Spielberg, a major supporter of Israel, took his philosophy 'Into The East'. A four out of ten, a "C" movie: ****------ / **---
Grand Prix (1966)
Good Stuff, NO GREAT Stuff
Just plain good watching, I truly hope as many others here, that it will be put on DVD. Some like to tie the alleged losses to James Garner, these seem to be Steve McQueen fans. Not only did I enjoy ALL the acting and the story line, but I thought Garner and Montand did a damn good job. I guess I must confess to not being a Steve McQueen fan. To me he was an overblown show-off and a middling motorcycle rider. I've always felt "The Great Escape was carried by the pro's like Garner, Attenborough, Donald Pleasance, James Coburn, and, yes even Charles Bronson, et al, and had to survive the limelight posing of McQueen who insisted on having scenes rewritten to suit his ridiculous saunter and display of histrionics. McQueen is much overrated, Garner underrated. This movie cannot be overrated, it is GOOD!
Good Will Hunting (1997)
Excellent AND Entirely Possible
Despite the odd comments by one fellow here who claims to be a mathematician; This was not only an excellent movie but an entirely believable one. Not just believable but IMPORTANTLY so.
Contrary to our mad rush to find the minimal acceptable and attempt to improve the self image of the mediocre, Talent DOES exist. It could be, should be, thought of as the key attribute of man.
And truly talented people CAN teach themselves anything and everything - I learned early in life to use the word genius with caution, when a frustrated (and slightly jealous) teacher said to me as a precocious pre-teen "It is not enough to be a genius (Very High IQ) you have to be a genius AT something" - and that is true, so I will not describe Will as a genius but very talented. One salient point of the movie was Will's trave(ai)l from talent - IQ genius - to being a genius AT something. You know as he's driving off in the wonderful gift from Affleck (who I did think was very impressive, maybe a touch more than Matt) THAT was to become the quest, the search for his proper role / accomplishment / (and yes, contribution). Even though we are encouraged to think it is Mini Driver he seeks, it is himself and that ultimate of all, creative accomplishment (as mathematics can be as creative as sculpture and music).
This understanding and acknowledgement of original talent is also discouraged as we have turned `Education' into a self serving, institutionalized, industry that sells knowledge rather than disseminating it.
One of the best lines in the movie is when Will tells an imitation scholar student that he will eventually discover, if his parents haven't already, that they are spending thousands (hundreds of thousands) to teach him things that can be bought by a talented person with three dollars in overdue book fines from the library.
Perhaps that was what made it such a great movie for me, I've been there, all of it, South Boston and the hallowed halls on Mass Avenue.
I started sitting in college class rooms - auditing - while still a young teen. Had to play hooky from ridiculous `High' School to do it. In fact, I can even appreciate Will's `attitude' as today's society evermore dedicates itself to conformity and forcing same regardless of talent.
Made a pain-in-the-a!! of myself by correcting the professors and knowing the answers before anyone else. Never paid a dime in tuition (even ignoring a bill for campus parking in Cambridge) and got tested out as a Masters in Engineering (by a short lived program from the ASME that was undoubtedly squelched by academia because they weren't getting their piece of flesh).
I DO know whereof I speak, and the `mathematician' is just another one of those jealous of talent.
THIS IS A VERY GOOD, if not downright great, MOVIE!
The Fountainhead (1949)
Inevitably, an Intelligence Test!-)
Years ago, when building an unusual and fine residence and office designed by a talented New Jersey Architect struggling against `mob' mentality and pressure, a passerby asked derisively "What's that!?"
My response was "It is an I.Q. Test and you just failed."
The same is obviously the case within the comments here.
For those of you who had to go to school to read, write, and do anything else that serves to disguise your weak minds, I say "BS" to you. School was, and is even more today hugely a waste of time and entirely dedicated to the weak minded so that the talented have to spend 16 years where 5 would do just fine (we would then have time to really delve into difficult material and skills).
Some of us DID read, write, perform complex mathematics well before kindergarten. Yes Engineering school has much to offer, but even there you are forced to wallow through irrelevancies and some professors who don't know what they're talking about.
One of my favorite lines, and pertinent here, is from another fine movie "Good Will Hunting" it goes to the effect "so when you're all finished spending $100,000 of your parents money you'll find you have an education you could have gotten for $3 worth of late fees from the local library, if you had a brain!"
It is, of course, no surprise, the collectivists are the ones failing to grasp the picture (pun intended). Just as they are failing to grasp the picture of their failing, flailing, dismal society (why do you think I live on a boat?)
YES Ayn did not write the smoothest of scripts. That is precisely why the performances must be admired (as at least one other, of the intelligent reviewers, commented). Cooper was superb, Pat Neal reminds us of what a tragic loss her stroke inflicted on us all. And the actor playing Ellsworth Toohey epitomized the kind of sick intellects on display here.
Despite the stiff lines THIS WAS ONE HELL OF A MOVIE!
Oh Yes, and Honest Arrogance is preferred to Hypocritical Humility!-)