Monday, September 28, 2009

Michael Moore's Capitalism, A Love Story

Lil bit a braggin': Your boy got the editors' pick for his review of Mikey's Capitalism, a Love Story.

It's not a review per se, more like me just breakin' it down and then snarkin' away.

Don't know how long the link's live, so it's below for all vanity/posterity.

Yeh, I'm snarky as all hell. This world's goin' ta hell in the diamond lane - if my moanin' is the worst of your problems, you ain't awake.

Click on the pages below to enlarge. Good night now.



Sunday, September 27, 2009

Uncle Itto's Lessons: Don't Be a Friggin' Wimp

For Renee

Too much has been written and said about the legendary Kozure Okami series. Many are attracted to the blood that freely flows, and while the battles are among my favorites bar none (particularly in the hands of Misumi Kenji), what I'm doing here is at first focusing on one of the sequences of repose where the morality of the warrior's way comes to light. This is not uncommon for jidaigeki, and Lone Wolf and Cub is no exception.

This is a sequence from part 2, Baby Cart at the River Styx, one of the best of the series. Itto is jacked up from a battle where he's slaughtered a bunch of the Yagyu shinobi, including some of their top women assassins from Sayaka's bunch of the Akashi set of the Yagyu Clan; he finds a road side hut and flops in it. The Yagyu, stalking Itto, now figure that kidnapping Itto's son, Daigoro, is Itto's Achille's heel. After the kidnapping, Itto tracks them down to a well which Daigoro hangs precariously over, with Ozunu of the Shogun's Kurokuwa group (spies) and Sayaka presiding over the ceremonies.


click on the pics or open them in new tabs to enlarge




The always unflappable Itto declares his solidarity to his fate. This perfectly illustrates Itto's profound commitment to bushido, the way of the warrior.



Now the Yagyu try a bet: doubt. But it is a questioning just as much out of curiosity.




Itto then declares himself in the face of threat to his son by simply stating the warrior's way - even when the jaws of death itself are set to rip one apart.



Itto then tells Daigoro, in so many words, to get ready, cuz Pop's about to give these dudes extra orifices. Daigoro, lil' strategic warrior that he is, kicks off his sandal so that it lands in the water, giving dad a sense of how deep it is, and therefore how much time he has.


Misumi then follows with a series of close ups maybe not in league with Leone but that carry the tone...




Homegirl's tells betray her, as she first twitches then scans left, then right.


Misumi ends this series of shots with the final one of the bunch, a tight close up, and the calm before the storm:


What follows then is the patented fury and aggression for which Kozure Okami is legendary. Itto makes his first move by killing the two lackeys, no doubt having plotted out their probable trajectories long ago. Notice the main Yagyu's arm in the foreground holding onto the rope which holds Daigoro's fate:



The Yagyu releases Daigoro, who falls to his death.


Poor lil dude!


The Yagyu homegirl - Miss Thing - herself a stone cold elite killer, is horrified as she watches Daigoro plunging to his death.


Itto, meanwhile, quickly moves to step two; take out the Yagyu point man...


...while pivoting and stepping on the rope, halting its delivery...


... Itto then unleashes a savage overhead strike and drives Yagyu dude to his knees...


Itto, uhm, presses the issue...


...clock's a tickin' for homeboy...


...and in perfect dialectical technique, Itto drives his opponent to the ground, then releases that tension by drawing up and quickly delivering the concluding blow:


Itto uses the famed Doutanuki battle sword, and in combo with his technique, strength, and most of all, superior focus, intent and will, his opponent's sword is cut in two, along with his face. Notice how perfectly the cut bifurcates dude's grill? This is just further proof; don't mess with Mr. Badass.



Itto then does a curious thing; he raps the handle with the butt of his sword hand, turns it 180 degrees in rotation on its lengthwise axis, then - slowly and very deliberately - sheaths his prized possession. It's a beautiful, compact ceremony after a bit of the ultra violence, oh my brothers.


With that, Mr. Badass eyes Miss Thing derisively while retrieving Daigoro:


Miss Thing: "Break me off some, Itto, you badass chubster you..."


Itto to himself, "I wonder if I should break her off some...?"


Heeeeeeeere's Daigoro!




At this point, there's no need to kill Miss Thing. It reminds me of the way Ali destroyed Liston (who was a huge pre-fight favorite at something like 8 to 1) in their first fight, not just physically, but mentally, spiritually, completely. Likewise, Miss Thing's just witnessed something terrible, and even she, a trained killer, has been dominated by the precision and King Kong sized balls of Ogami Itto - just by watching! All she can do is be a frozen witness, hand pathetically poised upon her sword...


...as father and son turn silently and walk away...




Kozure Okami is among the class of cinema I can only call elite. Now, some three years away (in 2012) from the forty year anniversary of the first film, Sword of Vengeance, its legendary stature only grows as the generations come up.

The simple morality of a warrior father and his son in a hostile universe; it's minimalistic to the core, with everything about these movies carrying the weight of presentiment. Kozure Okami rightly deserves its "great action flick" status, but it's about so much more, as I hope this breakdown shows.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Lottery Winner: prince hairy


He's never worked, he never will.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/32856810/ns/today-today_people/

Now 25, Prince Harry inherits a princely sum
He’s too busy with army duties for a party — but he gets a $15 million gift

By Mike Celizic
TODAYShow.com contributor
updated 7:03 a.m. PT, Tues., Sept . 15, 2009

There was to be no birthday party today for Prince Harry as he turned 25, but there was a heck of a gift — a princely inheritance estimated to be worth $15 million.

The legacy is from the estate of his late mother, Princess Diana, who divided her fortune equally between her two sons — Harry and his elder brother, Prince William — before her tragic death in 1997. Lady Di’s will provided that they would be able to have total access to the interest on the money at age 25, and to the principal when they turn 30 — so there’s still something more for Prince Harry to look forward to when he becomes a thirtysomething.

If the prince were just to withdraw the annual interest, according to reports, he could clear $500,000 a year.

Monday, September 07, 2009

Cosa Nostra: A&E's "Hoarders"

George Carlin said it best:

When you're born you get a ticket to the freak show.
When you're born in America you get a front row seat.


I have just seen the most compelling tv in I don't know how long; "A&E's "Hoarders."

Oh, OH sweet decadent bliss that is America gone wild, we have finally found our talking mirror, Achilles heel and ultimate dope all rolled into one big super-sized, deep-fried cinnamon bun and oil barrel sized soda with free refills. On sale.

Between friends and relatives, many, if not most, cannot park in their garages because of all the crap they have shoved in them. The rise of consumerism and the formula of an ever-expanding market based upon buying things - incidentally which constitutes something like 70% of our economy - has met its match; space! There's simply not enough space.

At least 8 or so years ago, I remarked to my bud Mitch that it might be worth looking into investing in Public Storage. My thinking was that since Americans are steeped in buying, and I noticed friends and relatives hoarding plus the rise of Public Storage... But I never dreamed it would come to literally about 4 or 5 storage companies including 2 Public Storage locations within a 2 mile radius of me.

I know first hand about hoarders because my ma is one. She comes from that post depression generation marked by poverty and desire, powerful markers for kids coming up in a new empire. So I kinda understand. My Auntie/Ma's older sister moved a few years back, and my cousin was telling me about how she pitched in to help. They had to rent one of those huge industrial dumpsters.

But there's a qualitative difference, based in psychological imperatives born of historical forces - between that generation's post-depression "need for hoarding" and the post-modern DNA of conspicuous consumption.

It really is interesting to consider this in light of Hegelian dialectics, because the seeds of conspicuous consumerism's destruction are already bearing fruit and ripening.

Carlin had that classic routine about "stuff," riffing that we needed to have a place to put all of our stuff. Not that I want to live like St. Francis or Gandhi, who I heard somewhere that upon his death, all he possessed were his glasses, sandals/clothes and his spinning wheel. But Great Cesar's ghost, Warhol evidently had an entire warehouse for all of his stuff. I'm sure that made his heirs pretty happy.

The phenomenon of American consumption and hoarding is really tied to access to credit, the rise of credit as the ultimate drug. The REAL church, with global consumption as religion. About two years ago, I cited what I thought were the roots of our present debacle, and not much has changed my mind. (If you aren't interested in a critique of Naomi Klein, then skip the first part and head to the second part after the break markers halfway through.)

This system of American capitalism gone wild is very clever to boot. I can take or leave Tom Friedman, but he's right about how naming something = ownership. Take Bush 1 and his infamous demonizing of "the dreaded 'L word'" - to date, Democrats and even progressives avoid using "liberal" for fear of... for fear of what...? In this way, it's interesting to consider the term (and even more, WHO named it) "CREDIT card" when in reality it's a "DEBT card" ....

And now, here comes the concluding volley; credit card debt is a trillion dollars, and at least Meredith Whitney agrees with me in saying that it's just one more bubble about to burst. With people out of work and bills to pay, it's not hard to see how things can get much worse. Japan and England are right there behind us in the DEBT card madness.

Back to the show; On the site you can watch full eps. I implore you, give Hoarders a try, it is some SICK ass shit. Some of it is so unbelievably stomach churning... but it's like the mother of all train wrecks, and you're passing by in the slow lane.

This all makes me wonder; do other countries have this problem?