RACIALISTS IN THE MATRIX I prefer to use the f-word sparingly, but this deserves a "What the fuck?" What the fuck is Princeton University racialist (a.k.a. "African-American Studies") professor (and former Harvard University racialist professor)
Cornel West doing in both
Matrix sequels:
Matrix Reloaded and
Matrix Revolutions? He plays "Counselor West", a Zion elder. Oh dear, oh dear, what sort of hidden political subtext are the Wachowski Brothers trying to hoist on us... or am I to believe that they put West in there because of his acting abilities?
Is he acting now because his career as a rapper has stalled? All I can say is that that will have to be one mighty fine car chase to cancel out West's effect on the coolness of the film, because, right now, the jumbo jet of my expectations of how cool the film will be has 3 engines on fire, the passengers bent over with their heads in pillows on their laps, and the stewardesses shouting "Brace, Brace, Brace!" More Cornel West fun:
here,
here, and
here.
FIFTH COLUMN UPDATE Hmm... the
(Global) Indymedia.org "OPEN" Newswire's been remarkably silent about Ariel Sharon's huge election victory in Israel. All I can find posted today was an obviously reposted bit excerpting a book
Body of Secrets, how America`s NSA and Britain`s GCHQ eavesdrop on the world by James Bamford, which recycles the "same old same old" about Sharon's supposed "war crimes" and how the September 2000 intifada is all Sharon's fault (rather than Arafat using Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount as an excuse to declare all-out war against Israeli citizens) and he also makes wild allegations about supposed massacres of scores of Egyptian Prisoners of War during the Six Days War.
As the Liberty sat within eyeshot of El Arish, eavesdropping on surrounding communications, Israeli soldiers turned the town into a slaughterhouse, systematically butchering their prisoners. In the shadow of the El Arish mosque, they lined up about sixty unarmed Egyptian prisoners, hands tied behind their backs, and then opened fire with machine guns until the pale desert sand turned red. Then they forced other prisoners to bury the victims in mass graves. "I saw a line of prisoners, civilians and military," said Abdelsalam Moussa, one of those who dug the graves, "and they opened fire at them all at once. When they were dead, they told us to bury them." Nearby, another group of Israelis gunned down thirty more prisoners and then ordered some
Bedouins to cover them with sand.
In still another incident at El Arish, the Israeli journalist Gabi Bron saw about 150 Egyptian POWs sitting on the ground, crowded together with their hands held at the backs of their necks. "The Egyptian prisoners of war were ordered to dig pits and then army police shot them to death," Bron said. "I witnessed the executions with my own eyes on the morning of June eight, in the airport area of El Arish."
Funny thing is,
Michael Oren phoned the reporter in question, and it never happened.
Consider, first, the statement of Gabi Bron, who today covers the Knesset for Yediot Aharonot, Israel's largest daily. In the book, Bamford says Bron witnessed a massacre of 150 Egyptian prisoners at El Arish, citing a press clipping in which Bron is quoted as follows: "The Egyptian prisoners of war were ordered to dig pits and then army police shot them to death." But the Bron statement refers not to a mass killing of Egyptians but to an isolated incident: the execution of five Palestinian guerrillas who had posed as Egyptian soldiers after killing Israelis. Bamford would have learned this if, instead of relying on a clip, he had actually spoken to Bron, who is easily reachable. "The one hundred and fifty POWs were not shot, and there were no mass murders," Bron told me when I called. "In fact, we helped prisoners, gave them water, and in most cases just sent them in the direction of the [Suez] Canal."
As further corroborating evidence, Bamford cites a statement by Aryeh Yitzhaki, a former historian of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). In the statement--which Bamford also clipped from the press--Yitzhaki talks of compiling a report, which the army later suppressed, on mass killings. "Defense Minister Moshe Dayan and Chief of Staff [Yitzhak] Rabin and the generals knew about these things," Yitzhaki is quoted as saying. "No one bothered to denounce them." But, once again, the source himself contradicts Bamford's interpretation. "In no case did Israel initiate massacres," Yitzhaki wrote me. "On the contrary, it did everything it could to prevent them." Yitzhaki admits that hundreds of Palestinian commandos were killed around El Arish. But that was in combat, he says, after they ambushed the IDF supply columns. Moreover, that battle took place on the night of June 9, more than a day after the attack on the Liberty.
Here's some
further "Fisking" of Bamford, for those interested.
Back to Indymedia.org... c'mon fellas, you couldn't even manage a "Sharon won... because of the JEWS"? You disappoint me.
Also on Indymedia.org,
coverage of the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil... just tack on an "ism" to the "Social" because that's what it is, to put it mildly. Or tack on an "ism" to the "Social" and then change the "Social" to "Commun", and you wouldn't be too far off the mark. It's the left's big answer to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland (which also skews too far left for my tastes, but we know that's not why they oppose it). It's an annual meeting of 150 000 or so pampered NGO-types and Ivory Tower academics, yet I'd argue that this meeting is a good thing, at least for the people in Porto Alegre, because all those northern activists spending their money there injects millions to the Porto Alegre economy, "lifting the boats" of anyone and everyone that provides useful goods and services to the visitors, so, in a way, their visit promotes "Capitalism" (which I always put in quotes, since it's a Marxist term, but Free Market-ism isn't really a word) in spite of themselves.
And, oh dear, I love Danny Glover as an actor,
The Royal Tenenbaums being my favourite film in many years and I also like the
Lethal Weapon films, but when it comes to politics, I think the guy's about as enlightened as
Barbra Streisand is.
Here he is at the WSF forum.
Before hundreds of cheering activists, actor Danny Glover called for the elimination of the International Money Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization, blaming them for many Third World ills.
"We have to fight and abolish those financial institutions which place us at the place where we are now, in this very fragile situation," Glover said.
And you'd replace the main organs for providing foreign aid with......? Probably global taxation, I'd wager.
(You all may remember, Glover was also one of the keynote speakers at the
World Conference Against Racism fiasco in Durban in September 2001 that just turned into one big opportunity to bash Israel and America just days before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.)
CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND &
SHANGHAI KNIGHTS (SPOILERS- last and only warning)
Today (Saturday) I saw two movies at the fabulous Famous Players Colis�e in fabulous suburban Kirkland.
First up,
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, written by Charlie Kaufman, of
Adaptation fame and directed by George Clooney, has finally opened here in Montreal, where it was shot. It's the movie based on Chuck Barris's (played by Sam Rockwell) allegedly true biography wherein the creator/producer of
The Dating Game,
The Newlywed Game and
The Gong Show (which he also hosted) and first-run syndication pioneer led a double-life as a CIA operative, hired by CIA agent Jim Byrd (George Clooney) who was impressed by Barris's barfighting skils. After making his first kill in Mexico,
The Dating Game is picked up by ABC, and Byrd sells Barris on the idea of sending the lucky
Dating Game couples to European cities like Helsinki and Berlin with Barris along in tow as a "chaperone" as a cover for his covert activities. Even when
The Newlywed Game proves to be a big hit for ABC, Barris continues with his double life because he enjoys it, though it becomes increasingly difficult for him to keep his two lives separate during
The Gong Show years, or so he says. If you want to see this for the celebrity cameos, Julia Roberts has a sizable role as Patricia, Barris's contact in Europe and possible "mole", but Brad Pitt and Matt Damon are on the screen literally for only a couple of seconds as unlucky
Newlywed Game bachelors. Drew Barrymore is sweet and believable as Barris's girlfriend, but I didn't think she was given enough to do until the end of the film. There were also a handful of "talking head" segments with clips from "interviews" with real people like Dick Clark, though everyone besides Dick Clark sounded like they were acting. One part I didn't like was the bit when the guy from the F.C.C. makes ridiculous threats of punishment to the raunchy
Dating Game contestants; I'm no fan of the F.C.C. (and the Canadian C.R.T.C.), but it seemed like they were making him way too much of a straw man for comedic effect. I was also annoyed at some of the mocking of legitimate concerns about Communists, as though Communism never was a serious threat. I'm also personally getting very sick of overused colour saturation and desaturation (and faked overexposure; I especially hate that) effects in film (I didn't enjoy
Traffic because I hated the way it looked)... when they screw with the colours and limit the on-screen palette, it reminds me, of all things, old SEGA CD games like
Night Trap. Call me "old fashioned", but I prefer it when directors, set and costume designers and cinematographers work together to get as much of the colour palette they want on the physical film when they shoot it rather than add it later using programs like Combustion or Photoshop filters, which should really be used for just tweaking, or not used at all when not necessary. Montreal looked good as the various North American and European cities it pretended to be... since they used mostly tight shots in outdoor scenes, while I vaguely recognized at least the Old Montreal locations (where there's only so many places where they can shoot; it's a tiny area between downtown and the Saint Lawrence river), I wasn't distracted by anything too obvious like Canada Post mailboxes or highway signs indicating the way to Dorval and Mirabel airports (both much too easily visible in the Stallone movie
Driven). Overall, I thought it was a fun little romp, but it wasn't as good a romp as
Adaptation, also scripted by Kaufman (no duh, if you've seen the film). I liked it slightly better than
Auto-Focus, but I'm docking half-a-star for the colour effects. ***1/2/*****
George Clooney was a gentleman when he was in town shooting the films, from the public auditions at Plaza Alexis-Nihon, which he did himself rather than using assistants to audition people for him, to his writing personal "thank you" notes to anyone with a speaking part whose scenes ended up on the cutting room floor. (Too bad my "he was a gentleman" comments are somewhat tempered by his
comments on Charlton Heston.)
In between movies, I didn't have enough time to get over to Saint Charles boulevard (about a mile to the east) to have KFC or Pizza Hut, so I tried a Chicken Whopper at the in-cinema Burger King. But there was nowhere to sit! All the tables were taken, except for the tables in what is some sort of glass-walled kids' room, I guess for parents that couldn't get sitters but don't want to take their kids into R-rated films, though the room was empty and the TV was off. So, after making sure I had no other alternatives, I threw caution into the wind and entered the unlocked kids' room an sat at a table and ate. I was wondering if I'd get kicked out after a minute, but, fortunately, other people decided I had the right idea and came into the room to eat sitting down.
Secondly, I saw the "sneak preview" of
Shanghai Knights, with Owen Wilson and Jackie Chan reprising their
Shanghai Noon roles as Roy O'Bannon and Chon Wang (pronounced like "John Wayne"). This time, the diamond seal thingie of the emperor of China, guarded by Chon Wang's father, has been stolen by the evil team of Wu Yip (Donnie Yen) and Rathbone (Aidan Gillen), and they head to London to assassinate Queen Victoria (Gemma Jones) and the rest of the Royal Family so that Rathbone, a member of the House of Lords and 10th in line of succession to take the throne, can become King. Wu Yip will take them out with a Gatling Gun during the Queen's Jubilee (in 1887, though we briefly see the Statue of Liberty still being assembled and that opened in 1886) while the rest of London is distracted with a fireworks ceremony, and together Rathbone and Wu Yip will have all powerful command of the global opium trade. Chon Wang's sister Chon Lin (played by the gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous
Fann Wong) follows the duo to London, and dispatches an unusual missive to Chon Wang in Nevada to come to London, and he picks up Roy, seemingly living the high life at the Ritz (though he's actually just a waiter) in New York, on the way. Well, I don't need to give a blow-by-blow account of what happens in London, but the diamond seal thingie ends up in the hands of a young street urchin who they pursue and eventually have to befriend. They are also assisted by a young Scotland Yard detective who is a fan of the books about Roy (which Roy wrote under a pseudonym, so he could blame the author when Chon Wang discovers the stuff he embellished and made-up) and who uses deductive reasoning... at the end of the film, it is revealed that the urchin and the detective are, in fact, Charlie Chaplin and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle respectively, and, if you don't like that I just revealed that (really, really obvious in the case of "Art"), well, you should have heeded the "Spoiler Warning" next to the headline because I hate redundant "Spoiler Warnings" so I only warn once. I don't know... it's just a little convenient that they should befriend both Doyle and Chaplin and that Chon Lin should have a chance encounter with "Jack the Ripper" (whom she dispatches with quickly, although the film is set in 1887, a year
before he started his crime spree, though the papers are already reporting on it). Plus, there's an escape involving an automobile (which looks to have been made at least a decade later) that ends up at Stonehenge... unlikely, since it's in Wiltshire, a little over 100 kilometers (60 miles) west of London. The climax in the gears of the clock tower in the houses of Parliament (not "Big Ben"... "Big Ben" is a bell within the clock tower) reminds me of both
The Great Mouse Detective and, a little bit, of
Castle of Cagliostro (the most famous
Lupin III film, directed by Hayao Miyazaki), though I'm sure the same motif has been used hundreds of times elsewhere. I did like the look of Victorian London, largely recreated around Prague in the Czech Republic, with some location photography of Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament, plus some (obvious and not-so-obvious) computer generated aerial views of Westminister, and, I'm guessing, some model work (at least for the clock tower).
The absolute best part of the film was an obvious
Bottle Rocket reference, where we see one of Roy O'Bannon's elaborate plans, complete with diagrams, which was, probably intentionally, meant to recall Dignan's "75 Year Plan" he shows to Anthony on the bus at the beginning of
Bottle Rocket, since, of course, both Roy and Dignan are played by Owen Wilson, who co-wrote
Bottle Rocket with director Wes Anderson. This is really the most Dignan-like character Owen's played since Dignan, for those of you that miss the "old" Owen Wilson, before he got too famous.
If you ignore the anachronisms, it's a very enjoyable diversion.
****/*****
I'll get back to "normal" programming tomorrow.
