Reviews by neotheognis

I watched “It’s A Wonderful Life” which was like a, curious example of how things used to be for some people, and I try to eventually watch three movies by the same director, and the library had this movie too. I feel like “Arsenic and Old Lace” will be like a better movie, right—Cary Grant has a great voice, and it’ll be cool to see him young; and just generally, I trust Frank to be a great party host more than I trust him to bring freedom and truth to the little ones, you know. 

(Frank Capra) And you know, as I was explaining to my girlfriend, Buttercup, American democracy, is ultimately founded upon Athenian democracy. 

(weird hanger-on from early 20th century America) Oh yeah, Frank? What was so great about Athenian democracy? 

(Frank) Well, in Athenian democracy, as long as you weren’t a slave, or a foreigner, or a woman, you had it pretty good. Everyone who could fight in the battle to protect their fellow tribesmen and honor the state had a say in the government. 

(old-school micro-aggression smart Alec) Oh yeah, well I wouldn’t trust a little book-worm like you, Frank, to hold a spear next to me in the battle. (weird laugh) 

(Frank) Well, excuse me: I gave a very emotional speech to my fellow tribesmen before the battle, I’ll have you know. I looked the part, I’ll have you know! (tries to get at him to punch him in the face; a crowd of people restrain him) 

(Buttercup) (holds him) Now Frank, I sure think you look the part: now, if there’s anything I can do to support your life; I’d be happy to do it. I could do some drudgery for you: or better yet, I could ask my father to give you some of his money! 

(Frank) That’s real swell, Buttercup. (turns) See, jerk! Somebody thinks I look the part! 

Endless fun. You can’t look away. 

But yeah, something about how it will be…. I mean, I don’t want to label it…. 

But yeah, it’s interesting how this is “how you were supposed to think”, right: and how a lot of guys ~did~ think: the good-student types, kinda privileged-and-naive-from-long-ago, right…. Of course, it wasn’t what ~everybody~ liked. Some guys wanted to see somebody get a bloody nose in a fist-fight, or for the Cavalry to burn an Indian village (full of savages!) to the ground, right; Frank kinda had a different style; governor’s mansion mythology, not frontier fighter mythology, right…. I think one of the ironies of American history/society is that if you were to tell the average frontier fighter that you thought that Frank Capra was a historical curiosity, they’d resent it immensely; and yet their great complaint against the intellectual classes is that, even when they’re not Marxists or from diverse backgrounds, they look and sound pretty much like Frank Capra, which is almost as bad. 

(shrugs) People don’t want to make it make sense, right. 

…. (reads the back of the DVD) So it really is another “Wonderful Life” movie, or rather, a prequel in the Naive American series, right. Smith probably makes an appeal directly the President, right, to “protect and preserve the nation’s One True Resource, our only defense against the rising tide of fascism and communism—the Naivety of the American Boy!” 

And because of Smith, nothing bad ever happened in America to anybody ever again, because the males that he mentored went on to lead the lead the nation into a golden age where all Americans loved each other, and treated each other with respect, always, and without reservation or exception, fully 4% of the time, which is why America is free from the Outer Darkness of “outer space”, and there’s an atmosphere and everything! All because of Smith! [laughing until crying emoji] 

Might be amusing. We’ll see. 

…. Obviously, there has to be an elderly codependent named Happy that it’s difficult to respect, right…. 

Wow, this is boring…. lol…. 

It’s funny, how it’s like: it’s hard to describe it, like the Unlikable Cynics, that wear like their grey-hearted devil mask and sneer at people—it’s like, career politicians do have kinda a superficial sell, right; people aren’t cartoon villains, right—and then, like, I’m sorry, but kids don’t talk like that to their father in 1939, if he’s a weak codependent, he’s that much more tyrannical with the kids he beats, right…. But yeah, it’s like, the Cartoon Cynics vs, the Children’s Choice, right…. “It’s A Wonderful Life” is hokey: this isn’t hokey—this is propaganda, right…. It’s cute propaganda, of course, but…. And holy shit, is it boring, oh my god…. 

~ The message is like, “I’m an American. That makes me a good man. Americans, an American, he’s a good man. It makes my heart hurt, how good I am.” It’s like, wow…. Who do we have to exclude and bomb to safeguard our way of life, right…. God, I’m just so glad we’re so goddamn Anglo, right: we’re the Good People, you know…. It’s like, if we’re so modest, and so boring, and so good: how can we not conquer the world, torch the odd country now and then, right? It would be good for those others—bah, THEM! 

~ In the Immortal Words of Krautface Burgdorf: A Kayerist! An Opportunist!; —Or, In English: “Some naive fucker!—Cynical!” [laughing until crying emoji] 

~~ It’s like, God, I knew it was going to be bad, but it’s so much worse than I forecasted, you know…. It’s not entertaining like I expected…. This is what Sidney Poitiers meant when he said—I forget the exact words he used, but it was like: ‘what we all believed in God/the USA/Frank Capra/naivety’, you know…. It was like, mass delusion, you know, especially once you dig down deeper than his One Best Movie, which isn’t really so bad, given the circumstances, right…. But he made more than one movie; the folk consciousness has worse days even than we knew…. 

Wow. Just, wow. 

…. I forgot how relaxing propaganda can be, right…. Puts you right to sleep; makes you feel good…. A little irritating, after a while…. 

But yeah: the looney professor and his practical wife—they uphold the society; they’re the reason why bad things don’t happen, right…. 

lol, PR tactics in 1930s America: punch reporters you don’t like in the face. 

I’m not sure I know anymore that some law was passed against punching people in the face in the Capitol, sometime in between the invention of television and the Voting Rights Act or the entrance of independently-elected [ie non-wife] female Congress reps, right…. But yeah…. I mean, today, they’d just post another story or two, right, at the very least…. But yeah: talk about the classic male club sort of…. I mean, it’s like they were the frat boys hazing the new member, right…. It’s almost as hard to like them, as it is to like this guy who…. I mean, he’d make such a good soldier, you know: maybe not of a democracy, right: but if you needed to torch a few villages, right, (red man villages?), you’d just have to plug him into some propaganda, and the naive fucker would be blood-thirstily charging into battle before the artillery support was in place, right…. 

But, it’s entertaining. It’s the farthest thing from surprising. Classics are supposed to be of a high-quality: but sometimes the high-quality is merely sociological, right—it’s like a thing everyone knows even if they’ve never taken it in directly, but only indirectly ten thousand times when they didn’t even know what the name of the game was, right…. 

…. And yeah: it’s amazing the extent to which it portrays the government as being like a boys’ club, basically: like your reputation with the other boys—for being like a brave pirate, I guess, or some fucking thing—counts for more than legality, you know. Like, legally now it’s time to make Smith the new senator. But wait! One of the boys says that the newspapers make him look like a putz. Guys, I say we don’t let any putz into our gang—rules or no rules! ~Aw, but only a man can say a man is a man! You’re no man, Sparky; I’m a man! I say his testicles are healthy! Let’s make him a man—a senator! 

~You know: it’s like, it was bad, sure—but it’s like they inadvertently made it worse than it even really was probably: because they made it the way it “should” be, right. Like, I can’t imagine that even in 1939 Washington was as imaginary a place as that, right; like they made it like Washington was like somebody’s private yacht club that you got into because of your grandfather was the whitest man in the county or whatever, right. Like, in the real world, there has to be a certain amount of…. You know: business, reality. You choose the rulers out of the schmucks you don’t hobble and enslave, but then, once they actually set up shop, they actually have to, you know, rule, and accomplish things. They have to interact with an actually-existing material—and even social!—world, right. They can’t just get up there and gawk at how their skin is literally the same color as Lincoln-Zeus, you know…. 

It’s like in the Bible, where it’s like, “And then we Israelites moved into the land: and we heroically murdered the entire race of sinners: man, woman, child, cow, horse, goat, and dog!” (They killed, Spot, even? They killed the family dog? [dog emoji]). And then the archaeologists or whoever are like: “They didn’t really kill everyone. They killed some people, but I mean: come on. In the real world, not everybody dies. Grow up.” It’s like, they literally made themselves look worse according to their propaganda than they were in reality, because they were literally so stupid: they didn’t know what lies to tell, right. 

…. Woodcraft is an interesting idea—I assume that that’s what’s meant by a “boy’s camp”, you know—but what exactly is the government providing, if not money, you know? His idea is very like, “I’ll take the children to church, but I’ll let them do what they like all day. I’ll help out your parents, and neither of us will have to do anything we don’t like. The government will do something to help out, but it won’t spend any money”—you know. What’s he going to do, give a speech? “Woodcraft is a great idea: but we have to corrupt it with militarism. We have to remind people that the reason why trees exist, is because girls are weak and can’t fight.”…. 

I mean, I realize it was 1939 and war was on the horizon, but there are better ways to make people feel good, than blind devotion to conformity, you know…. (reads Wikipedia) Wow, in 1939 the G-men thought that this was like, subversive punk rock disloyalty, you know…. Well, at least we know America was NEVER batshit, you know: we KNOW, as historical FACT, that NO American was Ever Ever Bad, right…. And also, we used to think that conformity propaganda was loud anarchism, you know…. (shakes head) Like, how do you get your head around those lies, you know…. It’s like, if there were a romance and there’s like an argument so that the story goes on for more than five minutes and the fucking Baden-Powell Gang walks out, because Mommies And Daddies Don’t Fight; They Love Each Other, you know…. And what is this movie, if not a sort of love story between the people and the state, right? 

…. But yeah, crazy to think about, right?: 

(the mother) Oh! Propaganda! Romance! Lovely. (clasps hands) 

(the father) One moment of disloyalty cancels out a lifetime of obedience and merits summary execution. I’m watching this boy, now. (smoking pipe). 

~the American spectrum of popular opinion, 1939. 

Wild. 

…. But yeah. 

“I’m Smith.” 

“I’m Jones.” 

“Golly: we’re both, Americans!” [rainbow emoji] 

Yeah, it’s funny: the whole movie is propaganda—but it made conservatives uneasy because they like, doubted the possibility/usefulness for the system of propaganda, right. “ANY story, with ANY uncertainty or doubt for ANY length of time, for ANY viewer, no matter how stupid…. NOTHING like that is permissible. Depictions of reality are to be avoided if at all possible: and NOT to be encouraged…. Go to church…. Keep the faith…. Gossip with your mother; play baseball…. But leave this propaganda business ~alone!!!” 

But yeah: it’s interesting from the historical-cultural point of view, right. It’s what people would have had to face, if they ever decided to try to become a good person or whatever—if the very idea, ever, ever, REALLY occurred to them, right…. 

…. I remember once I saw a parody of one of those things, like if you’re Richard Jones you’re RJ so your blues name is like, Rolling Jelly, or whatever, but he did it as, like, enter in your credit card number etc. and then you win the game, and it was really obvious and fake-scam so that you start reading spy novels and protecting yourself, right—it was parodying those gamey things—but someone actually posted their financial stuff, and someone was like, replying to them, like—You lose; someone can go use your credit card now~ and the idiot was like, debating with them, right, back and forth, right: I followed the rules, I won the game; I should get a prize. Right? 

-‘But something happened on our way to that place: they threw an American flag in our face!’ ~A lot of times Billy Joel is unbearable; but sometimes he’s right, you know. People are just so weird about America, and the flag, and…. I mean, I live here; it can work out, and things in other colonial paleface countries aren’t necessarily better, and a lot of the rest of the world got torched, right…. But people are like: No! In ~America~, people would never disagree or fight, people would ~love~; they would love…. I don’t know why they lie about us: we love…. We love…. ~It’s like, have you disagreed with anyone this week? ~Yeah, three times. I can tell you about each one. First— ~No. That’s not necessary. But: have you left the country over the past week? ~No, of course not. I only travel once a year out of the country, if that. I can’t understand the relevance of that to what we’re talking about, though. 

…. It’s funny how we’re supposed to like the state but not the government, you know. The ~Ideology~ of the state/the ~Romance~ of the state…. (feel the love emoji)  …. But the business of governing—eh. (embarrassed hands emoji) 

And how there’s like the Good Girl and the Bad Girl: and how you can become the Bad Girl, before you’ve done, anything at all, right…. Especially with that, Frank Capra movies are, disturbingly enlightening forays into the American collective unconsciousness, you know…. 

And yeah: in the real world, a diabolical political operator would have been able to handle his goofy protege pretty well, you know. Just suggest a different site for the camp, right. Lie, bribe, misdirect. They would have figured out a way to allow those white boys of different religions and classes to have their quasi-paramilitary camp without the big party donors not getting their special deal, right. 

But yeah: America has the cutest propaganda, right. At least it used to be cute, you know: the Old America propaganda is cute, certainly. We had to sacrifice a virgin of questionable morality in a folk Christian blood ritual, of course…. But it is certainly romantic after a fashion; a romantic political story, you know—like, why, it’s almost like “The Hunger Games”, right…. lol. 

…. “You’re halfway decent; you don’t belong here. So go home.” 

Crowley has one of his characters say in a novel—I don’t quite remember the exact words, but that sort of thing isn’t as important as people assume, ‘The law is just a ridiculous game people play to avoid doing things the sensible way’—and it’s funny how close Timeless American Propaganda comes to agreeing, right. 

It’s entertaining. It’s cute. 

…. It’s a very simplified, naive take on political corruption—lots of people influence Senators; many factions~ that’s why it’s hard to tease apart corruption from the sort of normal self-interest that is in the voters’ interest, you know—but it’s very suddenly much less deluded than you’d suppose propaganda would be. I guess that’s because it’s American propaganda, you know: and Americans distrust the government. Therefore, the propagandist reasons—since we all need to get on the same page—Americans, Should Not, trust the government, right. 

It’s a funny country. Since we burned away the Native societies instead of integrating with them, (even more so than in the Latin American countries), and since we cut ties with Europe very early, (earlier than Canada), and since, whatever we did, and as colonial as we wanted to be, we were in fact separated from European society by thousands of miles, by a huge ocean, and were in fact on a different territory, and needed to build up a new society, from the ground up, right—we were after all burning away the Native society in place, and not using it, right—then…. I don’t know, we didn’t have the same unbroken tradition since times immemorial, and trust in the state, characteristic of much of Europe, including England, you know. Something about  violent burning away and the consequent break from the past, the breaking of tradition, puts some of the power with the little men at the bottom, men who were farther away from the centers of colonial power: more power went to the rough men at the bottom doing the breaking and burning of building an empire, you know. (An empire that rules over what was once 500 distinct nations, right.) So yeah…. Americans distrust the government. The monied elite and the educated men, the upper-class men at the center is there, like in any society, but more people at the bottom feel ambivalent about it; more people in our country want to be “loyal” to America somehow, but feel that our loyalty isn’t due to…. “corrupt Senators”, or whatever. (chuckles) We think our loyalty is due to “boy Rangers”, or whatever the hell they called him. 

The USA certainly has its own culture, you know. I wouldn’t call it more distinct from other countries’ cultures than many other countries’ cultures are distinct from their own neighbors, right…. (Although we have had a unique amount of power since 1945, I guess), but yeah…. The different flavor of American culture doesn’t really come from a unique school of philosophers or professional thinkers, you know: just a slightly unusual vision of what propaganda should be, and what the relationship between loyalty and the obeying the state, should be, you know. Usually loyalty and obeying the state are pretty much the same thing, right. “The American” (if there is such a person), tends to have a more ambivalent opinion about it. In ways, we are unique, you know—funny; weird, even. We are what we are, certainly…. 

…. This term originated in a LibraryThing review, although I don’t suppose I’ll define it, you know—bit you could figure it out, I’m sure: but re: the “conservative id”, right; the conservative id is pretty strong everywhere, far more than we admit, but it’s especially strong in America…. America is kinda a certain style of atavism, in that sense—emotionally, if not by doctrine or by thought, right…. But yeah: the conservative superego is much more English, in the American context…. I guess jazz music, today if maybe not in 1939, is also kinda the conservative superego, but now I’m making it too complicated, lol…. 

…. But yeah: it’s definitely propaganda, because it’s dressing up the conservative id, and making it, honest, and rational, you know, (wtf?), and OMG, handsome—like, he’s a New York City model, is what he looks like, but he spends all his time out in the woods, probably in Missouri, or somewhere, right…. 

It’s interesting. We have very interesting propaganda, in this country. It doesn’t make any more sense than anybody else’s: but we put a lot of thought into it, lol. 

…. But yeah: it is simplistic/naïve, right. “I’ve run that Senator’s life for twenty years!” Corruption isn’t like marriage, lol…. You can find a variety of stimulating…. Business partners. (LOL.) 

…. And yeah: it’s curious, right; Man desires to have his girl be his strong, armed ally in the day of battle, right: at the most critical moment…. Although he is no way moved to oppose the laws & customs that make this eventuality even a strong possibility, right. Who is Man, right? What does he want? What does Man want? Does he want to be happy? (Hmm….) 

…. But yeah: I don’t know; certainly one of the decent features of our empire is that you don’t have to literally believe in American propaganda to be an American citizen…. Although on a practical, informal level, it Can be surprising the things you’re expected to believe, to “fit in”, yesterday, and also today. 

And yeah, legally: the government is not, romantic, you know. I don’t know what “romantic” means; I don’t know whether that would be good or not, if it were so—it might depend on what it meant, lol…. But yeah, the government is not romantic. It’s not romantic in 2024, and it wasn’t romantic in 1939, either. 

…. It’s like a romance between two straight men, lol. 

…. He was a quiet American. Very quiet, and, realistic. 

…. It’s a romance between two straight men: Senator Smith, and Senator Jefferson Davis, lol…. 

~It’s the Lost Cause, Virginia—guilt!…. lol…. 

Update: Events in my personal life have made me question whether perhaps my original title for this review, “When Eights Don’t Hate” was a little naive about the Classic American Enneagram Eight, you know—like, it’s natural, maybe, to want to let the ‘man of the people’ have his day in the sun, but it can lead to naivety and un-realism/cheerleading for kinda un-naive, un-idealist people who don’t exactly lead in with their heart, you know. Some things more closely related to the movie itself—the acquaintance who loves the movies, the scene where Rocky tries to tame the ‘tough girl’ from his neighborhood, right, among other scenes—kinda support that idea. (Re-assessment.) I mean, it’s not the worst movie, or the most unambiguous red flag, by any imagination, right: it’s not like saying, ‘Oh yeah, I saw “Get the Gringo”, it was Excellent’, right. It’s just that, there is a sort of naivety in America about the essential smash-and-grab personality type, given our history: and even though at the very same time we can sometimes often be extremely uptight about people who aren’t proper and classic-rich and uptight, you know. But there’s the mythology of the colonial governor’s mansion and the mythology of the colonial fighter, (the latter being a fighter not only against the British, lol), and they’re just—you know, very naive, and in the case of the fighter, about someone who isn’t even classically naive, right. 

Maybe the obscure 70s Poitier adventure really WAS better, you know. The white guy in that movie—I’m sorry, I don’t know all actors—arguably WAS still the most important character, but, it was more of a collaboration, rather than a cheerleading thing, you know. 

But either way there’s no way to make a perfect movie, or a perfect anything. Actually very few movies do I find to be exceptional, regardless of whether or not they are ‘classics’, you know. (shrugs) But anyway. 

………..

In the Enneagram, the Eight is the lusty, aggressive number. 

So yeah, I liked this, pretty uncontroversially, I guess, as much as the 1975 Sidney Poitier adventure that I liked but has been largely forgotten, right, (The Wilby Conspiracy), and I actually think that you would make yourself smaller by only liking serious, edgy, whatever it is—I mean, I hear Rocky won an award but it does seem pretty popular and simple, and not, you know, serious or edgy or whatever it is; I actually feel like I’ve seen too many, proportionally, of the serious adventures, the adventures into grandness, as opposed to other kinds of movies. The movie apparently does impress people, but not by trying to impress people, and I think that’s a valid style. 

And it is rough, but it has heart…. And he’s not, I don’t know, the perfect man, the ideal man for marrying, even though in a different time, a time that probably hasn’t come yet, it’s easy to imagine him being one sort of ideal man…. If I were Isis, or even Aphrodite, I wouldn’t select him as my first round draft pick, right…. But if he’s not the ideal man, IMO, he certainly is A man, and that’s a valid choice, you know. 

…. It’s funny, these kinds of guys can be jerks, you know: but I know I want to experience this movie, because if you had asked me before, when I was meditating on the “dark/scary” tarot cards in my way meditating through the Mythic Tarot, like if you had said, Suppose you drop a jar of processed corn syrup, basically, because you’re still spinning subconsciously about your co-worker (I work at a grocery store) there, and his, you know: a more accurate thing would have been, “Don’t mind me, Theodore; I’m just leaking from my leaky negativity canister: it leaks in between January and December…. Love you bro! Or I dunno: whatever”—that’s almost the sense of it—and something about being attacked triggers my skittishness, which turns off the basic life strength needed to hold a jar of corn goo, you know…. (I was only supposed to be picking up my check and was waiting for the bookkeeper to come back, so I didn’t have a bag on me.)…. But yeah, I knew even as I was writing about my decision to not flinch at the sometimes hairy, ugly disgusting nature of life that I wasn’t rooted in that yet, although somehow I didn’t think like Life was going to show me up within the hour or whatever…. Although people seem to perceive me as a very calm person, and will occasionally give me unsolicited positive feedback along those lines, sometimes while I’m wondering why my mind is like…. Making monkey noises while trying to tame a wild horse, basically…. Although I suppose I must have a lot of foundational calmness, despite the surface of my mind getting skittish or riled up easily—or maybe I’m just the philosophical equivalent of the pretty girl who never knows when she’s having a good hair day, right. But skittish, yeah—that’s why I gave up my horror movie hobby I once had—it just seemed like…. “The professor must have been discovering science before he got interrupted by the—ah! Jump scare!—“ You know, it didn’t feel like training for anything; jump scares are too intermittent and trivial to be consequential, although they are irritating…. But yeah, Leaky Canister wouldn’t have noticed anything angry about what I said, because I wasn’t angry…. But yeah: I do want to experience this movie. Carlos, son of the Jungfrau and Amadeus Mozart, once (apparently) said something like, “The best way to handle the other person’s negativity is to know your own”—or something like that, right…. 

So yeah: hairy, ugly, disgusting: that’s what you gotta get into sometimes, if you wanna live, right…. “Gawana kite?” Huh? (takes out mouth guard) “You wanna fight? C’mon; I’m Rocky—I’m a contender; (punch punch) (miscellaneous bar brawl fighter slang, lol) 

You gotta get in the ring. 

…. But yeah: even in boxing movies, there’s plot points and build-up, right…. Although, more so than in a horror movie or political drama, there’s a sense of, I don’t know, the brutally quotidian underbelly of the city, right. To you, it’s Thanksgiving. “But to me, it’s Thursday.” 

As for the love interest, certainly whether you write a men-centric or woman-centric story, it’s a patriarchal society, and one of about half a century ago now, right. And part of basically any society is that some stories are men-centric, so what’re gonna do, right. In a story like that…. And I mean, you could even argue that they’re not setting up beauty standards for Everywoman, right: although I think you have to ask if it’s beneficial that the main girl be essentially mousy and inconsequential, right. She’s not a fighter; she’s not a contender. People push her around; she goes along with it…. And that scene with Rocky and the tough girl who wasn’t the love interest, right, that he lays down the Law of Reputation to, you know: there’s no fucking doubt in my mind that that scene is way too fucking long and way too fucking stupid…. If he’s a fighter, he should Want a girl with a little life in her; who tells fighters to obey the rules that church mice set up, right? Or do they do the punching that the church mice are afraid to do? 

But yeah, it’s bordering on kinda an older movie in that sense, but because I wanted to appreciate a snow-white or whatever Creed called the idea, a snow-white fighter, alongside and to the same extent as the obscure Sidney Poitier/South Africa political adventure, I’ll say that this is not just a basic-good four stars movie, but I’ll give it that extra point and call it 9/10 for being the first movie in a successful franchise: because I liked the basic emotive idea and theme of it being about life in the hairy, ugly, disgusting underbelly of the city, day in day out, and how you gotta be a contender, you know. 

…. But yeah: I was with my family, and especially when I was trying to follow my dad’s ineffective driving, I wanted to go back to the 70s so I could pull up besides a couple I didn’t know and say, Take her to the zoo~ you know. I understand the appeal of popular culture. 

I wanted to have spies tell me petty details of my relatives’ lives, so I could say, I hear things. Don’t you think I hear things? ~They’d probs be duly impressed, right. 

(cartoon old lady voice) I hear goosecap’s doing real good now—I think he runs the mafia. 

My family is just like Gen Z—they slay…. Although more in the sense of, “You’re killing me, Smalls.” (face palm emoji) 

…. But yeah, he’s not a bad guy. I don’t know that I admire him, but he’s not a bad guy. Certainly not as an individual. Maybe he is a little bad; we all partake in things that aren’t ours. But people told him education wasn’t for him, and, anyway, he needed to learn things that “our” schools don’t really teach, right. 

But yeah it’s funny: they said “dago” in the 70s and they still half-meant it, right; although America always wants the guy on-the-bottom-but-not-quite-on-the-bottom to feel taken care of, right…. Although, what did they ever ~really~ do for him, right? Did they form in him an admirable character? 

And, yeah: it’s a library DVD I was watching bit by bit, and Mercury is slowly easing into retrograde, right, but: the DVD got bad on me for a minute or two of the movie—and it took longer than a minute or two to figure out where the bad patch ended, probably five or six minutes—right as the classic-rich-guy asked Rocky if he “believed America was the land of opportunity”. I don’t know how you read that, assuming you believe in meaningful coincidence. Like in the real movie of life, does moment not happen, or does it maybe happen, but in the movie God makes about life, does a different music play, or something…. 

I mean, he’s not a “bad man” in himself: and it’s curious to see him represented as a good one, you know. 

…. The depths of the man who thinks he’s no good who’s friends are telling him he can make it and he says that they’re no good and that he doesn’t think that they think that he can make it. 

…. And yeah: it’s funny or whatever, right—Rocky wants to make out~ It’s A Good Idea; Rocky doesn’t want to make out~ It’s Not A Good Idea. Ok. 

That said, I don’t know if I’d say “most”, but many, I suppose, men who are probably old enough to remember this movie (way back at the back end of the ethnic miracle in the 70s, right) are, in the context of this sorta thing, doing a somewhat good job—not punching people in the face, too often, etc. Some of the time, obviously. 

Although I don’t mean “punching” literally exactly—boxing isn’t really my thing to watch, basically because the score/outcome is usually so arbitrary, you know; American football is probably at least as “violent” and to some extent it’s a perfectly amusing sport to watch, you know…. But yeah, boxing lends itself to storytelling, right…. 

…. We all have negative thoughts, but I do wonder if the message of the movie isn’t basically, You can think like a loser, feel like a schmuck—and you can still be the title character!…. All you need to do is learn this little trick by your fellow didn’t-used-to-be-white ethnic American…. Some of the lines are really crazy: you can’t make this crap up, right (crying laughing emoji) …. Although they almost let the girl be like, a real supporting character: it gets very close, right—so close…. And her brother is like the difficult-to-believe stereotype of the guy like that, so that he can take the fall and we like the title character better…. It’s all about the title character…. 

But it’s better than having your car get worked on, lol. “Hey Rocky tell that guy his car is ready!” (Rocky) Uh hello Mr. Nobody; my name is Nobody; I mean—Rocky. Your car is ready for pickup, will you be paying cash or card?…. 

~But yeah: it’s interesting perspective-for-life, you know. Sometimes you meet guys, masculine men, especially but certainly not exclusively older and/or white, and it’s like…. Yeah, that guy’s not doing so bad. Think of how he was educated by society, right? First he was told he wasn’t worth no education, and then he was educated in a bunch of bullshit ideas nobody who respected him ever told him to question, right…. 

The training scene was certainly entertaining. 

…. And the other thing is, it’s not really paced properly, you know. My guess is that the fight should have ended about 80% of the way through a story of this length, and I’m over 80% of the way through, and it’s just, about, to begin, right. Really, it’s going to end, and there’s going to be just enough time for him to raise his hands up into the air and shout some vague, stupid thing, before the credits roll. There is a difference between fighting some kind of sports-fight to win at life and prove you’re a real champ or whatever, and being like an escape artist who literally just punches people sometimes, you know. Very indifferent storytelling; mediocre, really. 

…. But yeah: no matter how American you are, epithet, the Irish-Italians will always be more American just by advertising their supposed countries of origin, right. 

(draws self up) And that’s because this is the United States of America. (beat) (chuckles)  

…. And yeah, it would be funny to make a list of the things Apollo/Apollo’s people promote so that we can have a laugh at their expense, right. (Money/fashion/Canada, etc.) 

But don’t do that. You’ll get a headache. lol. 

…. Life lessons: if you punch people enough, eventually, I don’t know, their whole face, right. It looks different…. 

But yeah, now we know what Rocky has to go through before he can feel the slightest emotion, lol…. 

…. …. “Do you hate anybody, Rocky?” No man, I don’t hate nobody. I don’t hate nobody, nothing like that. I don’t feel…. I don’t feel…. I mean…. Say, boss: what was the question?”

I didn’t enjoy this, although I expected to. I didn’t like “Emma”, it was one of my less-liked Jane books, but I anticipated a modernization making it seem less…. Something. But, it certainly seemed…. Something. I guess if you’re Knightley/Paul Rudd you don’t really like Club Woodhouse, you know. I wonder if I’m as unbearable as his character is. I guess the actress is pretty, although I don’t know her, really. 

I don’t know what it is. (shrugs) 

…. I guess I just didn’t anticipate that being an idiot once-born version of a priestess is intrinsic to Emma’s (Cher’s) character, even with the Anglo-centrism moderated, you know. 

…. “His whole idea of acting like a family is to criticize me.” 

He’s met my father…. 

So yeah, the segment I just watched wasn’t in actuality better, really, than the rest of it—although it is certainly easier to like a clueless girl when she’s all, “What important lesson is our Mother trying to teach me? I feel like this movie is almost over!”—but I liked it rather better. I guess I was more attuned to it. 

…. And, while it’s incidental to the “main plot” or whatever, the freeway scene is good because, although it reinforces gender stereotypes, it shows the Black couple, (incidentally if necessarily with Emma/Cher present), go through a traumatic experience together—and come out of it together, too. (And, alive, of course.) 

…. It’s cute. I was wrong; it’s cute. 

And man, I want to have a house like that. I don’t want to be a lawyer—I’m sure somebody has to do it, and I’m not saying they’re bad or telling a ‘lawyer joke’; but I Cannot imagine arguing with people for a living—but there are things I want to do, and having a house like that, stairs like that, that would be alright…. 

To have the excellence of one’s relationship be mirrored by the excellence of one’s stairs: that would be alright. (winky emoji) 

N.B. I’m against classifying made-for-TV movies as “TV”—are there episodes? What’s going on in people’s heads that this is called “TV”? 

Okay. 

…………………

Well, I’m on the wrong side of the Ethnic Miracle for Irish nationalism in the USA, and the wrong generation for it—some people stay very set in their ways until the end, at least in petty ways: the old Irish man in America might vote for reactionary I-am-the-Man politics, but he’d never watch a Jane Austen movie—and the wrong age, too. Oftentimes growing up we live in the world, the headspace, that our parents returned to when they nested, that of their youth, and then we grow up and think, The hell was that all about right? 

Which is a long-winded way of saying that I’m sure Morgues (my pet name for the Morrigan) won’t shake a pitchfork at me for playing the shoneen, you know…. You can’t tell an Aquarius what not to do. You really can’t. They’ll clear their whole schedule to do those things, you know. 

Perhaps that’s an exaggeration. 

But anyway, I forgot how C.S. Lewis-y Northanger is; it’s like a moral mystery: there’s the Tilney kids and the Thorpe kids and one set is good and one set is bad, and blimey if I’ve forgotten which is which…. Largely because it’s not, thrilling, you know. A little formulaic…. Like halfway between Narnia, a veritable fairy-tale Bible, and a proper-pop-romance, you know…. 

Anyway, I do kinda think that to a certain extent, Northanger actually works better on the screen than on the page—Jane’s rational prose and stylistic sheen to everything disguises the fact that she’s talking about a sensationalist, basically, really. (The historicists always say ‘gothic’, hoping that you don’t know what they mean, so that they can go away giggling, having won the game.) Just showing the absurd fantasies of a weak woman—for lack of a better term—visually: bandits come and whisk her away to some mountain fortress for some secret purpose that everyone knows…. In a sense that works better, from a certain point of view, than educating people about names of book titles and authors, amounting to thousands upon thousands of pages of now antiquarian literature that interests relatively few, and which is probably no more of note, really, than say Victoria Holt, to speak only of the 20th century dead, you know. I don’t know who writes “gothic” stuff now. I suppose some of it is more sensationalist than others. Well, I suppose “Twilight” vaguely fits the bill, you know. (dodges tomato) “Get out of here, bum! This is civilization—not some damn little girl show!” 

(tomato emoji)

I suppose there’s no fighting THAT sentiment, right. The anti-sensationalist sentiment! 

…. Yes, now I remember who is the ‘good’ family and which the ‘bad’, although the good kid’s dad or whatever is a little dodgy, in an over-proper way…. Very C.S. Lewis-y, kinda moral romancing, Old Sagittarius, you know…. 

It is funny how you couldn’t go on a date without a chaperone (you’d get assassinated), but you could lie and twist people’s arms to be a pliable chaperone to serve your purpose…. 

…. Anyway, be that as it may. 

Movies are short, but I do think it’s a simple story, maybe even for Jane, and I really do think it benefits from the quotes from the ‘bad’ books, you know. 

And as hemmed-in as Jane’s stories are, there are real benefits to its being a comedy, and a non-adventure, since the ‘bad’ people really do not deserve to die, you know, as they might well die in a sci-fi show, or even in Shakespeare. 

…. Although while there’s no sword fighting in Jane’s stories, even in Northanger, Jane’s men tend to come off as being rather strong—wise, calm…. Strong, basically: warriors at peace. Jane’s girls on the other hand often come off as being rather foolish, although you could take that in different ways as to what was in her head, you know. Journalists flatter themselves that they do and novelists do not, but maybe it is the other way round, or else maybe they are the same, you know. Who writes a character that doesn’t exist? But yeah, the Northanger girl and the Mansfield girl both come off as rather foolish, you know: good-because-lacking-the-power-to-do-wrong. It obviously has an unfortunate layer, but on this plane of consciousness, having the power to do wrong is preferable to the alternative. 

…. It’s a very simple story, very dualistic. I suppose children are often so, and I suppose in the old hat way it is an excellent story for children—feminine children, anyway. I wonder if there are any adaptations with talking animals or animated versions…. Though perhaps children are not quite like that anymore. I do know that masculine and Yankee Doodle kids wouldn’t like it, since there’s no fighting, they’re British, and two of the worst characters are the two main military men! I suppose it’s a classic feminine story, in that way.

“I don’t know.” (multiple times) 

“If you’re trying to frighten me…. You’re doing a very good job.” 

~ Audrey’s character 

“It doesn’t sound like the sort of thing a young woman can handle by herself.” 

~ Cary’s character 

These inspiring, uplifting sound bites come from the 1963 adventure comedy/romantic adventure “Charade”, with Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant. In a lot of ways, it is kinda a stupid 1963 movie, you know. Think of John singing, “Money: that’s what I want”, with a little help from Paul and George. But, like an early Beatles song, it has redeeming elements if you don’t take the brainiac elements too seriously. A lot of adventure stories don’t take themselves too seriously, of which this is obviously one, you know. Audrey is cool all around; Cary has a nice, relaxing voice. Suave. Anyway, adventures can be fun, I guess…. Sometimes even when they’re a little stupid, right. I mean, it was interesting. I could watch it; I was curious as to what would happen…. It was just also stupid, you know…. 

Anyway, I guess it’s different in that it’s mildly unlike the other two Stanley Donen movies I’ve watched so far, which were straight romances. (On the Town & Singing in the Rain). This reminded me more of “Father Goose”…. 

…. Despite being racist in passing (and implicitly, generally), eventually it kinda dumps most of the “Father Goose”-esque throwaway entertainment style and becomes a reasonably competent action adventure. I’d say it’s almost clever; it’s almost smart. 

…. It’s fun; it’s not like the Christmas movie they play in the monastery, you know. 

…. It’s well-acted, and the ending is surprisingly good. 

So yeah. Aside from the fact that it’s kinda that old-60s-probably-before-the-Rolling-Stones-were-a-big-deal (one of the actors reminded me of Mick Jagger, but I don’t know if that was planned)—just kinda ‘straight’, you know. It’s not like ‘The Wilby Conspiracy’, right, but in a way it might be as good. 

And just basically, in that Hollywood/once-born/un-initiated way, it’s not such a bad movie. It’s almost pretty good…. And yes, my name is probably Kevin, and I come from the Mists of…. The Mists of…. Was it the Mists of the Atlantic? 

I come from the mist. 

But that doesn’t interest you…. 

But, yes: it can always surprise me, just how once-born I can be. And not just because of this. 

First, let me just say that Jane Austen is English mythology, so, I mean, the legalists, sorry the historians, sorry the literary critics, don’t think that this is “accurate” (you don’t even want to know what angry aristocrat nerds are like—I’m telling you: you don’t), but basically: the character who talks to herself talking to you, who doesn’t notice you replying in nonsense Italian? My mother. 

So it’s accurate. 

I originally thought this was by Joe Wright—who’s kinda a sorta interesting literary adaption director, who did a P&P movie, and I searched Netflix for him and came up with this, and didn’t check the credits to make sure before I started watching. But it’s ok; I can do a Jane Austen trio instead of a specific director trio, since it’s by an unknown girl—so good (girl) but also bad (unknown). So anyway…. 

“There’s nothing worse than thinking you’ve ruined your life, and realizing you have much further to fall.” 

So, as I wrote before, (I’m actually editing now! So unlike me!) Jane is one of the most rational and calm-yet-comic writers, and with a decent literary director, it can be fun. It didn’t like, Change My Life, because I knew the book—it was just easy, but I liked that. But although it is easy to like Jane for what’s not there, even if it is there—there’s plenty of masked suffering of being around gendered English people, the feminine prick men and the hyper-feminine ill women, but at the same time, I think that, especially in a movie with its visual/physical intelligence, there’s a lot to just ~enjoy, without the whole, drop-dead-for-love thing. (As much as we’d all like to, women included, men included.) I don’t know; it’s like, just, they have this Nice House, and they visit Wonderful House: you accustom yourself to there being good things in the world, even if people tend to use those good things unwisely. Most stories have a romance plot, but in the King Arthur books—and I love Arthurian mythology; but in the Arthur books it’s like, tribal times; dead men drumming; and—yeah, I mean: anything that’s not abstract like poetry or music involves suffering, but in Nice House stories it’s like, ordinary suffering, and extraordinary wealth, whereas in an adventure it’s extraordinary suffering, the looming possibility of death, and the ever-present shadow of perversion and scandal, perhaps. And don’t get me wrong—sometimes people need to get a little fucking compassion about not ringing the village church bells and crying perversion, but…. I mean, it happens because of unusual unconsciousness, unusualness. Sometimes, all you need, is, either love, or, a story you already know from a longer telling, and just beauty—gardens, mansions…. And a heroine who is also a narrator. That’s nice. Good movie. 

Also, it’s funny: I knew this was 2022, but I thought it was Joe Wright, so (and I’m trying not to malign Joe here, although it’s funny it’s not—it’s like, Well, anyway) so I thought that the use of Black talent was a nice touch, in light of the “Pan” fiasco, you know. This movie is like, ‘You’re welcome to swing by my place anytime’; that movie was like: So we can spend more time together, I’m going to let you keep living in like 20% of your house. It’s still a nice touch, even if the cleaning up mistakes is less of a, personal, mea culpa? 

And, you know, certainly one (very) subtle (Jane-style subtle!) compliment doesn’t erase in people’s minds another very strongly implied unconscious disrespect, not in the world we live in, right—and by that, I don’t mean any particular group. But it’s a lot more human and open to Black people than Hollywood usually is, and even the rest of the world, as the occasional (numerous, though not by percentages) book or movie on how Black people have usually been treated will attest…. 

And just that a Black man could end up with a white woman who was the sister of the heroine and not the heroine: the shadow, the whiney little git with nothing on Whitney, you know. And that it’s in a fucking Jane Austen mythos, you know. 

And if anybody tells you that Anne Elliot looking directly at the screen doesn’t work…. I don’t know: have Them make a movie about Their life, lol. 

…. “It angers me that the world denies you the opportunity for a public life. You’d make a great admiral.” 

Hey Jude, don’t make it bad. (winks) 

…. You always forget that Jane was a Sagittarius, even though it fits like a glove. Jack too. You’d think with all that Pevensie crap that he was a Capricorn, but he wasn’t. That was just the time they lived in—it was before the revolution. 

It was a slow revolution, not like the French one, but…. 

…. I’m glad I watched this though, not only because it’s a great story, but because when I read it, in certain parts, I got more the themes than the plot, you know: like the advanced but not the simple, because it’s so intricate, sometimes it’s easier to see the trees than the forest the way it is in book-form…. 

…. “Joy—pardon me—I’m experiencing joy….” 

Now, if he had been looking at the camera: that would have been perfect. 

…. It’s like the drama of Black Athena and Psyche, that part of it…. 

But I’m with cousin Elliot: you can always romance the girl later…. Making sure you inherit the estate, cannot wait. (laughing cat emoji) 

…. This was the equal to any of the best Greta Gerwigs: whether “Lady Bird” or “Little Women”, this is of the same quality. 

…. Say not that England has no future. 

It’s certainly a product of the Forties, although in some ways America hasn’t changed that much. It’s one window on life. There’s of course a bandwagon to slap the Classics on the back, but it is more earnest and elegant than the 49th percentile movie of today, and there is something to be said for that…. 

It’s very grown-up yet very cute, of course. Of course, it’s centered around the familiar: the familiar race & gender, the middle-class-yet-not-rich, the familiar aches and pains about the wealthy, the servant, the familiar sort of hero personality where you endanger yourself through service and lack of self-worth. Of course, it’s also a decent window on some of the ugliness of early 20th-century America—the beatings and the crudeness, for example, even though as the hero you’re supposed to give of yourself and sigh, right. 

I know that must sound very cynical; I suppose that the culturally appropriate thing to do would be to give of myself/silence myself, and write an ad to something-other-than-money, you know. But I don’t see it as a bad movie, you know. I like Greta Gerwig, but I thought this was better than “Barbie”, for example. As a metaphor or something, it had a lot of promise, but it was no metaphor; she was literally a doll; she was a literal doll…. Anyway, Frank Capra ‘47 is good: very grown-up yet very cute…. Don’t knock yourself out, but it’s a very decent movie. 

…. It’s probably one of the better movies of the 1940s, or Old Hollywood comedy-drama/observational comedy movies. Beyond that, it doesn’t make much sense comparing things that aren’t alike, you know. ~Was it better than the Harry Styles Dunkirk movie? Why, funny you should ask. My father died before that movie came out, but he saw it recently as a spectral DVD, and he reported to me in a seance that it left him feeling cold…. 

…. It’s very classical: the shadow is always another person, never ~George Bailey, you know. But it’s a cute old movie. 

…. It almost makes me nostalgic for a world that I’ve never seen or lived in, and never would want to see or live in, you know. 

…. The climax isn’t very naturalistic or satisfying. I don’t mean that there can’t be angels, but it’s very: la la la, life is wonderful, life is won—(looks at watch)—ap, movie’s almost over, (cranks crank and George Bailey’s life improbably falls apart overnight). I mean, he certainly did have scorn for money, and that can wreck your life. No single action that takes place is impossible, but the feel of it is all off. For you to trust your idiot friend to take tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars (8K 1947 money) to the bank and he just loses the whole kitten caboodle—a lot would have to lead up to that, some kind of simmering insanity, you know. It doesn’t just fall out of a clear blue sky. Frank Capra is funny to watch, but if that was his notion of trouble, he must not have had a very firm grip on things. Very black or white. Dickens or jail, basically. Very strange…. 

It basically just seems to me, very materialistic, in a subtle way—albeit with a few angels thrown in as an afterthought. Certainly religion is a strange thing, and without it Frank is quite cute—but he just seems like a child, knowing very little of the powers of life and death that are out there. 

…. It kind of reminds me of Mr Collins from P&P: I’m an inconsequential nobody, but I’m also the reason why the Jazz Age never happened and everything’s good, you know. (Karen the Psychoanalyst wrote about that kind of person.) 

It’s sort of cute, though. It shows that a culture that has a lot of unresolved issues can be very innocent, in a certain sense of the word…. 

Quite grandiose, though, at the end. “I did a favor for Frank Capra. He was going downhill, but I saved him by loaning him a dime and he never made another mistake after that, and that’s the reason why nobody watches Shadow Knight’s movies and improbable nonsense never happened and it’s all because of me! It’s all because of me! I thought I was just an ordinary slightly-rich-but-not-too-rich white man: it turns out I’m God’s deputy! Hahahaha….” 

Slightly cracked, but cute…. 

Terrible transitions, though; it’s like he didn’t know what they were. He just flipped a switch, you know…. 

(Clarence in heaven eating a cupcake) Ah, that’s perfect: it’s just slightly rich—but not TOO rich…. (leaves the server a nice tip, and smiles as he leaves) 

It is kinda sad how if being boss is where it’s at, the guy is boss, and if being adorable where it’s at, the guy is adorable—I guess that much is okay—but then the girl is like the Other Thing, whichever one Isn’t, where it’s at, right. Surely there could still have been conflict and plot if they were both onboard with their themes/values? A whole bloody Viking village would be thinking they were nuts! 

(shrugs) But at least it’s not about spilling dragon gore genocidally, right. It’s basically a movie about a boy who has a dog…. A dog that can fly, right…. 

I guess it tries to make up in human-dragon relations what it lacks in gender relations, lol. 

…. I mean, I didn’t realize I’d want “Annabeth Does Obedience School” to be a whole separate work of art, right, instead of a book chapter…. 

…. “I’m not one of them” is a harsh message. 

It’s also not true. Aren’t we all one of “them”, in the end? 

It’s not terrible, but it is rather ambivalent, in a lot of ways. 

But it is like a lot of early 2010s movies, and there were some that were worse. 

…. I mean, I realize that people don’t take children or their media seriously enough to consider what I’m about to say at face value, (“Let’s topple the dragon dictatorship, and tell dad to push off, to boot! Woo hoo! We’re the children of America, and we don’t like Boomers, or, for that matter, Iraqis….” “What are you talking about laddie? (painfully punch-slaps my back in a friendly way) They’re just a bunch of stupid runts having a good time!”), but it’s a very ambivalent thing, very morally ambivalent. 

And yes, I realize that this is you, not taking me seriously as I say that. 

…. Of course, I sorta get the trepidation about not moralizing to children (like grandpa’s church, say), because—although this isn’t what you get from children’s media, sometimes—people often expect children to be more moral than adults, you know. 

“Tell grandpa you’re thankful that he depleted his petty cash to buy us ice cream…. (leans in) I vote we send grandpa to the island; I mean, to the nursing home. Whether he likes it, or not.” 

And I really can’t comment on that, you know. It’s just…. It’s not worth talking about. 

…. Anyway, I know that the Morrigan is a Celtic deity and not a Germanic one, and so for that and other reasons, I’m sure people will hit the metaphorical ‘Don’t care/you’re crazy’ button, right. But I think Astrid would be a lot like the Morrigan if Astrid were a real character…. And I’ve been using tarot to ask the Morrigan some questions, and boy, some of them are wild…. I guess that’s a battle for another day. 

But in general, it is true that it is hard to like/respect/be attracted to/ girls that are fragile and weak, you know…. Although I still watch soccer like a Buddhist, if a Buddhist could watch soccer. I guess if you were a “real” Buddhist you wouldn’t. Being a “real” Buddhist is a lot like being a “real” man, although on the mental/etheric spheres rather than the physical one, which is what most people think of first. 

…. But, yeah. I mean, it wasn’t good; it wasn’t bad. It wasn’t worse than others movies, and it wasn’t better. 

So yeah. Whatever. Okay. 

I’m going to go either read “The Mists of Avalon” now, or meditate on whether “Lilo & Stitch” is any better. 

But, yeah, whatever. Okay.