Tag Archives: film

Illuminated in the Dark

America continues apace pell-mell and hellbent towards further popular cultural infantilization.

We’re increasingly surrendering the ability to discuss and debate topics which might demand those participating in them to not only hold two opposing thoughts at the same time, much less let them shunt over onto other tracks. Though never as deft with simultaneous multiple moving parts as older societies, what Americans lacked in veritas we made up for in verve.

Thanks to the make it easier for the coloring book clarity brigades to contribute and thereby muddle the point, issues have lost their shades of gray. These have hardened into blacker or whiter blocs. Now, mentioning the word “nuance” makes more and more Americans reach for their revolvers. Where the verbal or written rapier sliced artfully, we now wail and flail with rhetorical bludgeons. Continue reading Illuminated in the Dark

Our Times

Saw a job listing on a professional networking site that intrigued. Thirty/35 years ago, I would’ve been all over it. Most astonishing thing about the job description? A former high school classmate generated this possibility.

Recalling him, he never struck as being particularly dynamic. He filled backgrounds in many scenes.

Yet two reasons have throttled any enthusiasm towards pursuing his offer. One, I’m 63 and along the glidepath into retirement. Two, I’d bring experience to the job. Continue reading Our Times

Disenchantment USA

The title of the movie escapes me. Or maybe several comprise memory. The remembered scenes issue from Nazi propaganda reels.

In any case, the rudely sinuous voice of Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Germany’s Minister of Enlightenment and Propaganda, narrates the black & white images. They were issued early during the Nazi reign. During the ascent. Continue reading Disenchantment USA

The Willies

Schlockmeisters believing themselves quality horror purveyors need to set up campfires that burn holes into patches of the darkest nighttime woods extant. Amid this pitch black setting, using remedial storytelling lessons, they should huddle around the flames and rediscover what truly jolts audiences.

They can start by reciting “The Monkey’s Paw” then diagram why the story still tingles. Continue reading The Willies

Dalliances

Matthias believed himself quite fortunate to have been a widower whose children had all entered adulthood. Or else explaining the circumstances which had befallen him to adolescents or teens could’ve been quite mortifying.

He asked himself, ‘Was it an incident? Or a series of misfortunes? Or an exercise in youthful malice?’

At least the English professor could engage the question philosophically. Nora, the other participant exposed, lacked Matthias’ considerable fig leaf. Apart from the pun, fig leaves were exactly what Nora needed. Those and mind wipes, as well as interdicting the bastard who’d swiped the incriminating memory card.

Not solely to cover the naked state she’d shared with Matthias, but to establish distance between the realized gossipy recrimination their private conduct stirred and the preferred mature indifference it should’ve left in its wake. Well, not so private now, though owing to her marital state, certainly illicit.

A university colleague, Nora, had entered a brief passionate romance (romance because affair sounded tawdry) with him occasioned by her husband Fausto. Living up to his name, Fausto was a true macho. Their marriage made Matthias wonder about ardor’s caprice. Continue reading Dalliances