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
What holidays haven’t Americans hollowed out?
This year plenty of major merchandisers started displaying their Yuletide offerings and running Christmas ads so early these infringed on Halloween. And didn’t the whole month of November seem a ceaseless promotion for Black Friday? Continue reading Commemorations
From now until Halloween night fright film fans ought to be in their peculiar heaven. Continue reading Nightmares in Black & White
Modern horror movies have done a terrific job robbing audiences of the pleasure behind being frightened inventively. Continue reading Frights Abound
Dick Cheney is doing a fine job exhibiting chutzpah to Gentiles.
Given the former vice president’s dismal prognostication history, it would’ve seemed a slam dunk that once he slunk into private life his public utterances might’ve been few. Instead, he’s turned his dismal tenure into a sort of victory lap. Continue reading Author of Disaster
This post follows She Humanized Him. Language and characteristics reflect the times, people and places.
The Second World War. I would’ve thought Jim Crow defined father. No, that he brushed off. Instead, Adolf Hitler yanked him and millions of others from preordained ruts in American life.
While father praised Roosevelt for his bravery, grit, willingness to experiment, his simple man’s outlook saw Hitler as a cauterizing savior who advanced American society.
We’re dumbing down Sherlock Holmes. If the recent Robert Downey, Jr., efforts making “Sherlocking” more accessible for the earbud/self-absorbed set weren’t puerile enough, BBC TV has gone whole-hog to render Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective and his associate Dr. John Watson relevant for 21st century viewers.
No need to wonder what Conan Doyle might’ve made of those revisions. He would’ve looked at them as if H.G. Wells had monkeyed with his template. On absinthe.
The Downey reboots were jarring. Are jarring. Will be jarring. Holmes as imagined by Sax Rohmer. Or H. Rider Haggard. Ripping yarns instead of Victorian Age mysteries. Holmes mirrored his time. Downey’s Holmes distorts it. Continue reading Not Your Father’s Blue Carbuncle
August 6th has become a date receiving outsized attention. Aesthetically that’s quite understandable. Hiroshima offers superior visuals to Pearl Harbor, a site whose tragedy lies beneath a placid surface.
Pearl Harbor simply offers serene contemplation across Hawaiian waves. Hiroshima city fathers have done an artful job of propagandizing their preservations. Japanese ruins deflect guilt from the past. What incited 1941 America is mostly out of sight underwater and left to explanation. Continue reading Before Hiroshima