…I think there is some connection with the tree, 44292 Washington 129 and this film…
Monday, July 25, 2011
Knowing…
I really connected with this film and it hounded me until I started finding last names that were probably really streets and I got into this map searching. Then I realized the numbers might be house numbers or highway numbers.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
David and Lisa (TV 1998) - IMDb
David and Lisa (TV 1998) - IMDb
This was an insightful film, more later…
Burlesque…
Writer: Steve Antin – Director: Steve Antin
Actors: Cher, Christina Aguilera, Stanley Tucci, Cam Gigandet, Kristen Bell, Julianne Hough, Eric Dane, Glenn Turman, David Walton, et al.
I saw this at the theater. Loved the film, the theater screen made it look somewhat fuzzy but it was awesome seeing Cher on the big screen, my first. I thought the film and performances were great. It's not Moonstruck but it is a love story of many types. The film was low key and lacked a lot of the stressful tension and excitement I fear lots of younger generations of film goers have grown addicted to, with things flying at you and flashing at you from everywhere. I was expecting something more intense and tailored to a more adult audience but was pleasantly surprised at how well they presented the rough life of burlesque, that rough side having been portrayed in older films. Cher’s solo performances were fantastic especially Burlesque. Haven’t Seen The Last of Me did better than I expected as the song was appropriate but seemed awkward to sing. Aguilera and her talent were an awesome surprise not knowing much of her music until this film, she is up and coming in films it seems and I am sure we will be seeing more of the other young actors in this film. I thought the film was enjoyably entertaining and there are some surprises. No blatant nudity.
Caged, 1950
This is an excellent film, true to life for it’s time. Today inmates would be packing weapons and drugs. Excellent acting by all.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Nuts…
Writer: Tom Topor – Director: Martin Ritt
Actors: Barbara Streisand, Richard Dreyfus, Maureen Stapleton, Karl Malden, Eli Wallach, et al.
Topor puts the victim on trial. Draper, the main character, murdered a "john", she is the focus of the film, the reason this courtroom drama is going on and it becomes her therapy. In rape and molestation cases the perpetrator and proving his or her guilt is the focus, not the victim or what they have suffered. At least in this film, the victim gets to be seen and heard although some wish to toss this film out as a feminist ploy against men. Would it have been more effective if the john's wife had shown up near the end of the movie, thanking her on all counts? There are lots of Claudia Drapers out there who are not high class hookers or even hookers at all, who kill their abusers, or desire to kill their abusers. Are they insane? When can killing be determined to be a rational act of survival? And consider that maybe on some level the "john" and her father both wanted her to kill them, symbolically. They wanted to be stopped and they were making her responsible and she dutifully accepted it, just as her father made her sexually responsible as his lover at a young age, because the mother was not there to intervene or to take up her wifely duty to her husband. Did Claudia want to kill her father? Even some of the viewing audience want all abusers killed, symbolically, but in order to be able to do that and make it work, Claudia has to be deemed sane, otherwise the pedophiles and rapists and johns all get off the hook for any accountability or responsibility for their behavior. If you continue to analyze this you can see how it all fits together in a nice neat little package. Lots of men harbor thoughts (thoughts lead to actions) that women are nothing but whores anyway, even though they repress it (wasn't Neilson's character living a double life (standard)) and at one point in their struggling in the film, Neilson calls her a “dirty whore", “you’re all dirty whores”. Wasn't he and her father whoring around, the john acting out his own anger and guilt at himself onto Claudia nearly killing her, still another role of the prostitute that rarely gets talked about, a punching bag for the shame and guilt of their weaknesses and the rage of overworked and over stressed executives. At least Claudia was true to herself, she was being what she had become, why one would tend to think she was not homicidal at the time of the incident. This of course didn't work for Aileen Wournos?
I thought this was an excellent film throughout, superb acting by all.
Losing Chase…
Writer: Anne Meredith – Director: Kevin Bacon
Actors: Helen Mirren, Beau Bridges, Kira Sedgewick, Michael Yarmush, Lucas Denton, et al.
I think Chase is androgynous and to an extent I agree that she is seeking some kind of balance and that's what the movie is about to me, lives out of balance that create all these emotional storms and a marriage out of balance. It is a very complicated subject truthfully and we are really left blowing in the wind with the ending to this film. Is she or isn't she, does she or doesn't she. I guess it is really for the individual to decide for themselves which way it should go. I think that she needs to be alone for her own mental, emotional and spiritual growth and is why they portrayed her alone in the end, she is an only child, right? It is pointed out in the hammock scene that she was different from the other girls, wanted to be like them, married Richard because she thought she should even though she did love him but may not have been in love with him. In the words of Carl G. Jung, "projections have fallen away" and she can now see Richard for who he is and he is no longer what she wants or needs. During their argument just before Elizabeth breaks the window, Richard insults his wife and then accuses her of being bored but is oblivious to what he is saying. I think she is ready to "fall in love", but Richard isn't the right man and she creates all this fuss and disharmony with Richard that is reflected in her relationship with her son little Richard, this she tells us from the beginning and Elizabeth makes the point just before the "kiss" scene. She "falls in love" with Elizabeth but Elizabeth is really a reflection of Chase's own self, a narcissistic projection that Elizabeth needs to identify with, again Chase tells us this in the hammock when Elizabeth questions Chase, "have you ever - did you ever think about-", Chase tells her that she is too vain to take her own life. This helps balance Elizabeth's dark side or her potential tendencies. In the bedroom scene when Chase is closing the window she is about to tell Elizabeth again that she is sorry, she is trying to have an intimate moment with Elizabeth that is mistaken by her son little Richard for a sexual one and then by her husband and again the lack of intimacy is reflected in her relationship with Richard and little Richard. Elizabeth who has had little intimacy with her sick mother is afraid of it and feels like she is going crazy, after the kiss. And in the end you hear Chase saying that her life had capsized and was righting itself again.
Very well acted, great cinematography, another thought provoking film.
One of Mirren's PS films Prime Suspect 2 leaves one hanging in the end also. I hate that!
Choices…
I think the psycho-dynamics of it all is the answer to the problem. Once the pattern is established it sets in motion the actions of those who fall prey to a projection or dissociation. Is Terry the victim of Marisa's friend's adolescent mistake [acting out]? Murdering a person with a soul or killing people for their souls or preventing souls from being planted onto undesirables? Slaves don't have souls (The Fine Art of Love)...Marisa's responses seem the most logical and sane to me. Would Terry be the type to give her child up for adoption? She is not of the class of people who are forced, through religious guilt, to follow through with a pregnancy and then relinquish her child to someone else. It makes for good story though, MOTHER WHO GIVES UP CHILD IS REUNITED WITH ADOPTED DAUGHTER. Isn't that a bit sado-masochistic? What about Marisa? Does she unconsciously get pregnant because subconsciously she really wants a child, but tries desperately to keep her contract with her husband? It is well known that abortion has been going on for more than a century. Clearing it up is not always a perfect task, like filtering your water, some of it is going to get through no matter how hard you work to prevent it. The acting in this film is quite good, the emotional intonation throughout seems appropriate, though I think the anger was underplayed too much and the dialogue seems choppy in places.
The trauma of Terry's experience will be replayed in her mind as she moves on to someone else to create a new life for herself. In the film we do see her taking a positive step toward correcting her own behavior by not having a one night stand with someone else. She has gotten the support she needs from Marisa and finally her father, that helps prevent her from taking her anger and guilt out on herself and running out and getting into trouble again.
A Day Without Rain is also a good film to watch on this subject.
Death In Love…
Writer/Director: Boaz Yakin
Actors: Josh Lucas, Jacqueline Bisset, Lucas Haas, Vanessa Kai, Carrington Vilmont,
Adam Brody, et al.
This is a discussion of this film and contains information specific to scenes in the film, often referred to as spoilers.
The film begins with a dramatic portrayal of the traumatic bonding between a Nazi Doctor and a female prisoner; a young woman abandoned by her parents escaping Nazi Germany and how she sacrifices the last of her self respect in order to survive her captivity. Surviving that captivity and suffering from the effects of her trauma now repressed, she marries and becomes the mother of two sons living in New York City. What follows are the desperate measures by the family in grappling with the results of the mother's failure at managing her life and how, like a virus, her abusive past has infected her two sons and the people with whom they are involved, adult men trying to cope with the lives they have inherited.
The oldest son, the scapegoat in the family, which he occasionally projects onto his gifted brother, abuses women in many ways; his life a classic case of the neurotic acting out of his parents' early years of marriage, the mother's repressed memories of her experiences and her repressed rage at her parental abandonment which, as a result of her trauma, she has difficulties containing within herself and acts out upon the oldest son frequently. Deprived of years of love we hear the oldest son confront his now not so unaware mother that he does not have a "nice girl", because he has nothing to give, why she left. We also see the oldest son sacrificing himself in many ways and is looking for love, always having it fail him, a childhood developmental pattern dramatized in the scene when the mother destroys an already neat and clean room, ranting and throwing things claiming he disobeyed her. The second son is the embodiment of the mother's weak, but cold and fearful, obsessive compulsive mother who must have been a pianist, controlling those around her with her weakness and on to whom the mother and father project this weakness. His eating habits that contribute to his disorder possibly come from the family's need to ration food during the Nazi regime. The mother attempts to reveal aspects of her past but does she do it to protect her sons? Do shame and guilt or her fear of what will happen to her if she talks about her experience, keep her from disclosing all to her family? The problems in this family and all the other characters exist because they unconsciously draw to themselves some form of abuse called traumatic re-enactment or repetition compulsion, as they are constantly recreating the mother's trauma, getting deeper into trouble as they progress, blind to the roots of their difficulties, helpless in finding a way out and some form of physical harm has to happen to bring each opus down from its crescendo (to relieve the tension) so they can move on regardless of the consequences. No insight can be gained this way.
The employer is clearly no different in that she permits the kind of abuse the oldest son acts out upon her person. He confronts this on several occasions, admitting his real need to love a woman, his mother, who withholds herself from her husband because she is entangled in her menagerie of male relationships including the Doctor. The employer needs the abuse he perpetrates to constantly create her feelings of superiority that aid her in maintaining her position as the boss. The stabbing seems an impulsive act brought on by a confrontation with her self as well, in which she too decides she has had enough but lashes out at the wrong man, called displacement in Psychology. Or, was it the mother's repressed desire to kill the Nazi doctor which the mother was never able to follow through with for fear of certain death? Here her mother's fearful and weak personality saved her life.
Why kill the mother's ex-lovers? Is this a dramatization of the father's desires or the sons’ desires to kill her lovers, [Oedipus Complex], is it part of the Doctor's own sick sadistic life script and beliefs with which he was brainwashed, or did the mother choose these lovers to save her loyal husband from the wrath of her sons because of her fear of abandonment? I ask myself why they do not get help to stop their insanity but again it is the constant acting out and re-enactments that prevents them from seeing their own desperation. The oldest son, taken in by his fellow employee, experiences closeness and a way out of his self imposed responsibility, only to have his heart betrayed once again. He knows his family is messed up but feels helpless to change them, he wants out. Is there a way out, will it be better, does he get out, or does he simply grow comfortable with the family demons?
I was confused by the ending. Is the mother anticipating being killed and thus takes her last walk to her death? She told her oldest son in their meeting that she was going to be free soon or was she going to murder the Doctor? I have been interested in psychic phenomena and I wonder if she was not only communicating this to her son but also to her husband and the Doctor with whom she has had a long lasting psychic connection, why he has shown up, what Jung calls synchronicity.
The Jews do not hold the world cup for suffering or living with PTSD as is well depicted here. I see all of the characters as probably suffering from the result of some kind of despicable abuse or oppression. What surprises me, is how little people really recognize or understand PTSD, repression, acting out, repetition compulsion, and a host of other maladies specific to victims of abuse when they see it; not just specific to the Jews, but war veterans and their families, victims of rape, sex trafficking, slavery, child molestation, and abuse perpetrated in the name of medicine, science, law enforcement and including that which we have inherited from centuries when no psychiatric care existed or was simply unattainable. I based this observation on the articles I have read about the film.
To me Death In Love is also a depiction of the hidden cruelty within our society as a whole, the incapacity to truly love, the sado-masochism hiding behind what we blindly accept as being for our benefit or best interest. The film was better than expected and I had been waiting to see a film that focused on the subject of abuse and it’s aftermath, although I did see Coming Home, based on the experiences of a Vietnam veteran. I was hesitant in viewing it based on the previews I watched but I have rarely been misled by Bisset's choices in her roles or films though they have surprised me recently, so I felt compelled to see it. This film is different than The Fine Art of Love as the rage is seriously repressed and the cruelty not so obvious. In Death In Love the anger and rage being acted is abounding, real and often frightening.
Excellent acting by all.
Psychoanalysis of Children, Melanie Klein
Origins of Object Relations, Ronald Fairbairn
Splitting and Projective Identification, James Grotstein
PTSD, A Clinical Review, Sidran Press, pgs. 76-83
Beyond the Brain, Stanislov Grof, pg. 240
Life Scripts, Claude Steiner
Synchronicity, Carl Jung
Acting Out, The Neurosis of Our Time, Goldman and Milman
Thicker Than Water…
Writer: J.P. Martin – Director: David Cass, SR.
Actors: Melissa Gilbert, Lindsay Wagner, Lindy Newton, Brian Wimmer.
From IMDb Message Boards- “Why haul the water?”, my response:
As I kept reading this question it occurred to me that hauling the water isn't about the water, it's about the act of hauling the water. It's the discipline. It's like Mr. Myagi teaching Daniel karate by getting him to do all sorts of chores in Karate Kid, like getting up at 6:00AM and working in the garden. You teach one, you teach many. And, you don't get a nice pair of Italian shoes or a sports car by sleeping in until noon! You choose. There were some moments that really left me wondering what she was thinking. When Lulu goes into Natalie's room and is trying on the shoes and Jess walks in on Nat and Lulu, and Lulu says', I know what I want and it isn't just expensive shoes, Jess doesn't say anything and turns and leaves. Several things went through my mind. Was she thinking and grieving, "dear god it's like looking in the mirror", "I missed my chance, I'm not letting you miss yours, or was it, "she doesn't get it".
The question still haunted me until I found some notes on some reading I did several years ago. I was reading Fairbairn and the Origins of Object Relations, pg. 11; "Fairbairn's schizoid infant believes that his love is bad because it has not been validated." That is I think, that one's ability to love even an animal, despite their seeming badness, has to be nurtured, pg 255; "In the triangle, the child appeared to be doing most of the work", and pg 257; "as Fairbairn saw it, the badness of an object was not a projection of the child's sadism, it was a reflection of a mother's unavailability. In short, the real mother, not some fantasy, now emerged as central to psychopathology". "What ranked as crucial for the child was the establishment of a satisfactory object relationship during the infantile dependency." "The traumatic situation, according to Fairbairn was the one in which the child felt he was not really loved as a person and that his own love was not accepted or acceptable." This I think is what the returning Vietnam Vets experienced, what many WWII vets experienced and you could even relate it to men who get into hunting and killing animals. This is mentioned in the film, they "shoot horses". It is easy to see that after awhile Lulu begins to get that the horses need her and Jess and Sam, even though she wants to move on to bigger and better things.
So why haul the water? Fairbairn wrote: "to renounce object seeking would be tantamount to psychic suicide" and he goes on to talk about loss of ego. He also states that "the net result is that the child tends to transfer his relationships with his objects to the realm of inner reality". Lulu would be on the brink of a psychic disaster if she didn't fulfill Jess's wishes. Was she a slave to it? Didn't Jess say, "I always want to know what is in your heart". Lulu can internalize what is happening with the horses and know she has some stability and security in her life. I think that when I was reading this I came to understand the desire to kill firstborns in biblical times. Was it bordering on psychic murder? What happens when you have instability is that one can become a compulsive object seeker, acquiring all sorts of baggage along the way. We see this with Lulu after Jess gets injured. She realizes Jess is not invincible so she sets her eyes on Natalie.
Of course, to love is better than to hate and kill, as many children and adolescents who suffer from parental deprivation or abuse end up in prison for life and Natalie's emotional problems are not that serious. First of all Natalie has become a successful attorney, thinking owning an expensive sports car and shoes would fill the gaps in her life. Was she doing the same thing by writing the book and giving the money to Lulu? Can we ever fill that emptiness? Would anything you do ever fill that loss? What would happen to Natalie if she had just left and never gone back? A piece of her mind would always be with Jess and Lulu, wondering. What about Jess? She gave up her life to keep Maggie's dream alive, she gave up her memories of Maggie to help the horses and Lulu. Seems Jess is getting the short end of the deal. Natalie is still young and can have her own family and comes back to really simply get free of the dysfunctional schema. Who wouldn't want to be like Natalie? Jess is the real heroine here, the Christ, she has made the ultimate sacrifices so that others could be free. She is deeply depressed because of it. Does she find some satisfaction in having written the book? Is it enough? I am also reminded of Matrix and Matrix Reloaded, now. Neo is faced with similar problems when he is asked to decide which pill he wants to take. Lulu is faced with similar questions, what kind of life does she want for herself. Will it bring her the happiness she wants? Are we all destined to be like Jess in the end? Sacrifices in the name of love. Eric Fromm wrote about this in his book, Sane Society and The Art of Loving.
I have seen lots of movies like this where the heroine (erroneously labeled in my opinion as I guess it sounds better than Christ), fails to find, someone to take the place of their loss, or his or her intervention that keeps one from falling into the Christ trap. Jess was Lulu's intervention. And sometimes too many objects can be as much of a problem as none at all. I think this is the essence of addiction. Are we happier if we live life like a loose garment, keeping our expectations low. Is that what happened to Jess? Expectations that are too high can be a problem too!
Why ride the horses?
I think that's a more important question. I was emotionally incited when Natalie comes down the stairs in her riding suit and then is riding her horse that's been trained to jump rails. That's where humans and I part ways when it comes to animals. There is a big difference in training people to take care of themselves and others to training horses to do tricks or even work for their keep. Where this film and Natalie fall a little short in passing themselves off as really altruistic to the horses. Think about it. Jess has just shown Natalie a herd of wild horses she is trying to save, then Natalie goes home and decides to get hers warmed up and out for a jaunt around the corral. Maybe Jess feels the same way about her life, but she chooses not to trap Lulu that way.
And, is Lulu a reflection of Jess's teenage dreams, or her mother's or did it come from their psychic connection that ultimately brought them together. Entangled Minds, Dream Telepathy and Mind to Mind talk about this. What I would have been interested in is how they expect Jess to think any other way, how does an adult cope with the child mind of a parent, especially if they don't have a child? Is the adult child really manufactured as a result of this relationship? Did Jess take Lulu in just to get rid of Maggie's dream she too wished to escape but Natalie shows up and fowls it up, then decides to leave it all but Sam won't have any of it. Then there's Jess again sitting at the table while Sam is giving her a hard time about her suspicions of Nat that Lulu really planted in her head and Sam sheepishly reaches into her bowl and grabs a couple of cookies, while it seems to me that Jess is just sitting there wondering when everyone is going to wake up. I could take that scene to new heights. A light finally goes off in Sam's head but he and Nat slip into the old script anyway. Do they stay together?
I was just never convinced at anytime in this film, that Natalie had anyone other than self at the heart of her interests, everything she did seemed perfunctory, Rand like. Her digging for water was all about making herself feel better rather than any real attempt at helping the horses. That objectivist kind of attitude of which Jess is on the receiving end, the one who is suppose to be objective about sacrificing her life for the good of the rest. Who wouldn't be depressed! Is Jess really altruistic or does she simply lack the self-love that Nat seems to possess, that pushed her into sacrificing her own life choices to fulfill someone else’s dream? Isn't she a prisoner?
Well acted, great cinematography, very thought provoking.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
This is one – NS – might watch it…updated
Hulu - Anne-Marie - Watch the full movie now.
Dick Van Dyke Show - HS those…
Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest…
…reminded me of someone I know. It’s a well done film for its content. Violence abounding, good cinematography and a story that will make your hair stand on end. Good anger management therapy for the abused woman.
Cube and Hypercube – Vertical Labyrinth…
“Nor is it even clear that in terms of survival the search for consciousness, is, in comparison with the ass or the crab, a diseased animal. Consciousness is a disease.” FN-14 – Miquel de Unamuno, Tragic Sense of Life, Dover Publications, 1954, pg 18.
I’ve had this posted before…some violence in these films, good acting and great special effects.
Overlooked?
IMDb: Extremely Overlooked Actresses - a list by BlackDogScratchin
Not by me, but I couldn’t agree more they often don’t get the rewards they greatly deserve as I think they are some of Hollywood’s best.
Kay’s blue page films - update
Tideland – my neighbor Mike Morgan’s dog had cataracts
The Door in The Floor
The Cell – shower scene
K-Pax -
12 Monkeys?
These films all struck a nerve with me…
Like the actors and actresses, In Tideland I thought Janet McTeer was exceptional as was Tilly…of course Bridges was a seasoned artist and quite good…
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