Quote of the day

[iambiguous]

Abyss

“Life is painful and messed up. It gets complicated at the worst of times, and sometimes you have no idea where to go or what to do. Lots of times people just let themselves get lost, dropping into a wide open, huge abyss. But that's why we have to keep trying. We have to push through all that hurts us, work past all our memories that are haunting us. Sometimes the things that hurt us are the things that make us strongest. A life without experience, in my opinion, is no life at all. And that's why I tell everyone that, even when it hurts, never stop yourself from living.” Alysha Speer

Trust me: everyone will draw the "hurt" line in different places. But eventually we reach that breaking point. We just can't take it anymore.

“When you stare into the abyss the abyss stares back at you.” Friedrich Nietzsche

If only until you fall over into it.
I'm guessing.

“I've often thought that there isn't any "I" at all; that we are simply the means of expression of something else; that when we think we are ourselves, we are simply the victims of a delusion.” Aleister Crowley

See, "I" told you.

“The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. Although the two are identical twins, man, as a rule, views the prenatal abyss with more calm than the one he is heading for.” Vladimir Nabokov

Alas, even Lolitas get old and die.

“Because I'm a Karamazov. Because when I fall into the abyss, I go straight into it, head down and heels up, and I'm even pleased that I'm falling in just such a humiliating position, and for me I find it beautiful.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Your own fall might be different. Whatever that means.

“Deal with all this, live with myself, you mean? I honestly don't know. I stand often enough at the abyss of my soul, asking that same question, looking down into the dark crevices where the black monsters dwell on the bottom. They gaze up at me, and I look them in the eyes. “This also you are,” they say, and I almost fall into the void.”
“And then?”
Anaxantis shrugged.
“And then? I turn around and go do what needs to be done. What else is there?” Andrew Ashling

The philosophy of shrugging?

[Phil8659]

Atlas Shrugged, and Ayn Rand fell down!

[iambiguous]

How it was supposed to work:

You make a movie exposing the Great Gap between how doctors treat patients in the world of “modern medicine” and how patients would like to be treated instead. You do this by making the doctor the patient. It slowly begins to dawn on him just how truly terrible this relationship has become. It changes him. He becomes Dr. Welby.

How it really worked instead:

Well, you tell me. Notice any great changes [for the better] regarding how the medical industrial complex treats you?

Probably not. If anything, the world of “modern medicine” has become even more rationalized. Everything [eventually] getting reduced down to billing. And with the patients still [largely] just a means to that end.

And yet compared to some of the experiences I have had with doctors over the years [not counting the bills], Dr. MacKee here is a veritable fount of care and compassion.

Of course, when it comes down to The Big One – a malignant tumor here – everything gets divided up between you and the rest of the world. It would be nice to have a decent fucking doctor taking care of you. But we all know that eventually what really counts is just how bad it is.

The hospital is often the worst. All these folks going about the business of doing their thing as though you weren’t even there. Or as though in discussing your “condition” they might just as well be talking about the weather or a football game.

This movie is based on the real life story of Ed Rosenbaum, M.D. Dr. Rosenbaum wrote an autobiography entitled “A Taste of My Own Medicine: When the Doctor Becomes the Patient”. This book formed the basis for the movie.

He died in 2009. IMDB


The Doctor

Murray: What’s the difference between a lawyer and a catfish?
Jack: No idea.
Murray: One is a scum-sucking bottom dweller…and the other one’s a fish.

So, what’s the difference between a doctor and a catfish?

Eli: Sergio, this is Dr. MacKee. He’s an expert in heart and lungs. And I’d like him to check you out. There’s nothing to be nervous about.
Jack: Hi, Serge. How’s it hanging? I gotta tell ya, if you can hear me, I’d fire the anesthesiologist.
Eli: Dr. MacKee likes to joke. Doesn’t mean he’s not caring, that’s just his way. He’s a fine doctor.

Though not so fine as a patient.

Jack: That’s healed fine. Let’s just get those staples out.Patient [who has just had chest surgery]: Doctor, my husband…He’s a good man, and he…I think he’s a little nervous. Will the scar always be so…?
Jack: Tell your husband you look like a Playboy centerfold. You have the staple marks to prove it.

She doesn’t find this particularly amusing though.

Jack: There’s a danger in feeling too strongly about your patients. A danger in becoming too involved. Surgery is about judgment. To judge, you have to be detached.
Young resident: But isn’t it unnatural not to become involved with a patient?
Jack: There’s nothing natural about surgery. You’re cutting open someone’s body. Is that natural? One day you’ll have your hands around someone’s heart. And it’s beating. And you’ll think, “Uh-oh. I shouldn’t be here.”
Resident: Well, then all the more reason to care about what the patient feels.
Jack: The patient feels sick. A surgeon’s job is to cut. You’ve got one shot. You go in, you fix it and get out. Caring’s all about time. When you’ve got 30 seconds before some guy bleeds out…I’d rather you cut straight and cared less.

Theoretically, let's say.

Dr. Abbott: Doctor, you have a growth.
Jack: What?
Dr. Abbott: A tumor. Laryngeal. Here on the true vocal cord. We’re gonna need chest X-rays,
blood chemistry, blood count, UA, EKG…I’ll have to check with my secretary, but if it’s remotely possible, I’d like to do a biopsy tomorrow.

As though she were talking about the brakes on his car. Then she’s out the door.

Anne: What is it, Jack? What have they found? Have they found something?
Jack: Yep!
Anne: OK, so… we’ll beat it.
Jack: “We”?
Anne: Mm-hmm.
Jack: 'We" don’t have it, Anne! “We” don’t have it!!

Well, that's certainly true.

Jack: I have a biopsy tomorrow. It’s a laryngeal tumor.
Anne: Oh, God.
Jack: A doctor tells this man, “You have a growth.” The man says, “I demand a second opinion.” Doctor says, “OK…and…you’re ugly.”
Anne: Oh, sweetheart. Oh, baby…

It's really starting to sink in.

Ralph: Your first time under the knife? I bet you feel like you don’t know what’s going on? Am I right? Well, don’t worry. They don’t know, either. My doctor, the son of a bitch, half the time he’s lying to me. And I can tell. I’m a cop. What’s your line?
Jack: I’m a doctor.

Oh.

Dr. Reed: Dr. MacKee, my feeling - for what it’s worth - if we’re going to treat you, you’re going to meet the team here every day for the next six weeks.
Jack: And?
Dr. Reed: I don’t know what it’s like at the top of this building, but down here, we try to be civil.

Let's try that here.
Someday.

Jack [to Laurie]: Why don’t we from now on, in this hospital, we should drop “I’m sorry” from conversation, OK? Let’s just assume it begins every sentence. “I’m sorry, the doctor can’t see you today”, “I’m sorry you have to fill in another form”, “I’m sorry we gave you the wrong treatment.”
[he turns to June]: What do we think?
June: There’s not much point shouting at Laurie.
Jack: Excuse me?
June: She’s just doing her job. If you want to shout, go shout at a doctor.
Jack: I am a doctor.
June: Not when you’re sitting here.

Tell me about it.

Jack: How come you’re so calm?
June: Who?
Jack: You. You seem to be taking it so well.
June: No. I have a grade four brain tumor. It took my doctors three months to find it. I didn’t take that so well at all. Actually, they didn’t find it. I rear-ended a few cars, fell over, blacked out. Short of the tumor jumping out and singing, there was nothing else it could do to get recognized. See, now I’d call that negligence, wouldn’t you?
Jack: Well, that’s-that’s…it’s difficult to comment.
June: Oh, yeah. Doctors. It’s a club, isn’t it? I forgot.

Though they are constantly reminding us of it.

Jack: Well, this is quality time. Why couldn’t they send us the new IDs through the mail?!
June: Tell them you’re a big doctor. Cut in line.
Jack: Are you angry with me?
June: You lied to me.
Jack: What?
June: My tumor. I see it giving me certain freedoms I never allowed myself.
Jack: Yeah, like being incredibly hostile?
June: Like being honest and expecting people around me to do the same.
Jack: What did I lie about for Christ’s sake?
June: I’m dying. Please don’t waste my time.

Of course, we're all dying. But point taken.

Jack [to June]: You’re right. They should’ve found your tumor. Somebody screwed up. You should’ve had an MRI. But the system stinks. Insurance companies tell us what tests we can and cannot do. An MRI, which I know would have found your tumor…costs about $1,000. It’s appalling.

No, it's the medical industrial complex.

Jack [to resident]: If I ever hear you describe a patient as “terminal” again, that’s how you’ll describe your career.

He's coming around. And then some.

Jack: No. No, I don’t want you cutting me in the afternoon.
Dr. Abbott: Excuse me?
Jack: You’ll be tired in the afternoon, and ragged and hungry. You’ll have been on your feet for hours. Come on, we both know how it is.
Dr. Abbott: Excuse me. I am the doctor and you are my patient. And I am telling you when I am available.

Now that's more like it.

Dr. Abbott: I have a waiting room full of patients.
Jack: One fewer.
Dr. Abbott: What?
Jack: You have one fewer patient. I’m out.
Dr. Abbott: Look, Doctor, I know how you must be feeling.
Jack: That’s the problem. You don’t have the first idea what I’m feeling.
Dr. Abbott: I think we better continue this conversation some other time.
Jack: I think you ought to brush up your act, Dr. Abbott. Because today I’m sick. Tomorrow or the day after or 30 years from now, you’ll be sick. Every doctor becomes a patient somewhere down the line, and then…it’ll hit you as hard as it’s hit me.

Right.

Jack: You know, I’ve been pretty…No, very insulting about you in the past…which I’m ashamed of.
Eli: It’s all right. I’ve always wanted to slit your throat, and now I get a chance to.

How would you take that?

Jack [to June who has died]: It’s me. It’s Jack. And I came over last night and I made you so tired. I have my operation tomorrow. And selfish to the end, I was hoping you’d be there to help me through it. Oh, June…I’m…I’m really terrified. That’s the truth…which I got from you. The truth. Do you know, I don’t even know anything about you. Not really. I know you love life. And I know you can dance. I hope you always fly over my house…with your lovely long hair.

Not likely, I suspect.

Jack [to the residents]: Doctors…You have spent a lot of time learning the Latin names for diseases your patients might have. Now it’s time to learn…something simpler about them. Patients have their own names. Sarah. Alan. Jack. They feel frightened… embarrassed and vulnerable. And they feel sick. Most of all, they want to get better. Because of that they put their lives in our hands. I could try to explain what that means until I’m blue in the face. But, you know something, it wouldn’t mean a thing. It sure as hell never did to me. So, for the next 72 hours, you’ll each be allocated a particular disease. You’ll sleep in hospital beds, eat hospital food. You’ll be given all the appropriate tests. Tests you will one day prescribe. You are no longer…doctors. You are hospital patients.

See, that’s how this was supposed to have turned out. Doctors would watch the movie, see the errors of their ways, and the whole fucking system would be miraculously transformed. Instead, capitalism and the medical industrial complex continue to triumph. And not just all the way to the bank.

[iambiguous]

Hip young journalists at Seattle Magazine. They are all sitting in a conference room brainstorming. Trying to come up with some interesting ideas for articles. Jeff suggests they do one that revolves around a classified ad. And [really] this film exists because of it. This ad:

"WANTED – Someone to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. P.O. Box 91, Ocean View, WA 99393. You’ll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I have only done this once before."

But it was just a joke. The ad. But now it’s a movie. And you have to admit you don’t bump into movies like this everyday. In Hollywood, for example.

This guy is weird. But is he crazy? Oh yeah. But even if he is, does it matter?

Think about it: If you could go back in time, when and where would you go? And why? That’s where the story becomes more poignant. Darius aims to go back in order to stop something from happening that took away someone she loved. Her Mom. Something she blames herself for. Or that’s what she’d do if she could go back in time.

In the end though this is really just a love story with some really weird shit in it.

Ah, but then there are the Jeff and Arnau and Liz sub-plots. Why the fuck did they put that in here? Nothing strange, poignant or funny at all about them. In fact you might call them boring. Or you would if you were me.

The original classified ad upon which the film is based first appeared in Backwoods Home Magazine in 1997. It was written as last-minute filler by John Silveira, an employee of the magazine, who is credited in the film as “Time Travel Consultant” and also has a cameo. The ad was later featured on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (1992) in the “Headlines” segment, and eventually turned into an Internet meme before being developed into a screenplay. IMDb


Safety Not guaranteed

Darius [at job interview]: How far back do you want me to go? CoIIege? l was totally outgoing. A real people person. In high school I felt like that mouse that gets dropped in the snake cage and just sits there, frozen, trying to blend in. I guess I remember being happy when I was a kid. Back when you just naturally expect good things to happen. Before my mom died. Now l just expect the worst and try not to get my hopes up. Which is why l’m here. Does that answer the question?
Interviewer: UsuaIIy peopIe just say where they’re from and where they worked before.

Usually here?

Jeff: Can I get a couple of interns? Help me with some research?
Darius: I’ll do it.
Arnau: Me, too, please. Me.
Jeff: All right, give me the lesbian and the Indian and I got a story.

Who wouldn't?

Dad: You’re sad. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s Iike there’s a cIoud foIIowing you. You’re antisociaI, and you’re a virgin.
Darius: What?!
Dad: I don’t ever see you with any guys. I don’t remember the Iast time you brought a guy home.
Darius: Yeah, weII, how do you know I’m not on CraigsIist having casuaI encounters? Or when I was away at the dorms? You weren’t there.
Dad: I taIked to Amy.
Darius: Why are you taIking to my coIIege roommate?
Dad: We’re Facebook friends.
Darius: Oh, my God! How do I eject?!

Just out of curiosity, how do you eject?

Darius: What time would you go back to? If you could.
Arnau: I don’t know. I’m fine here.
Darius: I would definitely go back. Everything cool is gone. The Aztecs. People killing themselves for each other. You wouldn’t want to see the dragons and the elves, fighting each other in the magical forests? Come on!
Arnau: No.
[he puts his hand on her shoulder kindly]
Arnau: That wasn’t a time.
Darius: [Rolls her eyes]: Yeah. Right.

You mean Game of Thrones isn’t based on a true story?!

Kenneth [to Shannon at work]: I’II teII you about the cat in the box theory, it’II bIow your mind. It’s Iike I’m the onIy one who reaIIy gets it.You know? I started this diaIog with some big shot theoreticaI physicist onIine, and I’m Iike, “Do the ruIes of quantum mechanics aIIow for aIternate histories?” And he just bIasted me. You know, peopIe are just so convinced it’s a fixed thing, but they’re just, Iike, Iooking at this IittIe sIiver of time, that’s aII peopIe can see. It’s not a fixed thing, Shannon. You know, it’s on and off in both directions. It’s Iike a “V,” you know what I mean?

Nope. But that's just me.

Darius [to Jeff]: You’re dangIing my vagina out there Iike bait? What if this guy’s a murderer? What if he cuts me up into IittIe pieces and eats me?
Jeff: Then the story’s even better.

Any dangling vaginas here?

Jeff [to Darius]: If this guy’s taking you to some sex bunker, he’s gonna be freaked out when me and Arnau puII out of this thing Iike it’s a cIown car.

Clown sex?

Kenneth: We stiII have to discuss your reason for going back.
Darius: That’s cIassified information.
Kenneth: I can appreciate that, I respect that, but I have a certain responsibiIity to keep as the Ieader of this mission.
Darius: Then I have to teII you that it’s personaI.
Kenneth: Darius, sometimes I think we are progressing in this mission, and then other times, I’m not so sure.
Darius: I’m going back to stop my mother from dying when I was 14.
Kenneth: How’d she die?
Darius: She was kiIIed by some guy. Just some guy at a gas station took her and kiIIed her.
Kenneth: Oh, man. Just some random thing?
Darius: Yeah. WeII, no, actuaIIy. She was driving home. It was reaIIy Iate, and she caIIed me to teII me she was coming home, and I…I asked her to stop and get me chocoIate miIk. Because I had to have chocoIate miIk. So Iike five minutes Iater, she caIIed me to teII me that she got the chocoIate miIk and she was coming home. And her voice was, Iike, reaIIy excited, Iike she was reaIIy happy. And I was, Iike, okay, whatever. I wasn’t even nice. That was the Iast time I taIked to her.
Kenneth: That’s not your fauIt.
Darius: Yeah. That’s what they teII me.

That's how it works sometimes, You cause something to happen but it is beyond your control.

Darius [referring to Kenneth]: What makes you think there’s something wrong with him?
Jeff: Because he thinks he can go back in time.
Darius: Was there something wrong with Einstein or David Bowie?

You tell me.

Jeff: Hey, you know that girI your boyfriend was going back in time to save, BeIinda?
Darius: Yeah?
Jeff: WeII, she’s aIive and weII. Lives about an hour away.
Darius: How? What do you mean?
Jeff: Bridget caIIed and set up an interview. I think your IittIe boyfriend is seriousIy nuts.
Darius: Yeah, I know, he’s totaIIy nuts. He’s compIeteIy crazy.

Like that's a bad thing?

Darius: Can you show me the Iasers?
Kenneth: What’s wrong with your voice?
Darius: Where’s the time machine?
Kenneth: The time machine is at the Iaunch site.
Darius: Oh, right, it’s at the Iaunch site.
Kenneth: Darius. What are you doing?
Darius; I taIked to those guys who are foIIowing you. And they toId me that you stoIe those Iasers because you’re some kind of spy or something.
Kenneth: That’s perfect. Let them think that, it works in our favor. It’s better. SeriousIy.

Believe what you can here.

Darius: Kenneth, I’m sorry.
Kenneth: Were you making a joke of me the whoIe time?
Darius: No. I promise. I Iied about the story, but everything eIse was reaI, okay? That was reaIIy me.

So, is this really me?

Kenneth [to Darius]: Come with me. The mission’s been updated. I’m going back for you now. AII right. You trust me? Come on. Take my hand. I know what I’m doing, okay? FIip that switch. Do it. FIip it down. Are you ready? Go!

Going, going, gone.

Kenneth: To go it alone, or to go with a partner. When you choose a partner you have to have compromises and sacrifices, but it’s the price you pay. Do I want to follow my every whim and desire as I make my way through time and space? Absolutely. But at the end of the day, do I need someone when I’m doubting myself and I’m insecure, and my heart is failing me? Do I need someone who, when the heat gets hot, has my back.
Darius: So, do you?
Kenneth: I do.

See? Here and now [or there and then] it's actually a love story.

[iambiguous]

A film about this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Carroll

As a boy. He died in 2009.

A character that will fascinate some and repulse others. Or both fascinate and repulse a few of us at the same time. And it is often their use of dope that does this. Heroin in particular. In some circles, what is hipper than that?

As I recall, John Belushi was a fan. They had him on Saturday Night Live. Performing this: https://youtu.be/8AMWPO4Bup8?si=FL3ok-G4pzG81OiH

Back when SNL was actually worth watching. Back when the “music acts” were actually cutting edge.

Anyway, heroin. It clearly destroyed the lives of many very talented folks.

Then there is the part about being raised Catholic. Jim Carroll: the Catholic Boy: https://youtu.be/pdftnLhRCuQ?si=chi4MXmzIeNLMkws

Always at the wrong end of the paddle. So, why not the wrong end of the needle too. A hell of a lot less painful. Or so it seemed at the time. And, come on, who among us has not wanted at least to try it. Or, to paraphrase John Lennon, dope is a concept by which we measure our pain.

Look for the cast from The Sopranos.

After being nominated for an Oscar for Running on Empty (1988), MTV asked River Phoenix what he wanted to do next. He responded by pulling out a beat up paperback of “The Basketball Diaries” and stated “I wanted to play Jim Carroll.” Later, the Los Angeles Times declared, “River Phoenix may have wanted it too much.” Leonardo DiCaprio was a fan of Phoenix’s. IMDb


The Basketball Diaries

Jim [voiceover]: When I was young, about eight or so, I tried making friends with God by inviting Him to my house to watch the World Series. He never showed.

Imagine if he had?

Jim [voiceover]: There’s only two things Swifty forbids…using the word “motherfucker” and stealing from the other team…as long as they’re white.

Swifty sure loved his boys.

Bobby: They’re pumping so much junk in me, I can’t even get a decent chubby.
Jim: I got an idea…

It didn't work, as I recall.

Jim [voiceover]: I’ve known Bobby since I was 3. He’s my best friend. He was the best player on our basketball team. Two years ago, he got leukemia. He keeps fighting it off. I know Bobby’s going to beat it. He could beat anything.

No, in fact, he can’t.

Jim [back at the hospital]: Bobby, I’m…I’m really sorry. Next time we’ll go somewhere…
Bobby: There ain’t gonna be no next time, Jim.

Cue the heroin.

Jim [voiceover]: I love it this way…my feet against the tar, which is soft from the spring heat, the slight breeze that runs across your entire body, especially your crotch. You feel an incredible power being naked under a dome of stars while a giant city is dressed, dodging cars all around you five flights down. I don’t think of anything while I’m doing the actual tugging, least of all the heavy sex fantasies I have to resort to indoors. Just my own naked self and the stars breathing down, and it’s beautiful…Time sure flies when you’re young and jerking off.

Sex! Go fucking figure!!

Jim [voiceover]: Every crowd has its little games to prove if you’re a punk or not. My cousin in Jersey plays chickie, which is two cars heading towards each other at about 80 miles per hour. First driver to swerve out of the way is chicken. In Brooklyn, they make you press a lit cigarette into your arm and have it burn all the way down to the filter without the slightest flinch. Us Manhattan boys, we jump off cliffs into the Harlem River, which is literally shitty because half a million toilets flush into it every day.

The equivalent of chicken here? I forget if there is one.

Jim [looking down at Bobby in the casket]: I looked at his body, and it was death for the first time. His face was thin and wrinkled, almost apelike, his hair just gray patches on his scalp. He looked 60 years old, and he was 16…I felt dazed, like I’d just come out of a four-hour movie I didn’t understand. I kept thinking about his face…and death…and what a cheat the whole thing was.

Praise the Lord?

Friend: Jim, you all right? Huh? Listen, maybe you should talk to one of the priests. I don’t know. Maybe…Maybe they can help you out.
Jim: Help me out? I wouldn’t ask one of those cocksuckers for directions.

If you get his drift.

Jim [voiceover]: …did I ever tell you about the first time I did heroin? I went down to Pedro’s basement. All sorts of characters were in the storage-room shooting gallery. I was just going to sniff a bag, but a guy says, “If you’re going to sniff, might as well pop it, and if you’re going to pop it, might as well mainline.” I was scared of needles, but I gave in. It was like a long heat wave through my body. Any ache or pain or sadness or guilty feeling was completely flushed out.

Never tried it myself. To the best of my recollection.

Jim: First, it’s a Saturday-night thing, and you feel cool, like a gangster or a rock star. It’s just something to kill the boredom, you know? They call it a chippie, a small habit. It feels so good though you start doing it on Tuesdays, then Thursdays. Then it’s got you. Every wise-ass punk on the block says it won’t happen to them, but it does.

But then you’ve got to come up with ways to pay for it. That’s where the innocent civilians come in.

Jim [in Confession]: Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been about four months since my last confession.
Priest: Yes, my son?
Jim: Well, I don’t know where to start, Father.
Priest: Have you taken the name of Jesus Christ in vain?
Jim: Yeah. Yeah, I have.
Priest: Have you disrespected your mother and father?
Jim: Uh-huh.
Priest: Have you stolen or cheated your fellow man?
Jim: Yeah, but I’m not proud of it.
Priest: Have you had impure thoughts or engaged in impure deeds?
Jim: Oh, Father, you have no idea.
Priest: Is there something else that you want to tell me in your own words?
Jim: I’ve done all kinds of crazy shit. Oh, excuse me, Father. Fuck, I’m s…Christ, I have a dirty mouth. Look, I’m…I’m sorry about that. Can I just go on?
Priest: 10 Hail Marys, five Our Fathers.
Jim: What do you mean? That’s it? That’s my punishment?

Really, how ludicrous is that?

Jim [voiceover]: And you want to stop. You really do. But it’s like a dream. You can’t stop dreams. They move in crazy pieces, any way they want to, and suddenly, you’re capable of anything.

Well, while you're still around, anyway.

Jim [walks up to Swifty]: Don’t worry, Swifty, I won’t rat you out.

I knew it

Jim [voiceover]: We just got to raise enough cash to keep our heads straight. Luckily, finding money in New York is like getting laid at the prom…

Wow! I think.

Jim: How come my notebook’s all wet?
Reggie: Because you pissed on it.

Oh, yeah...

Diane [to Jim]: Who’s the whore now?

One jab at a time.

Jim: All I’ve been doing is reading this diary wondering how the hell I’m still alive?

I wonder about that myself. Every hour on the hour, it seems. 

Jim [to the camera]: Know this. There’s different types of users of junk. You got your rich dilettante square-ass who dabbles now and then and always has enough money to run off to the Riviera if he feels he’s fucking around to the danger point. Street junkies hate these pricks, but they’re always suckers, and their money makes them tolerable. Then you got your upper-middle-class Westchester preppies… same as the others, basically. What they’re good for is opening their mommy and daddy’s eyes to this social virus and putting pressure on the government to do something about it. Then there’s us street kids. Start fucking around very young. We think we all got it under control and won’t get strung out. This rarely works. I’m living proof. But in the end, you just got to see the junk as another 9-to-5 gig. The hours are just a bit more inclined to shadows.

Let's confirm this.

[iambiguous]

Political intrigue. In the modern world, we expect it. The name of the game is wealth and power. Governments can be and invariably are bought and sold all the time. And only the most hopelessly naive imagine that high school civics texts actually describe the real world.

But back in the days of emperors and kings – of royalty, of rule by Divine Right – there must have been a lot of folks who were knocked for a loop when they discovered that most of what unfolded up on the stage [or behind the curtain] was in fact just that: scripted bullshit for the masses. Here, incest, murder, regicide…you name it…seems to have been par for the course. Shades of Akira Kurosawa’s magnificent Ran.

For sure though: patriarchy prevails. While the Emperor is out waging war, the Empress seems to spend the bulk of her time embroidering Chrysanthemums. And this is one of those worlds where everyone knows their place and a world for which there is a place for everyone. Who am I? That does not come up all that often. But then, come on, people are people: human all too human.

But, then, what do I really know about it? A fictionalized account from China in 928 A.D?

If nothing else though this is a stunningly beautiful film to watch. The photography is nothing short of extraordinary. And I say this as someone watching it on a ten year old television with a built-in DVD player – anything but hi-def.

The largest set ever built for a movie in China.

The Dragon Robe and Phoenix Gown, worn by the Emperor and Empress during the festival, were handcrafted by 40 people who took over two months to create it.

Although sometimes not noticeable, each actor is dressed in 4-5 layers of clothing, sometimes 5-6 layers. Each layer is meticulously embroidered.

Some of the costumes weighed more than 40 kilos.

More than 1000 real soldiers were used in the final battle.  IMDb


Curse of the Golden Flower [Man Cheng Jin Dai Huang Jin Jia] 

Empress: So you are leaving. Are you afraid?
Prince Wan: You are my mother, Your Majesty.
Empress: We have been intimate for three years. You, of all people should know who I am.
Prince Wan: I am first and foremost my father’s son.
[the Empress grabs Wan, attempting to seduce him]
Prince Wan [recoils from the Empress]: Mother!
Empress: I am not your mother!

Gasp? Some will, some won't.

Emperor [to Prince Jai]: There are many things in Heaven and Earth, but you can only have what I choose to give you. What I do not give you, you must take by force.

At least he's blunt about it. Force being an option, in other words.

Doctor: This is a Persian black fungus. Do you know its properties? Two grams a day, taken over a few months will cause a person to lose all their mental faculty.
Chan [his daughter]: But the Empress…
Doctor: Don’t breathe a word or our entire clan will be executed.

Some things just never change.

Emperor [while placing ingredients on a scale]: This will cure your anemia.
Empress: I thank His Majesty for his concern.
Emperor: All good medicine tastes bitter. You have excess bile, poor digestion, Yin and Yang are out of balance. That is why you are so listless and lethargic, and capable of nothing but cutting remarks. These are all symptoms of anemia.
Empress: It has been more than ten years. My so-called sickness is clearly not improving with Your Majesty’s treatment.
Emperor [angrily throws scale to the ground]: If your father were not the King of Liang, I would scarcely be speaking to you with such restraint!

The way of the world, let's call it. Though not necessarily our world.

Emperor: It has been 25 years. I thought that I would never see you again. And you married the Imperial Doctor!
Jiang [slaps the Emperor]: At the time, you were only a lowly captain plotting day and night to become Emperor. You flattered the King of Liang into letting you marry his daughter. You planned meticulously to have my entire family put in prison. Later, I alone managed to escape. Far from home, I almost died. It was the Doctor who saved me. Who then, do you think I should have married?

The ways things are and the way we want them to be. That again. And again and again and again.

Prince Jai [upon discovering the Black Fungus plot]: Mother was taken ill yesterday. Was it because of this?
[the Empress nods her head]
Prince Jai: Why is Father doing this to you?
Empress: Jai, after the Chrysanthemum Festival, I shall tell you the whole truth. Each day, in front of your father, I have to feign ignorance. Every two hours, I swallow this poison without protest. Nobody knows what is happening. I shall die exactly as your father intends. A half-wit. But I refuse to submit without a fight. On the night of the Festival, I shall put an end to all this.
Prince Jai: Do my brothers know?
Empress: No.
Prince Jai: If I had not returned, would Mother have gone ahead?
Empress: Yes.
Prince Jai: Then why did you tell me?
Empress: Because I want you to be Emperor.
Prince Jai: Are you going to kill Father?
Empress: I shall force him to abdicate, but it is not my intention to kill him.
Prince Jai: Mother, a son cannot stand in rebellion against his father! Whatever the circumstances, he is still my father and my Emperor.

That’s how these things work: with some being considerably more cynical [meaning less ignorant] than others. Some know it is all just an act, a Machivelian game…while others take the whole thing very, very seriously. The deep state either prevails or is replaced by another one.

Prince Wan: Do you know why the Empress keeps embroidering chrysanthemums?
Chan: I hear they are for the festival. The eunuch in charge of weaving has made 10,000 flowers for her.
Prince Wan: ten thousand?!
Chan: Yes. Her Majesty had them all delivered to General Wu.
Prince Wan: Of the state Army?!
Chan: Yes.

Plots inside other plots inside more plots still.

Prince Jai: I always knew that this was not a battle I could win. Kill me or dismember me…you will do as you wish…but I need you to know, Father, that I did not rebel for the sake of the crown. I did it for the sake of my mother.

Believe something and that makes it true?  And all the rest is politics.

Emperor: What is the punishment for a prince in bebellion.
Official: Your Majesty, to be torn apart by five horses.
Emperor: Jai, Father is prepared to spare you…if you agree to one thing. From now on, every day, you will personally serve your mother’s medicine.

Next up: the people we spare here.

[iambiguous]

Absurdity

“I suppose I'm what they call a decadent, one whose spirit is outwardly defined by those sad glimmers of artificial eccentricity that incarnate an anxious and artful soul in unusual words. Yes, I think that's what I am, and that I'm absurd.” Fernando Pessoa

Me too. Whatever that means.

“From the sublime to the ridiculous there is but one step.” William Hazlitt

New thread?

“I cannot shut my eyes and plunge confidently into the absurd; that is for me an impossibility, but I do not praise myself for it. I am convinced that God is love; this thought has for me a primordial lyrical validity. When it is present to me I am unspeakably happy; when it is absent I long for it more intensely than the lover for the object of his love. But I do not believe; this courage I lack.” Søren Kierkegaard

You get this or you don't.

“The absurdity is that it doesn’t look like an absurdity. The absurdity is that you go out in the morning and find a bottle of milk on the doorstep and you are at peace because the same thing happened to you yesterday and will happen again tomorrow.” Julio Cortázar

You get this or you don't.

“The philosophic absurdity that often marks general beliefs has never been an obstacle to their triumph. Indeed the triumph of such beliefs would seem impossible unless on the condition that they offer some mysterious absurdity.” Gustave Le Bon

Let's run this by, well, you know.

“Laugh hard at the absurdly evil.” Jenny Holzer

Laugh hard at the absurdly good?

[iambiguous]

Hypnosis figures prominently in this film. And it prompts you to wonder: has it ever really been established yet the extent to which it is “real”?

On several occasions, folks tried to hypnotize me. But none were ever successful. Once, for example, my ex-wife’s uncle [a professional therapist] tried to do so in order to help me to control PTSD symptoms. And I really did everything I could to be hypnotized. But nothing.

And always the same bottom line: What can and cannot be accomplished through hypnosis? What can or cannot the hypnotist make the one under hypnosis do? And here the task gets rather…involved. Which is to say [no doubt] there is Hollywood hypnosis and real hypnosis. Hollywood hypnosis almost always involves that mysterious “post-hypnotic suggestion”.

Anyway, here the plot revolves in large part around this crook needing to remember where he hid a stolen painting. He had gotten knocked in the head during the heist and…forgot. So, it’s off to the hypnotist [the beautiful, waxed hypnotist] to try to recover his memory.

And then it all manages to be tied in [loosely] with how [through memory] we attain and then sustain an identity.

It’s an art heist. Which is to say it has almost nothing to do with art at all. Only about how much someone is willing to pay for any particular painting. As in millions and millions of dollars. Or in this case, pounds. It’s just another kind of “business” when you get right down to it.

Trust me though: the plot is convoluted and confusing. It is very easy to think you understand it when in fact you do not at all. What’s real and what’s not? And who is using whom? And for what end, exactly?

Or some [like me] will just shrug at how hopelessly implausible it all was but still somehow feel as though they were not actually cheated out of a couple of hours in their lives.

All the actors underwent hypnosis as part of their preparation for the film. James McAvoy claimed that his hypnotism session was successful and left him unable to move his hand during the duration of the session. IMDb


Trance

Simon [voiceover]: Lots of paintings have been stolen. They’re still missing. It used to be anyone could steal a painting. There was no need for a gun. All it took was a bit of muscle and some nerve. But not anymore. Those days are gone. A business can’t function by taking big hits like that. So now we have procedures…and precautions…and security measures. Now we have a policy. We have bag searches and magnetic alarms and silent scanners and X-ray machines and cameras. Also, we have drills. And the first thing they tell us is…“Do not be a hero”.

Simon is the “inside man”. 
Sort of.

Simon [voiceover]: What happens, of course, is that just as we up our game, the villains up theirs. They don’t just turn up on spec anymore. We have precautions, they have plans. They do research. They learn about our cameras and scanners and Ukrainian ex-naval commandos. But some things don’t change. It still takes muscle and it still takes nerve.

So, be advised.

Doctor: Well, his brain is intact on a gross level. On a smaller scale, who’s to say? What I’m saying is we don’t know. The memories may come back, they may not. All you can do is wait and see.
Franck: Isn’t there something you can do?
Doctor: For memory? Nothing. Except time.
Franck: Some sort of medicine?
Doctor: There’s no drug therapy for amnesia.
Franck: What about other sorts of therapy?

Uh, hypnosis?

Simon reads the card held up by Elizabeth: ARE YOU IN TROUBLE? ARE THEY LISTENING? HOW MANY?
[then she holds up a photograph of the missing painting]
Elizabeth [into the microphone taped to Simon]: I don’t wanna talk to Simon anymore. I wanna talk to the men who are listening. The men who hurt him.
Simon reads her next card: I WANT TO HELP YOU

After Elizabeth sits down with Franck at a restaurant to discuss Simon it begins to dawn on you that you might not really be “getting” this.

Elizabeth: Hypnotherapy will work.
Franck: But?
Elizabeth: Only if it’s a partnership.
Franck: Very well. The finder’s fee is 3%.
Elizabeth: It’s not enough.
Franck: See what I mean?
Elizabeth: It’s not about the money. I have to have equal status in the group…otherwise Simon won’t respect me. If you wanna make progress you really have to move beyond getting one over on people, Franck.

Come on, that's all they ever do.

Elizabeth: Hypnotherapy is a means of altering unwanted or dysfunctional behavior. The unwanted behavior in Simon’s case is forgetting.
Dominic: You mean he’s doing it deliberately?
Elizabeth: Not in the sense that you mean, Dominic. We keep secrets from lots of people, but most of all we keep them from ourselves – and that we call forgetting.

Forget about it?

Elizabeth: Sustained post hypnotic suggestion is more difficult.
Franck: More difficult, but you can do it, right?
Elizabeth: Not to everyone, of course. But, yes, 5% can be described as extremely suggestible.
Franck: Wow, 5%. Who’d have thought? And what can you make them do? Well, I’m just asking. I’m interested.
Elizabeth: All right. Well, let’s see, if you had the right person…if you get a hold of them, dig right in…if you get them under your spell…if you work hard…and take your time…and do it right…you can make them want to do…almost…anything.

Go ahead, try it on me here.

Elizabeth [to Simon]: What we are is the sum of everything we’ve ever said, done, felt…all wrapped up in one unique thread which is constantly being revised and remembered. So to be yourself you have to constantly remember yourself. It’s a full-time job but that’s how it works.

See, I told you.

Franck: You’ll fuck him just to get him to remember?
Elizabeth: It’s not conventional practice, but under the circumstances…

The circumstances? Right.

Elizabeth [to Franck]: He isn’t really receiving electric shocks. He only believes he is.

Click?

Simon: I would like to know what happened. It’s all inside my head, isn’t it? There’s something hidden inside me. What is it?
Elizabeth: It’s a memory.
Simon: Suppressed?
Elizabeth: Yeah. Simon…maybe there are some things it’s better never to remember.
Simon: I have free will though. Don’t I? Don’t I?!
Elizabeth: Yes.
Simon: All right, then. All right, then, let’s see if I do.

Click?

Simon [on phone]: Elizabeth?
Elizabeth: Yes?
Simon: I have something to tell you. Are you ready? I remember. I remember where I put it.

Who to believe? What to believe?

Simon: I know, Franck. I know what you were going to do to me.
Franck: She put that there, Simon. It’s not real.

And around and around we're spun?

Elizabeth: The memory is not destroyed, it is locked in a cage, and with enough force, enough violence, the lock can be broken. It comes back, the memory, not completely, not entirely, but enough to drive you, to make you feel you have been cheated, enough to make you angry.

Ask me about my own false memories...

Elizabeth [to Franck on video link]: The choice is yours. Do you want to remember or do you want to forget?

And the stakes here can be enormous.

[iambiguous]

Stupidity

“The biggest threat against the survival of humanity is not brutality and unkindness, it is stupidity and selfishness.” M.F. Moonzajer

Like they aren't more or less interchangeable?

“For at least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols” Aldous Huxley

Let's explain what that explains. And, alas, what it doesn't.

“It is only because of their stupidity that they are able to be so sure of themselves.” Franz Kafka

Tell us about it!
Right?

“I'm not stupid!" In Bean's experience, that was a sentence never uttered except to prove its own inaccuracy.” Orson Scott Card

Tell us about it!
Right?

“So this is where all the vapid talk about the 'soul' of the universe is actually headed. Once the hard-won principles of reason and science have been discredited, the world will not pass into the hands of credulous herbivores who keep crystals by their sides and swoon over the poems of Khalil Gibran. The 'vacuum' will be invaded instead by determined fundamentalists of every stripe who already know the truth by means of revelation and who actually seek real and serious power in the here and now. One thinks of the painstaking, cloud-dispelling labor of British scientists from Isaac Newton to Joseph Priestley to Charles Darwin to Ernest Rutherford to Alan Turing and Francis Crick, much of it built upon the shoulders of Galileo and Copernicus, only to see it casually slandered by a moral and intellectual weakling from the usurping House of Hanover. An awful embarrassment awaits the British if they do not declare for a republicased on verifiable laws and principles, both political and scientific.” Christopher Hitchens

Ever since Trump, though, feeling embarrassed [about anything] is now all but completely moot.

"Come on, gentleman; let us drink to our stupidity.” Santosh Kalwar

And now, of course, the ladies.

[iambiguous]

Sometimes philosophy and science get so entangled in a movie plot it is all but impossible to get the tangles out. This is especially true regarding science fiction. Here lots of stuff is purely fictional but it is based on speculation that is rooted in intelligent conjectures about what either will or will not be possible at some point “in the future”.

In this particular future a “red ball” technology has been created that allows crime fighters to bring the murder rate in Washington D.C. down to…zero. How? Through the creation of a “precrime” unit that is able to know in advance [from “precognitives”] when a murder will be committed and who the victims will be. Then it’s just a matter of the police getting to the intended victims in time.

Where this all gets particularly tricky though [at least for me] is in the relationship between a point of view that can know [down to the precise minute] what the future will be and the extent to which any of us can still be “free”. Human autonomy in a world where the future already exists and can be grasped? Trust me: It all gets really, really murky.

Agatha: “You can choose. You can choose.”

Oh, really? Can we? Apparently knowing the future is compatible with free will because once someone knows what his future is he can choose to change it. Or something like that.

Or the Precogs themselves. All the questions here that revolve around means and ends.

Or just imagine [which they do] the moral and legal implications of arresting [imprisoning] someone for something they have not really actually done yet. The “metaphysics” of it as it were.

And talk about preventive crime. Who in his right mind is going to commit premeditated murder when the crime can be spotted days in advance? Now it seems it is only “crimes of passion” to contend with.

In a sense the analogy here [in today’s world] are things like the NSA program. Literally “The Program”. Do we want to be free of the terrorists? Well, this is what we have to do. Will we have to trim back on our privacy rights…our freedoms? Sure…but it’s worth it. For example, to feel safe and secure. Besides, it only goes after the Bad Guys.

Look for tons of product placements. What would the future be without them?

The “PreCogs” were all named after famous mystery writers. Dashiell Hammett, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Agatha Christie.

At the police station, the officers talk about the metaphysical proof of precognition. Chief Anderton (Tom Cruise) rolls a red ball along a table to demonstrate the law of cause and effect to Det. Witwer (Colin Farrell). All of this is an allusion to the famous claim of philosopher David Hume, that by observing billiard balls you can actually demonstrate that cause and effect does not exist but is merely a habitually created fiction of the mind.

Steven Spielberg hired the top 12 contortionists from around the world to do the futuristic yoga class scene.

A “Minority Report” in real life is a legislative procedure whereby a minority of a committee (usually members from the minority party) offer an official alternative to a piece of legislation. Because of the way rules of decorum work out, minority reports are very rarely successful (as in this film).  IMDb


Minority Report

Danny: The Precogs can see a murder four days out. Why the late call?Fletcher: Crime of passion. No premeditation. That’s why they call it a Red Ball. They show up late. Most of our scrambles are flash events like this one. We rarely see anything with premeditation anymore.

Obviously.

John: Mr. Marks, by mandate of the District of Columbia Precrime Division, I’m placing you under arrest for the future murder of Sarah Marks and Donald Dubin that was to take place today, April 22 at 0800 hours and four minutes.

Imagine the appeal process here!

Pre-Crime Public Service Announcer: Imagine, a world without, murder. 6 years ago, the homicidal rates had reached epidemic proportions. It seemed that only a miracle could stop the blood shed, but instead of 1 miracle, we were given 3, the precognitives. Within just one month of the precrime program, the homicidal rates in the District of Columbia had reduced 90 percent.

Well, in Hollywood, anyway.

Burgess: 6 Years in the precrime program, and there hasn’t been a single murder.
Pre-Crime Public Service Announcer: Now, the system can work for you.
Attorney General Nash: We want to make sure that this great system is what will keep us safe...and will also keep us free.
Pre-Crime Public Service Announcer: On Tuesday April 22nd, vote yes on the national Precrime initiative.

Next up: precrimes here.

Danny: I’m sure you’ve all grasped the legalistic drawback to precrime methodology.
Knott: Here we go again…
Danny: Look, I’m not with the ACLU on this Jeff. But let’s not kid ourselves, we are arresting individuals who’ve broken no law.
Jad: But they will.
Fletcher: The commission of the crime itself is absolute metaphysics. The Precogs see the future. And they’re never wrong.
Danny: But it’s not the future if you stop it. Isn’t that a fundamental paradox?
John: Yes, it is.

Click?

John: Why’d you catch that red ball?
Danny: Because it was going to fall.
John: You’re certain?
Danny: Yeah.
John: But it didn’t fall. You caught it. The fact that you prevented it from happening doesn’t change the fact that it was going to happen.

Okay, but ontologically?

Danny: Why can’t the Precogs see rapes, or assaults… or suicides?
Fletcher: Because of the nature of murder. “There’s nothing more destructive to the metaphysical fabric that binds us than the untimely murder of one human being by another”.

On the other hand, come on, why can’t the Precogs see rapes, or assaults…or suicides?

Danny: Science has stolen most of our miracles. In a way the Precogs give us hope… hope of the existence of the divine. I find it interesting that some people have begun to deify the precogs.John: The precogs are pattern recognition filters, nothing more.

Go to Hell!

John: Why don’t you cut the cute act, Danny boy, and tell me what it is you’re looking for?
Danny: Flaws.
John: There hasn’t been a murder in six years. There’s nothing wrong with this system it is… perfect.
Danny: Perfect I agree, but if there’s a flaw. It’s human. It always is.

What, even virtually?

Burgess [to John]: My father once told me, “We don’t choose the things we believe in; they choose us.”

Click. 

John: You set me up.
Danny: It seems I found a flaw.

Any flaws to be found here?

Burgess: Who’s the victim?
John: Somebody.
Burgess: Who?
John [trying to remember the name]: Somebody. Leo Crow.
Burgess: Who is he?
John: I have no idea! I’ve never heard of him! But I’m supposed to kill him in less than thirty-six hours.

A flaw, perhaps?

Fletcher: John, don’t run.
John: You don’t have to chase me.
Fletcher: You don’t have to run.
John: Everybody runs, Fletch, everybody runs.

Let's run this by Arnold.

John: You invented precrime.
[Iris chuckles bitterly]
John: What’s so funny?
Iris: If the unintended consequences of a series of genetic mistakes and science gone haywire can be called invention, then yes, I invented precrime.
John: You don’t seem all that proud.
Iris: I’m not. I was trying to heal them, not turn them into…something else.
John: Heal who?
Iris: The innocents we now use to stop the guilty.
John: You’re talking about the precogs…
Iris: You think the three in the tank come from a test tube? They’re merely the ones who survived.

Spooky!

John: I’m not a murderer. I’ve never even met the man I’m supposed to kill.
Iris: And, yet, a chain of events has started. A chain that will lead inexorably to his death.
John: Not if I stay away from him.
Iris: How can you avoid a man you’ve never met?

Has he ever met you?

Iris [to John]: The Precogs are never wrong. But, occasionally…they do disagree.
John: What?
Iris: Most of the time, all three Precognitives will see an event in the same way. But once in a while, one of them will see things differently than the other two.
John: Jesus Christ – why didn’t I know about this?
Iris: Because these Minority Reports are destroyed the instant they occur.
John: Why?
Iris: Obviously, for Precrime to function, there can’t be any suggestion of fallibility. After all, what good is a Justice system that instills doubt? It may be reasonable, but it’s still doubt.
John: You’re saying that I’ve halo’d innocent people?
Iris: I’m saying that every so often those accused of a precrime might, just might, have an alternate future

And that's before Judgment Day, right?

Iris: It’s funny how all living organisms are alike…
[she starts crushing a mutated plant]
Iris: …when the chips are down, when the pressure is on, every creature on the face of the Earth is interested in one thing and one thing only…
[the plant scars her palm]
Iris: …its own survival.

Uh, what suicides?

Wally: You’re not allowed in here - who are you? Do I know you?
John [in disguise, grabs Wally by the collar]: Listen, Wally - I like you. So, I don’t wanna have to kick you or hit you with anything hard, but only if you promise to help me.
Wally: …Oh, hi, John.

Some disguise.

Agatha [repeated line]: Can you see?

Yes, but not around corners into the future.

Agatha: Is this now?
John: Yes, this is all happening right now.

Well, back then it was.

Rufus [to Agatha]: Are you reading my mind right now?
John: Get up.
Rufus [to Agatha]: I’m sorry for whatever I’m going to do and I swear I didn’t do any of that stuff I did. And those thoughts about my cousin Elena, those were just thoughts!

More flaws, let's say.

Rufus: I tell you what. I do this, I get to keep whatever images I get from her head.
John: They don’t belong to anybody.
Rufus [turning to go): Then take her to Radio Shack.

Radio Shack. Now that takes me back. 

John [to Agatha]: Where’s my Minority Report?

Want to read mine?

Agatha: You have a choice. Walk away. Right now.
John: I can’t. I have to know.
Agatha: Please…
John: I have to find out what happened to my life.

But then the next thing you know, it's over.

John [to Agatha…but mostly to himself]: Every day for the last six years I’ve thought about only two things. The first was what my son would look like if he were alive today. If I would even recognize him if I saw him on the street. The second was what I would do to the man who took him. You were right. I’m not being set up.
Agatha: You have to take me home…
John: You said so yourself. There is no Minority Report. I don’t have an alternative future. I am going to kill this man.

Let's run that by...the majority?

Crow: You’re not gonna kill me?
John: No.
Crow: But you have to. They said you would. If you don’t kill me, my family gets nothing! You’re supposed to kill me. He said you would.
John: Who said I would?

More to the point, why?

Burgess: All right. Tell you what I’ll do. First thing Monday, I’ll look over the Witwer evidence and I’ll have Gideon run the Containment files, see if anyone drowned a woman named – what did you say her name was?
Lara [after a pause]: Anne Lively… But I never said she drowned.

Another flaw!

Lara [in the containment ward, putting a gun to Gideon’s head]: I’d like a word with my husband.
Gideon: You’re not authorized. How did you get in here?
[she shows him]

Flaws R Us?

John: No doubt the precogs have already seen this.
Burgess: No doubt.
John: You see the dilemma don’t you. If you don’t kill me, precogs were wrong and precrime is over. If you do kill me, you go away, but it proves the system works. The precogs were right. So, what are you going to do now? What’s it worth? Just one more murder? You’ll rot in hell with a halo, but people will still believe in precrime. All you have to do is kill me like they said you would. Except you know your own future, which means you can change it if you want to. You still have a choice Lamar. Like I did.

Just keep on clicking.

John [voiceover]: In 2054, the six-year Precrime experiment was abandoned. All prisoners were unconditionally pardoned and released, though police departments kept watch on many of them for years to come. Agatha and the twins were transferred to an undisclosed location, a place where they could find relief from their gifts. A place where they could live out their lives in peace.

Of course the murder rate was about to soar again.

[iambiguous]

Sex

“Everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power.” Oscar Wilde

Like it can't possibly be about both.

“It's not true that I had nothing on. I had the radio on.” Marilyn Monroe

I knew it!

"I don't know the question, but sex is definitely the answer.” Woody Allen

If only between consenting adults.

“If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library.” Frank Zappa.

While they're still around.

“Good sex is like good bridge. If you don't have a good partner, you'd better have a good hand.” Mae West

I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours.

“Sex without love is as hollow and ridiculous as love without sex.” Hunter S. Thompson

And, no, not just in Las Vegas. Or, perhaps, especially not there.

[iambiguous]

It may not be necessary that you were/are a member of the armed forces in order to grasp the narratives being conveyed in this film. On the other hand, maybe it is. I was in the Army back in the early 70s. The film focuses on the Navy during the Second World War. But in some respects,the military is still the military is still the military. And everything in the military revolves around the sacrosanct “chain of command”. And every soldier embedded in the “enlisted ranks” knows just how crucial it can be when you are assigned to a unit in which the officers are hardcore. Especially the commanding officer.

Here, the experience of the enlisted men is especially grueling because the CO [and the officers] before Queeg could not possibly have been less hardcore. When that happens, the transition can be nothing short of infuriating. Or can be if you are not particularly gung-ho yourself.

Ah, but what if the CO is not only a hardcore, spit and polish lifer but also…crazy? Can’t say as I ever had that experience. On the other hand, my CO at the Song Be MACV [Lt. Colonel Hayden] surely came close. On the other hand, he did put me in for the Bronze Star. 

Anyway, the Caine mutiny is basically a fascinating examination into the military mentality embodied in an individual who is starting to come apart at the seams. Mentally. And of the reactions of those around him. Men who are sounder mentally but maybe not so much…morally? Which is just to point out the obvious: that psychologically sound folks can still be assholes.

This film more or less shifts back and forth between what we [the audience] know the reality to be given what we are shown up on the screen and how the individual characters in the film [not privy to this] might just as easily insist it all comes down to a judgment call. One based solely on what they do know. And how that can be effected by their own personalities and prejudices.

A word of advice: The parts about May and Mother? You might want to fast forward them. Why the fuck they were put in the movie at all is simply bewildering. Queeg and Keefer and Greenwald are the movie.


There was considerable opposition to the casting of Humphrey Bogart, since he was much older than Captain Queeg was supposed to be. In addition, Bogart was already seriously ill with esophageal cancer, although it would not be diagnosed until January 1956.

Humphrey Bogart’s tour-de-force performance in the climactic courtroom scene was so powerful that it completely captivated the onlooking film technicians and crewmen. After the scene’s completion, the company gave Bogart a round of thunderous applause.

Lee Marvin, who served in the United States Marine Corps and knew a great deal about ships at sea, served double duty by also lending his expertise on military matters.

This movie’s opening prologue states: “There has never been a mutiny in a ship of the United States Navy. The truths of this film lie not in its incidents but in the way a few men meet the crisis of their lives.”  IMDb


The Caine Mutiny

DeVriess: She’s not a battleship or a carrier; the Caine is a beaten-up tub. After 18 months of combat it takes 24 hours a day just to keep her in one piece.
Keith: I understand sir.
DeVriess: I don’t think you do. But whether you like it or not, Keith, you’re in the junkyard navy. And Keith … Don’t take it so hard. War is hell.

Well, some parts of it, for sure.

Keefer [to Ensign Keith while giving him a tour of the Caine]: The USS Caine is a minesweeper. These paravanes carry sweep wires off both sides of the ship. The wire saws the mine in two. We’ve been in combat a year and a half, and we’ve never swept a mine. So the first thing you’ve got to learn about this ship is that she was designed by geniuses to be run by idiots.

Though reasonably sane  idiots.

Lt. Keefer [to Keith]: This is the engine room; to operate, all you need is any group of well-trained monkeys. 99 percent of everything we do is strict routine. Only one percent requires any creative intelligence.

Tell me about it. Just not here and now.

Keith: Sir, you don’t like the Navy, do you?
Keefer: Who called the Caine the Navy?

Who called Keefer a feckless fink?

Keith: Sir, I spotted a Japanese aircraft off the starboard bow. Angle 20. See him?
DeVriess: Keith, if you stay in the Navy ten years, you may learn to tell the difference between an aircraft and a flock of seagulls.

Cue Lt. Commander Philip Francis Queeg…

Queeg [introducing himself to the officers]: I’m a book man. I believe everything in it was put in for a purpose. On this ship, we do things by the book. Deviate from the book and you better have half a dozen good arguments…and you’ll still get an argument from me. I don’t lose arguments on my ship. That’s why it’s nice to be captain. Remember, on board my ship excellent performance is standard, standard performance is sub-standard and sub-standard performance is not permitted to exist…Now that I’ve shot my face off, I’ll give you the chance to do the same.
Maryk: Captain, I don’t want to seem out of line but it’s been a long time since this crew did things by the book.
Queeg: Mr. Maryk, there are four ways of doing things on board my ship: The right way, the wrong way, the Navy way and my way. Do it my way and we’ll get along.

Then he brings out the steel balls...

Queeg: Anyone notice anything peculiar about Seaman First Class Urban? A shirt-tail hanging out of trousers is, I believe, regulation uniform for a bus boy, not, however, for a sailor in the United States Navy. These are some of the things we’re going to start noticing again. Mr. Maryk, who is the morale officer?
Maryk: We don’t have one, sir.
Queeg: Who, then, is the Junior Ensign?
Maryk: Keith, sir.
Queeg: Mr. Keith, you are now appointed the morale officer. In addition to your other duties, you are to see that shirttails are tucked inside trousers.
Keith: Aye, aye, sir.
Queeg: If I see one more shirttail flapping while I’m captain of this ship - woe betide the sailor; woe betide the OOD; and woe betide the morale officer. I kid you not.

Just out of curiosity, who is the morale officer here?

Keith [of Queeg]: Well, he’s certainly Navy.
Keefer: Yeah…so was Captain Bligh.

Keith will come around...just as Keefer implodes.

Keith [of Queeg]: You made a mistake, Tom. He’s still here.
Keefer: My mistake was nothing compared to the Navy’s.

To wit...

Keefer [of “Old Yellowstain”]: What do you think of your boy now?
Keith: I don’t know. There must be a reason for this.
Keefer: Yeah. There’s a reason, all right.

Cue the balls, as I recall

Keefer: Has it ever occurred to you that our captain might be unbalanced? I’m no psychiatrist, but I know about abnormal behaviour. Captain Queeg has every symptom of acute paranoia. It’s just a question of time before he goes over the line. He’ll snap any day.
Maryk: Step outside Keith.
Keith: I’d like to stay.
Keefer: Let him. He studied psychology.
Maryk: You’re fooling with dynamite, Tom.
Keefer: Will you look at the man? He’s a Freudian delight; he crawls with clues! His fixation on the little rolling balls…the chartering of second hand phrases and slogans…his inability to look you in the eye…the constant migraine headaches…shirtails and tonight’s pathetic speech. “Forget about turning yellow, my dog likes me”.

We played with dynamite ourselves. And I'll leave it at that.

Maryk [writing in his log book]: “Medical log on Lieutenant Commander. The possibility appears to exist that the commander of this ship may be mentally disturbed.”

Catch 22?

Whittaker: Mr. Maryk, Mr. Keith. The captain wants a meeting with all officers, right away.
Maryk: Now? At one o’clock in the morning?
Whittaker: Yes, sir.
Maryk: Do you know what it’s about?
Whittaker: Yes, sir - strawberries.

The great strawberry caper!

Keefer: Steve, are you familiar with Article 184 of Navy regulations?
Maryk: Vaguely.
Keefer: Listen to this. On the Caine it ought to be required reading. Article 184 : “Unusual circumstances may arise - - in which the relief from duty of a commanding officer is necessary. Such action shall be subject to the approval of the Navy Department, except when it is impracticable because of the delay involved.” If I were you, Steve, I’d memorise it.

Next up: unusual circumstances here.

Greenwald [to Maryk]: I don’t want to upset you too much, but at the moment you have an excellent chance of being hanged.

And he's defending them!

Greenwald [at the court martial]: Doctor. You have testified that the following symptoms exist in Lieutenant-Commander Queeg’s behavior. Rigidity of personality, feelings of persecution, unreasonable suspicion, a mania for perfection, and a neurotic certainty that he is always in the right. Doctor isn’t there one psychiatric term for this illness?

Whacko.

Captain Blakely: Mr. Greenwald, there can be no more serious charge against an officer than cowardice under fire.
Greenwald: Sir, may I make one thing clear? It is not the defense’s contention that Lieutenant Commander Queeg is a coward. Quite the contrary. The defense assumes that no man who rises to command a United States naval ship can possibly be a coward and that, therefore, if he commits questionable acts under fire, the explanation must be elsewhere.

Trust me: not always.

Queeg: Ahh, but the strawberries that’s…that’s where I had them. They laughed at me and made jokes but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt and with…geometric logic…that a duplicate key to the wardroom icebox DID exist, and I’d have produced that key if they hadn’t of pulled the Caine out of action. I, I, I know now they were only trying to protect some fellow officers…

Out come the little steel balls…

Keefer: Steve.
Maryk: Hello, Tom. I didn’t think you’d have the guts to show up.
Keefer: I didn’t have the guts not to.

Cue Greenwald...

Greenwald staggers drunk into the Caine crew’s party]
Greenwald: Well, well, well! The officers of the Caine in happy celebration!
Maryk: What are you, Barney, kind of tight?
Greenwald: Sure. I got a guilty conscience. I defended you, Steve, because I found the wrong man was on trial. So, I torpedoed Queeg for you. I had to torpedo him. And I feel sick about it.
Maryk: Okay, Barney, take it easy.
Greenwald: You know something…When I was studying law, and Mr. Keefer here was writing his stories, and you, Willie, were tearing up the playing fields of dear old Princeton, who was standing guard over this fat, dumb, happy country of ours, eh? Not us. Oh, no, we knew you couldn’t make any money in the service. So who did the dirty work for us? Queeg did! And a lot of other guys. Tough, sharp guys who didn’t crack up like Queeg.
Keith: But no matter what, Captain Queeg endangered the ship and the lives of the men.
Greenwald: He didn’t endanger anybody’s life, you did, all of you! You’re a fine bunch of officers.
Paynter: You said yourself he cracked.
Greenwald: I’m glad you brought that up, Mr. Paynter, because that’s a very pretty point. You know, I left out one detail in the court martial. It wouldn’t have helped our case any.
[to Maryk]
Greenwald: Tell me, Steve, after the Yellowstain business, Queeg came to you guys for help and you turned him down, didn’t you?
Maryk [hesitant]: Yes, we did.
Greenwald: You didn’t approve of his conduct as an officer. He wasn’t worthy of your loyalty. So you turned on him. You ragged him. You made up songs about him. If you’d given Queeg the loyalty he needed, do you suppose the whole issue would have come up in the typhoon? You’re an honest man, Steve, I’m asking you. You think it would’ve been necessary for you to take over?
Maryk: It probably wouldn’t have been necessary.
Greenwald [muttering]: Yeah.
Keith: If that’s true, then we were guilty.
Greenwald: Ah, you’re learning, Willie! You’re learning that you don’t work with a captain because you like the way he parts his hair. You work with him because he’s got the job or you’re no good! Well, the case is over. You’re all safe. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.
[long pause; strides toward Keefer]
Greenwald: And now we come to the man who should’ve stood trial. The Caine’s favorite author. The Shakespeare whose testimony nearly sunk us all. Tell 'em, Keefer!
Keefer [stiff and overcome with guilt]: No, you go ahead. You’re telling it better.
Greenwald: You ought to read his testimony. He never even heard of Captain Queeg!
Maryk: Let’s forget it, Barney!
Greenwald: Queeg was sick, he couldn’t help himself. But you, you’re real healthy. Only you didn’t have one tenth the guts that he had.
Keefer: Except I never fooled myself, Mr. Greenwald.
Greenwald: I’m gonna drink a toast to you, Mr. Keefer.
[pours wine in a glass]
Greenwald: From the beginning you hated the Navy. And then you thought up this whole idea. And you managed to keep your skirts nice, and starched, and clean, even in the court martial. Steve Maryk will always be remembered as a mutineer. But you, you’ll publish your novel, you’ll make a million bucks, you’ll marry a big movie star, and for the rest of your life you’ll live with your conscience, if you have any. Now here’s to the real author of “The Caine Mutiny.” Here’s to you, Mr. Keefer.
[tosses the wine in Keefer’s face]
Greenwald: If you wanna do anything about it, I’ll be outside. I’m a lot drunker than you are, so it’ll be a fair fight.

Fair enough. Well, not counting the part that is bullshit.

[iambiguous]

Yep: Still more “love and human remains”.

Now, in some ways, what happened “back then” is considerably less likely to happen now. For example, in the interim there was the feminist movement. A whole new way to think about gender and power.

And yet in other ways [one way or another] crap like this will always be a part of what goes on when, well, “boy meets girl” in the big city.

For example, sex is almost always there to muck things up. Only back then – “the 50s” – the rules were made [and then enforced] almost entirely by men. The “girls” were mostly secretaries. Or shuttled the elevators up and down. And married men were always on the prowl for them. Especially those in positions of power. Upper management. The company executives.

Only “back then” they often needed someplace “private” to take them. And that’s where “the apartment” comes in. C.C. Baxter’s apartment in particular.

Basically, the denouement here is just the way some folks – romantics – want the world to be. A world where true love really is possible amidst all the appalling phonies. And the even more appalling “players”. A world that isn’t hopelessly plastic and revolving almost entirely around dollar bills. And they just know that C.C. and Fran will live happily ever after. In other words, with each other. Why? Because they can, after all, just watch the film over and over and over again.


The Apartment

Baxter [voiceover]: On November 1st, 1959, the population of New York City was 8,042,783. If you laid all these people end to end, figuring an average height of five feet six and a half inches, they would reach from Times Square to the outskirts of Karachi, Pakistan. I know facts like this because I work for an insurance company - Consolidated Life of New York. We’re one of the top five companies in the country. Our home office has 31,259 employees, which is more than the entire population of uhh… Natchez, Mississippi. I work on the 19th floor. Ordinary Policy Department, Premium Accounting Division, Section W, desk number 861.My name is C.C. Baxter - C. for Calvin, C. for Clifford – however, most people call me Bud. I’ve been with Consolidated Life for three years and ten months. I started in the branch office in Cincinnati, then transferred to New York. My take-home pay is $94.70 a week, and there are the usual fringe benefits. The hours in our department are 8:50 to 5:20 – they’re staggered by floors, so that sixteen elevators can handle the 31,259 employees without a serious traffic jam. As for myself, I very often stay on at the office and work for an extra hour or two – especially when the weather is bad. It’s not that I’m overly ambitious – it’s just a way of killing time, until it’s all right for me to go home. You see, I have this little problem with my apartment…

And getting bigger by the day.

Kirkeby: Why do all you dames have to live in the Bronx?Sylvia: You mean you bring other girls up here?Kirkeby: Certainly not. I’m a happily married man.

Just ask his wife.

Dr. Dreyfuss: You must be an iron man all around. From what I hear through the walls, you got something going for you every night.
Baxter: I’m sorry if it gets noisy –
Dr. Dreyfuss: Sometimes, there’s a twi-night double-header. A nebbish like you!
Baxter: Yeah. Well – see you, Doc.
Dr. Dreyfuss: You know, Baxter – I’m doing some research at the Columbia Medical Center – and I wonder if you could do us a favor? When you make out your will – and the way you’re going, you should – would you mind leaving your body to the University?

He doesn't know the half of it.

Sheldrake: Tell me, Baxter – just what is it that makes you so popular?
Baxter: I don’t know.
Sheldrake: Think.
Baxter: Would you mind repeating the question?
Sheldrake: Look, Baxter, I’m not stupid. I know everything that goes on in this building – in every department – on every floor – every day of the year. In 1957, we had an employee here, name of Fowler. He was very popular, too. Turned out he was running a bookie joint right in the Actuarial Department tying up the switchboard, figuring the odds on our I.B.M. machines – so the day before the Kentucky Derby, I called in the Vice Squad and we raided the thirteenth floor.
Baxter: What – what’s that got to do with me? I’m not running any bookie joint.
Sheldrake: What kind of joint are you running?
Baxter: Sir?
Sheldrake: There’s a certain key floating around the office – from Kirkeby to Vanderhof to Eichelberger to Dobisch – it’s the key to a certain apartment – and you know who that apartment belongs to?
Baxter: Who?
Sheldrake: Loyal, cooperative, resourceful C. C. Baxter.

Let's run this by Keefer and Greenwald. And, sure, why not...the three sons.

Sheldrake: Where is your apartment?
Baxter: West 67th Street. You have no idea what I’ve been going through – with the neighbors and the landlady and the liquor and the key…
Sheldrake: How do you work it with the key?
Baxter: Well, usually I slip it to them in the office and they leave it under the mat…but never again. I can promise you that.

Not so fast C.C.!

Sheldrake: I’m not just giving you those tickets, Baxter – I want to swap them.
Baxter: Swap them? For what? 
[Sheldrake picks up the Dobisch reports, puts on his glasses]
Sheldrake [looking at the report]: It also says here that you are alert, astute, and quite imaginative
Baxter: Oh?
(then he dawns on him…he reaches into his coat pocket and fishes out the key to his apartment…he holds it up]
Baxter: This?
Sheldrake: That’s good thinking, Baxter. Next month there’s going to be a shift in personnel around here – and as far as I’m concerned, you’re executive material.

If you get his drift. Or, if not, I can explain it to you.

Sheldrake: Now remember, Baxter, this is going to be our little secret.
Baxter: Yes, of course.
Sheldrake: You know how people talk. Not that I have anything to hide.
Baxter: Oh, no sir. Certainly not. Anyway, it’s none of my business – four rotten apples, five rotten apples…what’s the difference…percentage-wise?

Same here? Though not just percentage wise.

Fran: Look, Jeff – we had two wonderful months this summer – and that was it. Happens all the time – the wife and kids go away to the country, and the boss has a fling with the secretary or the manicurist – or the elevator girl. Comes September, the picnic is over – goodbye. The kids go back to school, the boss goes back to the wife, and the girl –
Sheldrake: I never said goodbye, Fran.
Fran [more to herself]: For a while there, you try kidding yourself that you’re going with an unmarried man. Then one day he keeps looking at his watch, and asks you if there’s any lipstick showing, then rushes off to catch the seven-fourteen to White Plains. So you fix yourself a cup of instant coffee – and you sit there by yourself – and you think – and it all begins to look so ugly…

This is the part that doesn’t quite fit for me. Sheldrake is clearly a slimeball. It’s almost impossible to imagine her actually falling in love with him.

Sheldrake: You see a girl a couple of times a week – just for laughs – and right away she thinks you’re going to divorce your wife. I ask you – is that fair?
Baxter: No, sir. That’s very unfair – especially to your wife.

What's she got to do with anything?

Miss Olsen: Hi. How’s the branch manager from Kansas City?
Fran: I beg your pardon?
Miss Olsen: I’m Miss Olsen – Mr. Sheldrake’s secretary. So you don’t have to play innocent with me. He used to tell his wife that I was the branch manager from Seattle – four years ago when we were having a little ring-a-ding-ding. And before me there was Miss Rossi in Auditing – and after me there was Miss Koch in Disability – and just before you there was Miss What’s-Her-Name, on the twenty- fifth floor –
Fran (wanting to get away): Will you excuse me?
Miss Olsen (holding her by the arm): What for? You haven’t done anything – it’s him – what a salesman – always the last booth in the Chinese restaurant – and the same pitch about divorcing his wife – and in the end you wind up with egg foo yong on your face.

Cue the cracked mirror?

Baxter: The mirror…it’s broken.
Fran: Yes, I know. I like it that way. Makes me look the way I feel.

You know, for now.

Margie: Night like this, it sorta spooks you, walking into an empty apartment.
Baxter: I said I had no family; I didn’t say I had an empty apartment.

Let's run this by...Castro?

Fran: Funny thing happened to me at the office party today – I ran into your secretary – Miss Olsen. You know – ring-a-ding-ding? I laughed so much I like to died.
Sheldrake: Is that what’s been bothering you – Miss Olsen? That’s ancient history.
Fran: I was never very good at history. Let me see – there was Miss Olsen, and then there was Miss Rossi – no, she came before – it was Miss Koch who came after Miss Olsen – And just think – right now there’s some lucky girl in the building who’s going to come after me –
Sheldrake: Okay, okay, Fran. I deserve that. But just ask yourself – why does a man run around with a lot of girls? Because he’s unhappy at home – because he’s lonely, that’s why – all that was before you, Fran – I’ve stopped running.
Fran: How could I be so stupid? You’d think I would have learned by now – when you’re in love with a married man, you shouldn’t wear mascara.

Yep, she still falls for it.

Shedrake [to Fran]: I have a present for you. I didn’t quite know what to get you – anyway it’s a little awkward for me, shopping…
(he takes out a money clip and detaches a bill)
Sheldrake: Here’s a hundred bucks, Fran. Go buy yourself something nice.

A new mirror?

Dr. Dreyfuss: I don’t know what you did to that girl in there - and don’t tell me - but it was bound to happen, the way you carry on. Live now, pay later. Diner’s Club! Why don’t you grow up, Baxter? Be a mensch! You know what that means?
Baxter: I’m not sure.
Dr. Dreyfuss: A mensch - a human being!

"A person of integrity and honor." 

Baxter: Who are you calling, Miss Kubelik?
Fran: My sister – she’ll want to know what happened to me.
Baxter (alarmed): Wait a minute – let’s talk this over first. Just what are you going to tell her? Fran: Well, I haven’t figured it out, exactly.
Baxter: You better figure it out – exactly. Suppose she asks you why you didn’t come home last night?
Fran: I’ll tell her I spent the night with a friend.
Baxter: Who?
Fran: Someone from the office.
Baxter: And where are you now?
Fran: In his apartment.
Baxter: His apartment?
Fran: I mean – her apartment
Baxter: When are you coming home?
Fran: As soon as I can walk.
Baxter: Something wrong with your legs?
Fran: No – it’s my stomach.
Baxter: Your stomach?
Fran: They had to pump it out.

Cue the brother-in-law?

Fran: Mr. Sheldrake’s a taker.
Baxter: A what?
Fran: Some people take, some people get took. And they know they’re getting took and there’s nothing they can do about it.

Grow a pair?

Dr. Dreyfuss [after Fran’s brother-in-law clobbers him]: I don’t want to gloat, but just between us, you had that coming to you. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Are you going to have a shiner tomorrow? Let me get my bag.
Baxter: Don’t bother, Doc. It doesn’t hurt a bit.

If you get his drift.

Sheldrake: I know how worried you were about Miss Kubelik – well, stop worrying – I’m going to take her off your hands.Baxter (stunned): You’re going to take her off my hands?
Sheldrake [indicating the suitcases]: That’s right. I’ve moved out of my house – I’m going to be staying in town, at the Athletic Club.
Baxter: You left your wife?
Sheldrake: Well, if you must know – I fired my secretary, my secretary got to my wife, and my wife fired me.

The plot sickens.

Baxter: Sorry, Mr. Sheldrake.
Sheldrake: What do you mean, sorry?
Baxter: You’re not going to bring anybody to my apartment.
Sheldrake: I’m not just bringing anybody; I’m bringing Miss Kubelik.
Baxter: Especially not Miss Kubelik.
Sheldrake: How’s that again?
Baxter [firmly]: No key.
Sheldrake: Baxter, I picked you for my team because I thought you were a very bright young man. Do you realize what you’re doing? Not to me, but to yourself? Normally, it takes years to work your way up to the twenty-seventh floor. But it only takes thirty seconds to be out on the street again. You dig?
Baxter: I dig.
Sheldrake: So what’s it going to be?
[Baxter slowly reaches into his pocket for a key and drops it on Sheldrake’s desk]
Sheldrake: Now you’re being bright.
Baxter: Thank you, sir.
[Baxter goes back into his office, looks around, then reaches into his closet for his coat and hat. Sheldrake comes in moments later]
Sheldrake: Say, Baxter, you gave me the wrong key.
Baxter: No, I didn’t.
Sheldrake: But this is the key to the executive washroom.
Baxter: That’s right, Mr. Sheldrake. I won’t be needing it because I’m all washed up around here.
Sheldrake: What’s gotten into you, Baxter?
Baxter: Just following doctor’s orders. I’ve decided to become a “mensch”. You know what that means? A human being.
Sheldrake: Now, hold on, Baxter…
Baxter: Save it. The old payola won’t work anymore. Goodbye, Mr. Sheldrake.

A mensch!

Sheldrake: We’re driving to Atlantic City. I know it’s a drag – but you can’t find a hotel room in town – not on New Year’s Eve. I didn’t plan it this way, Fran – actually, it’s all Baxter’s fault. 
Fran: Baxter?
Sheldrake: He wouldn’t give me the key to the apartment.
Fran: He wouldn’t.
Sheldrake: Just walked out on me – quit – threw that big fat job right in my face.
Fran: (with a faint smile): The nerve.
Sheldrake: That little punk – after all I did for him! He said I couldn’t bring anybody to his apartment – especially not Miss Kubelik. What’s he got against you, anyway?
Fran (with a faraway look in her eye): I don’t know. I guess that’s the way it crumbles – cookie-wise.

And off she goes...

Sheldrake: Fran? Where are you Fran?

Long gone among other things.

Baxter: What about Mr. Sheldrake?
Fran: I’m going to send him a fruitcake every Christmas.
[she holds out the deck of cards for him]
Fran: Cut.
Baxter: I love you, Miss Kubelik.
Fran: Queen.
Baxter: Did you hear what I said, Miss Kubelik? I absolutely adore you.
Fran (smiling): Shut up and deal!

That never happen to you?

[iambiguous]

Identity

“The deeper I go into myself the more I realize that I am my own enemy.” Floriano Martins

Well, and yours too.

“I finally understood what my grandmother meant. If I wasn't comfortable with myself, I would never be comfortable.”― Marjane Satrapi

You know, if that's even possible.

“Not only is there often a right and wrong, but what goes around does come around, Karma exists, chickens do come home to roost, and as my mother, Phyllis, liked to say, “There is always a day of reckoning.” Donald Van de Mark

Next up: Blah, blah, blah.

“Americans may have no identity, but they do have wonderful teeth.”Jean Baudrillard

Mine still work. Though not wonderfully.

“People say you're born innocent, but it's not true. You inherit all kinds of things that you can do nothing about. You inherit your identity, your history, like a birthmark that you can't wash off...We are born with our heads turned back, but my mother says we have to face into the future now. You have to earn your own innocence, she says. You have to grow up and become innocent.” Hugo Hamilton

Whatever that means, for example.

“I see now that the circumstances of one's birth are irrelevant. It is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are.” Takeshi Shudo

That's bullshit of course.

[iambiguous]

You have a son and you want what is best for him. Only being around you is not exactly what is best for anyone. But what you are [a junkie, say] is nothing compared to what the rest of the family is. For example, you have relatives who are basically hardcore criminals. Gangsters. Brutal thugs at times.

But then being a forlorn and floundering junkie you OD. A self-inflicted overdose that takes you as far away as it is possible to be from all the shit there is to endure if you stick around. But that leaves your son to fend for himself. And that means he makes contact with “the family”. And that means he makes contact with the criminal underworld…with dope…with rogue cops. And that means, well, you can imagine what that means. Although, come on, most of us can’t imagine it at all.

As Josh puts it, "after my mum died, this was just the world I got thrown into."

Thrown into. Sound familiar?

Three brothers. One wants to continue robbing banks. One has branched off into dope. One is now making a killing buying and selling stocks. That’s the world Josh is now thrown into. Then there’s the part played by Grandma Smurf. Their mother.

And the fucking cops. Totally out of control. For one thing, they go around killing whoever they want. You know, the bad apples. They plant evidence, they plant guns. They stage events so as to make it appear that they had no choice. Then they all band together: it’s your word against theirs.

And it’s always the same for the truly innocent. Or the nearly almost truly innocent. How they can get squashed like bugs just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The fucking fortuity of it all.

Look for one “crazy fucking world”.

The film is loosely based on the Melbourne crime scene in the 1980s, and the Pettingills crime family. Also, the random revenge murder of two patrolmen recreates the 1988 Walsh Street police shootings.

In an interview on the radio program “Fresh Air,” Jacki Weaver explained that her interpretation of her character included the unspoken fact that all of Janine’s children had been fathered by different men, most likely criminals themselves.

Writer/director David Michôd said he often relented to Ben Mendelsohn’s request for additional takes of his scenes because his respect for the actor’s ‘wild, unpredictable’ contributions. In fact, the very first scene featuring Mendolsohn’s ‘Pope’ character took about 15 takes. IMDb


Animal Kingdom

Josh [on phone]: Grandma, It’s J
Grandma Smurf: Who?
Josh: Josh.
Grandma Smurf: Oh, Josh. How are you darling?
Josh: Yeah, good. Mom’s gone and OD’d and she’s died, so…

Come on over!

Josh [voiceover]: Mum kept me away from her family because she was scared. I didn’t realise it at the time, but they were all scared - even if they didn’t show it. I think even Barry Brown was scared - even though he never showed it. Everyone felt safe around Baz. He’d punch your head off if ya got in the way - if he was in the middle of an armed robbin’, you got between him and the door, he’d put you on the ground and not think twice about it. But he was good to me, and to everyone else. Darren was only a couple of years older than me. When we were little kids, he was like, my best friend. We used to throw rocks at cars ‘n’ that. He had a way better BMX than me - my bike was shit. My Uncle Craig moved really fast, like… he was tryin’a stay in front of somethin’. And Grandma Smurf - she just seemed to wanna be wherever the boys were. And she just wanted to be around whatever the boys were doing. But they were all scared, even if they didn’t show it, even if they didn’t know it exactly. Even if they were having to do what crooks do all the time which is, block out the thing they must know. They must know it - which is that crooks always come undone - always, one way or another. In Melbourne at this time - this is a while ago now - the armed robbery squad was out of control. They were shooting guys willy-nilly and gettin’ away with it, and they’d been after Baz and my family for months. But the guy they really wanted, the guy they really hated, was my other Uncle - Uncle Andrew, but everyone just called him ‘Pope’. He was hiding in a motel room somewhere ‘cause he heard he was next. Craig was sellin’ drugs, he was sellin’ lots of ‘em. He had a detective in the drug squad helpin’ him do it - a guy called ‘Randall Roach’. They’d meet in a fish shop in Footscray, ‘cause Craig loved fish. An’ I dunno - all this seemed strange to me, but not strange either, you know what I mean? Kids just are wherever they are and they just do what ever they’re doin’, you know? This is where I was, and this is what I was doin’. After my mum died, this was just the world I got thrown into.

Existential to the bone.

Craig [after handing Josh a handgun]: Go get him.
Josh: And do what?
Craig: Let him know who’s king.

And that's exactly what he does.

Baz: Did you wash your hands?
Josh: No.
Baz: You just had your hands on your cock. Your hands go anywhere near your ass or your cock, you wash 'em after. Jesus, c’mon. Bit of soap, get a lather going. Rinse. Alright that’s enough, now stick 'em under there.
[Gesturing towards hand dryer]
Josh: I’m invisible, these things never see me.
Baz: No one’s invisible, mate.

Next up: covid.

Baz: Mate, I don’t know what you’re thinking about your future and that but I'm about done with this shit. I need some sort of change. The stock market’s working. You know that 20 grand I put in there is 60 now? See, you get a foot in that door, there’s serious money to be made, you know?
Pope: I don’t know anything about the stock market, mate.
Baz: So what? Neither did I. Doesn’t matter. You get the paper, you learn it. Our game, it’s over, mate. It’s getting too hard. It’s a fucking joke. You know, Craig’s making a fucking fortune with the drug thing. You saw the house he’s bought.
Pope: I don’t know I got that in me. It’s grubby.

No one fucks with Pope. 

[Baz is approached by detectives, thinking that they are after Pope]
Baz: Oh sorry guys. You just missed him.
Armed Robbery detective: That’s alright. We like you better.
Detective [shouting, referring to Barry who is unarmed]: He’s got a gun!
[the detective raises his rifle up and shoots him dead]

And so it goes. Though not only "down under", of course.

Grandma Smurf: You know why your mum and I didn’t talk for so long?
Josh: No.
Smurf: We had a fight…about…You know the card game 500? She reckoned you can play the joker whenever you want in a no-trumps hand. She was drunk. I was drunk too, but I was right. So look what happens. Years go by and then she’s gone. And I lose my only daughter…'cause you can’t play the joker whenever you want in a no-trumps hand. And I don’t get to see you for years.

One suspects it goes a lot deeper than that.

Pope [to Darren]: You know, if Baz was still here right now and we’d just been to your funeral, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. 'Cause he’d have already done something about it. If you don’t want to do anything because you’re scared… Is it because you’re scared? It’s alright if you are. I just want you to tell me about it.

You tell him what he wants to hear.

Pope [to a cop]: Turn around, you pig ****.

And he means it.

Grandma Smurf [crying after Craig is gunned down by the cops]: I’m having trouble trying to find my positive spin. I’m usually very good at it. Usually it’s right there, and I can just have it. But I’m having trouble finding it now.

Like finding a positive spin here, for example.

Detective Leckie: You know what the bush is about? It’s about massive trees that have been standing there for thousands of years…and bugs that’ll be dead before the minute’s out. It’s big trees and pissy little bugs. And everything knows its place in the scheme of things. Everything… everything sits in the order somewhere. Things survive because they’re strong, and everything reaches an understanding. But not everything survives because it’s strong. Some creatures are weak, but they survive because they’re being protected by the strong for one reason or another. You may think that, because of the circles you move in or whatever, that you’re one of the strong creatures, but you’re not, you’re one of the weak ones. That’s nothing against you, you’re just - you’re just weak because you’re young. But you’ve survived because you’ve been protected by the strong. But they’re not strong anymore, and they’re certainly not able to protect you. We’re here because we know who you are and we know what you’ve done. Now, I know you feel like you’re in a tough situation. But you have an out. There’s nothing your uncles can do to squirm out of this one; Craig’s learned that the hard way. But you’re not like them. We can see that, and you know that. Now I know that they’re saying to you that talking to me is betraying the family, but they’ve betrayed you. The fact that you’re talking to me, the fact that you’ve been left to deal with us…is all the proof that you need. And you’re in danger. Don’t be confused about that. I think you know. And I think you know that I can help you. But I can’t keep offering. You’ve gotta decide. You’ve gotta work out where you fit.
Josh: I don’t know why you’re telling me all of this.
Detective Leckie: Yes, you do.

Oh, he knows alright. But things get...complicated.

Grandma Smurf [to Ezra]: I’ve been around a long time, sweetie. J’s turned and he’s not coming back. Even if the boys get off, I won’t be seeing J again. And I don’t want Darren to rot in that jail. If my boys go down, that’s it. I got no-one left.

See what I mean?

Detective Roache: Look I know you got a problem Janine, but I don’t see how this mess your boys are in has got anything to do with me. So if you’ve called me in here to see if there are some strings I can pull in your way of course. Is that what this is about?
Grandma Smurf: Hey Randall, before you go on, this boy who’s currently being looked after, tell me if you agree with this, this boy who’s being looked after, he knows who you are. And you know how these things go they’re gonna ask him all sorts of questions about everything he’s ever seen or done. Everyone he’s ever met, the whole schmozzle. And you’ve done some bad things sweetie, haven’t you? I want this part to be clear this is not about you doing me a favor or, me blackmailing you or anything like that. It’s just a bad situation for everyone. Ezra’s got the address, it shouldn’t be too hard to set up a raid on the house. There’d be reasonable grounds what with, all the strange activity, the comings and goings, day and night, one of the neighbors might’ve seen a gun or something. This is your area of expertise. I’m not trying to tell you how to suck eggs. What do you think?
Detective Roache: I really don’t, see how anything can be done Janine.
Grandma Smurf: Randall, I feel sick about this. I’m not happy at all, not one little bit. But we do what we have to do, we do what we must. Just because we don’t wanna do something doesn’t mean it can’t be done.

Of course, that works both ways.

Detective Leckie: If you’re as smart as I think you are, you’d know to walk right on by me. Like we’ve never seen each other before in our lives, and you’d know to feel lucky. You’ll come unstuck. I’ve got a feeling about it. I think you do too. I reckon you probably carry that feeling around with you every second of the day.
Grandma Smurf: But I don’t, Nathan.

Next up: the Pope problem. And Josh's solution.

Pope [his last words, just before Josh shoots him in the head]: It’s a crazy fucking world.

Of course, he doesn't see it coming. On the other hand, neither did Nicky.