Philosophy Now Forum

The Last Supper

Paulie: Isn’t violating a woman’s body constitutionally wrong?
Dinner guest: Isn’t leading a man on wrong? If a woman accepts a date with a man, especially in this day and age, she knows what he’s after and she accepts.
Jude: So you think that all dates lead to sex?
Dinner guest: Man is the dominant species. Women are the dominated. They are the weaker sex and always will be.
Paulie: A man does not have the right to rape a woman.
Dinner guest: No, of course he doesn’t, Paulie. Rape is a terrible thing. But it is also much rarer than people think. When a woman cries rape, it’s usually because she’s already consented to sex. And then if she doesn’t allow herself to enjoy it she feels used. So women, vindictive by nature, cry rape.

The blue bottle?

Dinner guest: If I don’t use everything in my power to block the entrance, innocent unborn children will die. And if I have to kill someone to stop that, well, that’s what the Right To lIfe Movement is all about.

What hypocrisy?

Norman [on TV]: I’m the first to admit we took this country from the Indians but what were they doing with it anyway; shooting off bows and arrows and using seashells for money.

Again, all that matters is what you believe, right?

Dinner guest [to Luke]: Brother have you lost your mind, serving me this filthy swine! I can’t eat this. This is why the first thing we must do is eliminate the traitors among us. Then we can concentrate on the true enemy.

The Christians and the Jews?

Dinner guest: You know, I never even thought of it that way. Maybe you all are right. Maybe they are just all people. They got feelings. They got family.
Everyone [in unison]: Uh…uh…
Luke: Well, you are entitled to your own opinion, of course.
Dinner guest: Yeah! It’s true! You got to beat them homeless senseless. Make sure they know their place.

And not just in California this time.

Dinner guest: I’m not anti-earth. I’m pro-earthling. It’s kind of hard to worry about the greenhouse effect if you don’t have a house. You see, I think it all comes down to evolution. Survival of the fittest. I mean, if the spotted owl’s time is up…it’s hasta la vista, baby, I guess. Now your damn liberals on the other hand, they’d be protecting the rights of the dinosaurs if they could.

Any damn liberals here for a devastating rebuttal?

The Last Supper

Jude: We don’t think we’ve been giving people enough of a chance. Remember the original plan? We said we wouldn’t kill anyone unless we couldn’t change their minds.
Luke: So we haven’t changed anyone’s mind. Maybe we’re not as smart as we thought we were.
Marc: Luke, the guy with the swastika sat down and you told him it was happy hour.
Luke: I figured, “Why waste the food?”
Marc: What food? Man, we’re not even giving people a decent meal anymore.
Luke: The fag-basher had Chinese.
Jude: Chung King is not Chinese.
Luke: We had soy sauce.

Cracks in the facade?

Pete: Zach probably killed that poor little girl. We did some good then.
Luke: Of course we did.
Paulie: You were right, Luke.
Pete: Horray for us!

Next guest, please...

Luke: We just got rid of a child murderer.
Paulie: Yeah, what if Zach had lived? We stopped him before he killed anyone else. Isn’t that why we started this?
Marc: But look at her. She was just an illiterate!

The one that got away.

Pete: If he’s in the garden it counts. That’s the rule!

And then all those dekicious tomatoes!

Pete: …the court understands that especially in this day and age of AIDS, sexual education must be mandatory to insure the public safety.
Dinner guest: No, that’s not so. Sexual education and free condoms sends a message to kids my age that they should be having premarital sex!..Sexual curiosity isn’t human nature, but rather your generations lower standard of morality that has put my generation at risk. I see a great danger in the world and I want to stop it. We have to get back to family values in this country.
Luke: Have you ever had sex?
Dinner guest: That’s a very inappropriate question for the dinner table.
Luke: How can you sit there, all of 17, and preach to me about family values and sexual education? I knew stuck-up girls like you in high school…You know what you need Heather? You know what you really need? A nice stiff dick to shut that big mouth of yours.

It's all about to come tumbling down.

Luke: Don’t tell me you’re falling for his shit. He’s Satan, for Christ’s sakes! He’s giving us a prepared speech. He’s so used to defending himself, he’s got an answer for everything. He is an iceman.
Paulie: Maybe we are wrong about him. Maybe he does do this for money and publicity.
Luke: You fucking imbecile, that’s even worse. Creating hate for money, the fucking dollar. Come on! We have Norman Arbuthnot [read Rush Limbaugh] in the palm of our hands!

I'm with Luke here. You know, theoretically.

You bump into the past. But not the past as you recall it. That’s where Harry comes in. He sets you straight. Or else. And it’s never really entirely clear the extent to which the encounter in the men’s room was “by chance”.

The “or else” part gets a little tricky though. Harry, you see, is not your ordinary psychopath. Whatever that might be.

He sees a problem. He solves it. What could be simpler? Why aggravate yourself unnecessarily with the complicated reality of actual human relationships. But it also does a wonderful job in exposing just how aggravating [and quotidian] those human relationships can become.

A friend like Harry might be nice to have around. Though on a tight leash of course.

Most of us have to make compromises between living our lives the way we wish we could and living them the way we have to instead. Or do we? What happens instead if you decide to make changes? And, if so, how exactly do you go about it?


With a Friend Like Harry [Un Ami Qui Vous Veut Du Bien]

Plum: His motto is, “Solve every problem.”

And then one day, she becomes the problem.

Harry: Adele Cauchy, by the way, introduced me to your poem.
Claire: Your poem?
Harry: You don’t know his poem?
Michel: I wrote a poem for the school magazine.
Harry: “The Dagger in the Skin of Night”. Want to hear it?
Claire: You know it by heart?
Harry: Yes. I remember it well. For me, it’s a classic.

In other words, it better be a classic for you too.

Harry: Like it? It’s your new car.
Michel: What’s the catch?
Harry: No catch. I felt like buying you a car.

Oh, there's a catch alright.

Harry: You try to hard to satisfy everyone.
Michel: What?
Harry: Don’t you think we have to choose at some point?
Michel: Why ask me?
Harry: I’ve seen you in action. Keeping everyone happy. Juggling with Claire and your parents…humoring everyone.

Hint, hint.
But he missed it...again.

Harry [to Michel]: Isn’t it time to tell your parents to stay out of your life?

Not to mention his wife and kids and soon to be dead brother.

Father: Didn’t he have a different car?

Oh yeah.

Logic

“For desired conclusions, we ask ourselves, "Can I believe this?", but for unpalatable conclusions we ask, "Must I believe this?” Thomas Gilovich

Or: “For desired conclusions, we insist, 'you must believe this too', but for unpalatable conclusions we insist, 'The fools!'"

“Logic in all its infinite potential, is the most dangerous of vices. For one can always find some form of logic to justify his action, and rest comfortably in the assurance, that what he did abides by reason. That is why, for us brittle beings, Intention is the only true weapon of peace.” Ilyas Kassam

On the road to Hell?

“It is easy to understand that in the dreary middle ages the Aristotelian logic would be very acceptable to the controversial spirit of the schoolmen, which, in the absence of all real knowledge, spent its energy upon mere formulas and words..." Arthur Schopenhauer

Cue Will Durant's dreary epistemologists?

“Faith is the mortar that fills the cracks in the evidence and the gaps in the logic, and thus it is faith that keeps the whole terrible edifice of religious certainty still looming dangerously over our world.” Sam Harris

In a free-will determinist world?

“In some peculiar way, indeed, the rules were now beginning to seem quite logical. It was then I knew that I had been in India long enough.” Tahir Shah.

America? Forget about it.

“Life always involves some logic in its manifestations, and logic, as a rule, excludes the versatility of life from its considerations.” Raheel Farooq

The parts that revolve around dasein let's say.

With a Friend Like Harry [Un Ami Qui Vous Veut Du Bien]

Harry: People get scared when their parents die. Why? Because they realize they are next in line. It brings their own death closer. On me, it was the opposite. I felt much better.
Michel: You’re saying I’m lucky they died?
Harry: Yes! Use it as a springboard!
[Michel looks at him…the first glimmer of what he is dealing with]
Harry: I could pay you to write.
Michel: You’re talking nonsense. I’m going to bed. So should you. Get out of my room.

Guess who killed them?

Eric [Michel’s brother]: What’s up?
Harry: Flat tire I think.

Eric didn't like his brother's poem, in other words.

Claire: He’s extremely tense. He shut himself in the bathroom to write. I’ve never seen him so hypped up.
Harry: Is that true? He’s writing again?
Claire: He’s gone back to “The Flying Monkeys.”
Harry [with barely disguised glee]: That’s great. Excellent.
Claire: You put him up to it?
Harry: What if I did?

She's on his list. So are the kids.

Claire: The change in him bothers me.
Harry: It’s natural. He’s at boiling point. We’re touching vital issues. Close to the bones. He’s spreading his wings. Don’t worry about it.
[Claire gets up to leave]
Claire: Stay away from the house. It’s best if you don’t see Michel.

A failure to communicate? Big time.

Harry: Your life is crap!
Michel: I do what I want.
Harry: No, you do what Clair wants. She won’t let you fulfill yourself. It shows. She weighs you down. She wastes your life! The kids are the same. They stop you thinking.
Michel: Shut up.
Harry: At first, I thought you needed a better family life. Now I see that’s bullshit. The rot lies deeper…Cliare and the kids are like leeches. Cut them off.
Michel: Enough! Shut up! Do I tell you to dump Plum because she’s a pea-brained cow who stunts your mental growth? No. It’s none of my business!
[long pause]
Harry: Do you think Plum is a cow?

Well, that seals her fate.

Plum: I know I am superficial.
Michel: Absolutely not. I think you are gorgeous.
[impulsively he kisses her on the mouth…at first she relents but then she pushes him away]
Michel: We’re all cracking up!

But, as the next scene suggests, some more…much, much more…than others.

Harry [putting a plastic bag over Plums bloody head]: Avoids a mess.
[pause]
Harry [to Michel]: You were right. She was a deadweight.

The look on Michel's face...?

Harry [handing Michel a knife]: Deal with Claire. I’ll do the kids.

Too close to call for a while there.

Harry [after Michel sticks the knife in his gut]: Why did you do that?

He's really, really oblivious to any realty other than his own.
Then this part: is he a sociopath or a psychopath?.

Claire: Any idea where the guest room pillow is?

It's in the hole. And he did get rid of his pesky parents. And don’t forget the brand-new SUV. And the fact that Harry did manage to bring Michel back around to his writing.

Milan Kundera from Immortality

The basis of the self is not thought but suffering, which is the most fundamental of all feelings. While it suffers, not even a cat can doubt its unique and uninterchangeable self. In intense suffering the world disappears and each of us is alone with his self.

He got that right.

But then he told himself: What does it really mean to be useful? Today's world, just as it is, contains the sum of the utility of all people of all times. Which implies: The highest morality consists in being useless.

So, do we have that covered or not?

We don't know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don't understand our name at all, we don't know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.

Is that something to actually worry about?

When someone is young, he is not capable of conceiving of time as a circle, but thinks of it as a road leading forward to ever-new horizons; he does not yet sense that his life contains just a single theme; he will come to realise it only when his life begins to enact its first variations.

See, I told you.

If we cannot accept the importance of the world, which considers itself important, if in the midst of that world our laughter finds no echo, we have but one choice: to take the world as a whole and make it the object of our game; to turn it into a toy.

So, how am I doing?

And it isn't enough for us to identify with our selves, it is necessary to do so passionately, to the point of life and death. Because only in this way can we regard ourselves not merely as a variant of a human prototype but as a being with its own irreplaceable essence.

Me? Passionately fractured and fragmented?

He’s really old. But he’s a man. And that means he still thinks about sex…a lot. Impotent or not. Only by then not many of the female gender [or male for that matter] are thinking about him. Not that way. Not unless he can pay for it.

But it’s infuriating [maddening] because he can’t just will himself not to think about it.

And, by then, he is more than willing to make allowances. Practically anyone will do. At least if they are young enough. And [of course] at the age of consent. There must be at least a trillion rationalizations by now. If someone tried to write them all down he’d have to cut down the entire Rainforest just to procure the paper.

Think of it like this: For the aged philosopher, his companion would not exactly have to be a Rhodes Scholar. Maurice is himself refined and intellectual…an urbane sophisticated man. And Jessie? Let’s just say that without the subtitles you’d hardly understand anything she said. We first meet her stuffing her face with Cheetos and watching soap operas.

But she is quite attractive. In the vulgar working class tradition.

Some will accuse him of being…pathetic. Him among them. But what does that really change? She’s got it. He wants it. And debasement, like most other things, is always a matter of degree. Still, all the time you’re thinking: would I put up with that? And: If he were 40 years younger, would he?

Bloody. America needs a word like that. All we have [or so it sometimes seems] is fucking.


Venus

Ian: Have you got my glasses?
Maurice: No, you’ve got them.
Ian: Why would I have them. I’m not wearing them, am I? Christ, I’ve lost them now! That’s the worst thing that can happen…
Maurice: They’re in your right hand.
Ian [looking down at them]: Oh, yeah.

Cue Venus?

Maurice [reacting to the doctor’s finger up his ass]: Jesus Christ!
Doctor: The prostate should feel like a peach with a groove down the center. Your’s is a little bumpy but it could easily be nothing. We’ll need to send you to a specialist. So, you should worry a little but not a lot.

Been there, done that.

Maurice: You could consult a book.
Jessie: A book?
Maurice: Yeah, you know, two flaps of cardboard with printed pages inbetween.

Yeah, you know, back then.

Maurice: I’m here to announce I’ve got you a job. It’s modeling.
Jessie: You’ve done that? What sort of clothes is it? Do you think I’ll get to keep them at the end?
Maurice: I’m not sure about that.
Jessie: Why not?
Maurice: There’s no actual clothes involved.

What could it be then?

Jessie: You’re having me do a porno?!

Well...

Jessie [in the museum looking at a nude painting]: Is her name Venus?
Maurice: No. Venus is a goddess. Accompanied by Eros, she creates love and desire in us mortals leading often to foolishness and despair. The usual shit.

If only all the way to the grave?

Venus

Maurice: For most men, a woman’s body is the most beautiful thing they will ever see.
Jessie: What’s the most beautiful thing a girl sees? Do you know?
Maurice: Her first child.

Enough said?

Maurice: No, you can’t cling to me like this, Ian, we’ll both go down.
Ian: Put me on my feet then, you silly old fool!
Maurice: You’re on your feet.
Ian: Oh, yeah. Well. Thank you.

And he's wearing his glasses. As I recall.

Maurice: I will die soon, Venus. Can I touch your hand?
Jessie: That’s one chat up line I haven’t heard.
Maurice: I’m impotent, of course, but I can still take theoretical interest.
Jessie: Have you been thinking about me?
Maurice: All the time I was in the hospital.
Jessie: What do you think about me?
Maurice: I saw your body.
Jessie: Which part?
Maurice: Your hair, your feet, your legs, your behind, your eyes…
Jessie: My eyes?
Maurice [dreamily, reverentially]: Your elbows…your ****.
Jessie: Oh shut up…
[long pause]
Jessie: You can touch my hand. But only with your fingers. Anything else would make me vomitus.

Surreal -- pathetic -- enough for you? But there it is...nature's way?

Maurice: My dear, would you pass me my trousers?
Jessie: What is that?
Maurice: A catheter.
Jessie: Oh, my God!
Maurice: I think it’s leaking.
Jessie: I don’t want it on my shoes! You’re always dripping, Maurice.
Maurice: Oh, hold on.
Jessie: There’s always bits of you where there shouldn’t be!

Humiliating enough for you?

Maurice: Venus. You look like a movie star.
[he kisses her neck]
Maurice: Is there an old man odor?
Jessie: Not so much this evening.
Maurice: I wonder why.
Jessie: You can kiss my shoulders.
Maurice: Can I?
Jessie: Three kisses. Three, I said! And no licking and burping, you dirty, filthy, little shithead.
Maurice [chuckles]: Oh, you please me.
Jessie: And you me.
[he fondles her breasts; she hesitates, then punches him in the groin]
Maurice: Steady! Steady! I’m just out of intensive care.

Maybe he should stop there, I blurted out..

Maurice: This other man, the other man who loved you, was he not kind to you?
Jessie: He was kind, for a time. He promised me things. He bought me stuff. We had champagne and there were roses.
Maurice: Then you got pregnant.
Jessie: Does everyone know?
Maurice: It’s happened to girls before.
Jessie: Then…then he stopped being kind. He went the other way. A long way that way. He were engaged. I didn’t know. It wasn’t a miscarriage. My mum called it that. It were an abortion. And she made me.
Maurice: Terrible.
Jessie: Yeah. Yeah.

Dasein. See how it works?

Jessie: I want to give you a treat.
Maurice: What?
Jessie [putting her hand between her legs]: Watch.

Sure, why not.

Maurice: Now we can really talk!

He says. Then, leaning on her, he dies.

"You'd have to be on acid to interpret most of the deaths at StaIin's hands as part of a bottom up revoution in a cIass struggIe. It has nothing to do with what Marx said." - Iwannaplato

The vagabond. Living off her wits. How I wish I had had the balls to become one myself. But few do. It’s not an easy life by any stretch of the imagination. And you can forget about it once children become a part of your life. But there are so many facets of it that appealed to me.

Out of the blue two complete strangers [including the vagabond] bump into each other. They click and become a part of each other’s world. Until they don’t.

They are deeply enscounced in the working class and barely get by. But [of course] they are both very attractive. And quite young. Yet one is ferociously cynical while the other is more in the moment, tender and caring.

The backstory here is how they got the flat they share. An automobile accident put the previous occupants in the hospital. They are in comas. One is just a child. And that becomes a part of the narrative. At least for one of them.

These are characters that jump out at you. For one thing, they make you curious to know what in the past brought them to the present. And you don’t even presume to pin down their future. How many people can you really say that about?

It’s heartbreaking seeing Sandrine in the hospital. It’s probably why folks like me want God to exist: To have someone [something] to rage against for the gap between the way the world is and the way you want it to be instead.


The Dreamlife Of Angels [La Vie Rêvée des Anges]

Isa: You didn’t like being a waitress?
Marie: The boss soon got on my nerves. He treated us like shit, simply because he’s the boss. I slapped him one. He didn’t see it coming. He was bleeding. He won’t forget me in a hurry.

She's the wild one here, let's say.

Isa: Been to the hospital to see them?
Marie: I don’t know them. I got the flat through my aunt. Besides, they’re in a coma.

The mother died a few days after the accident.

From Sandrine’s diary: “I feel things inside, overwhelming things. I feel my pulse beating. I’m confused, nervous. Like something missing, a desire. I can’t yet control. On the edge of an abyss, I feel this crazy urge to jump.”

She is the precocious girl in the hospital. The girl in the coma.

Isa [to a man they accost in the mall]: My friend Marie here has been following you for several months. She’s shy, but she knows everything about you. You’re a great guy and you’ve got a lot of money. But she’s shy and comes from a more modest background. These things happen. She wants to know if the little detail of class matters or if it’s love that counts.

It’s a game they play.

From Sandrine’s diary: “Woke up expecting something to happen. Nothing…She’ll bring him back and they’ll screw. She’ll say, ‘Hush, Sandrine is sleeping.’ What a bummer, my mother with a guy like that. If I put a carving knife under her matress, he won’t be able to get an erection.

Isa checks. There it is.

Isa [to Marie]: You know guys like him. He owns a club. You’re probably not the only one.

She was in the top ten I suspect.

Herman Melville from Bartleby the Scrivener

I would prefer not to.

Next up: Is that an actual option?

Ah, happiness courts the light so we deem the world is gay. But misery hides aloof so we deem that misery there is none.

Or, here, not aloof at all.

I am a man who, from his youth upwards, has been filled with a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best.

I'd actually prefer that myself.

But thus it often is, that the constant friction of illiberal minds wears out at last the best resolves of the more generous.

Go ahead, ask me why I stay then.

'Will you, or will you not, quit me?' I now demanded in a sudden passion, advancing close to him.
'I would prefer not to quit you', he replied, gently emphasizing the not.

On the other hand, why did he perfer that?

Imagine my surprise, nay, my consternation, when without moving from his privacy, Bartleby, in a singular mild, firm voice, replied, “I would prefer not to".

As opposed to, say, "fuck you, I ain't doing it!"

The Dreamlife Of Angels [La Vie Rêvée des Anges]

Isa [to Marie]: What’s your problem? Is it his contempt rubbing off? Hasn’t taken long, has it?

One of them is cracking up.
Hint: it's not the vagabond.

Chis [of Isa]: Does my presense bother her?
Marie: No. Well, yes, but it doesn’t matter.

Postmodern love, some call it.

Isa: Don’t humiliate yourself. You’re not his dog!
Marie: I don’t mind. I’ve been humilated before. A shitty life, treated like shit! And you go around with boards with shit written on them!
Isa: Sandrine’s almost dead, you’re lucky to be alive and you run after a jerk?

Though once she's gone they lose the apartment.

Isa: She isn’t in.
Chris: I know. I’m going to leave her. I want you to tell her.
Isa: It’s not for me to tell her.
Chris: You’re her friend.
Isa: What should I tell her?
Chris: It wasn’t her fault. She’s a nice girl, but it’s over, I’m ending it.
Isa: Why did you go out with her?
[Chris shrugs, Isa slaps him hard in the face]
Isa: You’re an asshole!

Yes. But he is also young, rich and very handsome.

Isa: I’d like to see you when you realize that you need other people.
Marie: I’ll send you a photo.

Of course, we suspect what's coming.

Isa: You’re living in her flat and you don’t even know her.
Marie: What do you mean?
Isa: Nothing. You disgust me.
[pause]
Isa: I think we should each go our own way. I’m leaving.
Marie: Right, go ahead. You think you’re perfect. You’re just a hanger on. What can you do for yourself, sell cards? That’ll get you far. You’re screwed up and you don’t even realize it. I’ve found someone and I’m happy. That’s why you’re upset.

Then Isa tells her. Before it’s over Marie pulls a knife on her. The end is the film is just ghastly. All except Sandrine…who might pull through.

Meaning

“When any civilization is dust and ashes," he said, "art is all that's left over. Images, words, music. Imaginative structures. Meaning—human meaning, that is—is defined by them. You have to admit that.” Margaret Atwood

Of course, as with the rest of us, he said a lot of things.
Point more or less taken however.

“To the European, it is a characteristic of the American culture that, again and again, one is commanded and ordered to 'be happy.' But happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. One must have a reason to 'be happy.' Once the reason is found, however, one becomes happy automatically. As we see, a human being is not one in pursuit of happiness but rather in search of a reason to become happy, last but not least, through actualizing the potential meaning inherent and dormant in a given situation.” Viktor E. Frankl

Tell that to the Nazis?

“Every single human soul has more meaning and value than the whole of history.” Nikolai Berdyaev

Really, imagine actually being able to convince yourself of something this ridicukous!
Uh, right?

“If through no fault of his own the hero is crushed by a bulldozer in Act II, we are not impressed. Even though life is often like this—the absconding cashier on his way to Nicaragua is killed in a collision at the airport, the prominent statesman dies of a stroke in the midst of the negotiations he has spent years to bring about, the young lovers are drowned in a boating accident the day before their marriage—such events, the warp and woof of everyday life, seem irrelevant, meaningless. They are crude, undigested, unpurged bits of reality—to draw a metaphor from the late J. Edgar Hoover, they are “raw files.” But it is the function of great art to purge and give meaning to human suffering, and so we expect that if the hero is indeed crushed by a bulldozer in Act II there will be some reason for it, and not just some reason but a good one, one which makes sense in terms of the hero’s personality and action. In fact, we expect to be shown that he is in some way responsible for what happens to him.” Bernard Knox

Next up: It's Act II here. Own up!

“To put meaning in one's life may end in madness,
But life without meaning is the torture
Of restlessness and vague desire--
It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.” Edgar Lee Masters

Next up: the meaning of one's death.

“Why should I even bother? What's the point, really?"
He thought for a moment. "Who says there has to be a point?" he asked. "Or a reason. Maybe it's just something you have to do.” Sarah Dessen

Like, say, breathing in and out.

Capitalism [as we all know] turns women into men. And how hard is it to figure out the ramifications of that. For all of us, eventually.

It’s obviously the nature of a beast to be beastly. But who to believe…and about what? Some are very, very good at this sort of thing. But some are even better than that.

It’s a matter of figuring out what the con is, where the con began and how the con will end. And, of course, whether you approve of it. Or, perhaps, in discovering that you are the mark?

But here, well, let’s just say there is too much stuff we can only guess at.


The Business of Strangers

Julie [on phone]: That Paula person arrived 45 minutes late. I had to do the whole fucking show by myself without visuals. I made this perfectly clear. These are big game fund managers. We are not to fuck around. As far as I’m concerned, she’s fired.
Paula: Hey uberfrau. The pleasure was all mine, Bob. I hope we can do it again sometime.

You have to see it to appreciate it.

Julie [on phone]: Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise. A very brilliant disguise.

You might even fool yourself.

Julie: I don’t have to go to Japan to get stepped on because I’ve got tits.

Next up: having tits virtually.

Julie: Listen, I was a bit harsh on you before. I lost my temper. You’re not really fired.
Paula: I don’t really care. It’s just a money job.
Julie: Let me buy you a drink.
Paula: OK.
[to waiter]
Paula: Martell XO supreme.
Waiter: That’s twenty dollars a glass.
Paula: I’ll have a double.
Julie [to waiter]: Same.

They'll never guess where this takes them. Until it's scripted that they do.

Paula: I’m a writer. Non-fiction.
Julie: What does that mean, biographies? Historical journalism?
Paula: No, short stories. Things that I experience. The whole fiction thing is too stupid. It’s too neat. I like the sloppiness of real life.

As clearly we seem to here.

Julie: Everyone eats shit. It’s just a question of degrees.
Paula: Or how much you can take.

Eating shit here. You first.

Paula: I dare you to touch it.
Julie: What?
Paula: His dick.

The number they do on this guy!!

Julie [to Paula]: We’re here because you are a profoundly disturbed young woman.
Paula: Please. If you were a man, you’d see a dominatrix twice a week. All CEOs have one. But we’re women so we don’t do things like that. We express issues of doubt and control differently. You do have them don’t you?
Julie: What?
Paula: Control issues. You feel overwhelmed, unworthy, unable to keep things in order, so you punish yourself. You obsess over control and power and you have bad, even abusive relationships with men.
Julie: You know nothing about me or my relationships.
Paula: I’ve seen the way you run. You push yourself hard, really hard. I bet there’s some deep shit going on there. I bet you come from tough times. Little girl on the wrong side of the tracks. You’ve managed to work hard and pull yourself out. Now you’ve won everything but something just doesn’t feel right.
Julie: Fuck you.
Paula: Whatever you say, Duchess.
Julie: Fuck you, you privileged little brat. I’ve seen a thousand girls just like you; rich families, all the opportunities and you throw it all away. You put on this act, disaffected, obnoxious, talented but undiscovered. You know what? You all end up with your sensitive husbands, pregnant, coming back pleading for a job and making my coffee. It’s okay, Paula. Nobody ends up being what they really want - it’s part of life. It’s called growing up.

As Paula then points out, these mentalities thrive [and take their toll psychologically] in the “nasty, male dominated business world”.

Paula: It’s your choice of pleasure, the humiliation of getting caught…or kissing me.

Either way, she's still a "loser".

He lost his Mom to the L.I.E. Like Harry Chapin and Alan J. Pakula. And, unfortunately, his father is a dick.

Some kids lives are so fucked up you can’t even imagine the exit ramp. Or maybe one.

There must be millions of kids like these. And one way they come out that way is by watching movies like this. Another is by being completely bereft of “parental guidance”. But these kids aren’t exactly struggling to survive from day to day in the hood. They’re more the suburbia malaise sort. No KIDS here.

Especially Howie. Precocious in some ways, but every bit “the kid” in others.

It’s also about young boys exploring their sexuality. And about pedaphiles exploring it with them.

The thing about this pedaphile? He is a lot more complex then most care to admit. They just want them portrayed as slime balls.

That the film received an NC-17 rating speaks volumes regarding just how fucked up our culture is when it comes to sex. Lines have to be drawn, sure. But not if people are portrayed as cartoon characters. Or stick figures.

But some might say the movie blinked at the end.


L.I.E.

Howie: On the Long Island Expressway there are lanes going east, lanes going west…and lanes going straight to Hell.

The one on the other side of the grave, he means.

Kid: I’m just trying to say that if a brother and a sister make a baby, it can have two heads or something.
Kid: It’s in all the books.

I guess we lucked out then, Sis.

Gary: I think Howie’s trying to say it’s not politically correct to fuck your sister.

Uh, woke?

Counselor: Just so you know, I know you’re different, okay.
Howie: Different?
Counselor: You’re not a nerd, you’re not a jock, you’re not a scholar or a romeo.
Howie: Or a gangsta.
Counselor: Or a clown.
Howie: So what am I then?

A kid in America, for one thing.

Big John: You know Chagall?
Howie: Doesn’t everyone?

Yuck, yuck?

Scott: You should be ashamed of yourself.
Big John: Oh, I am. I am. I always am.

Each and every time to me, let's say.

Kevin: Hey-hey, it’s Captain Kirk. Ever see that old Star Trek show where there’s a bad Captain Kirk and a good one? And Spock, and Dr. Phones…
Brian: You mean “Bones”?
Kevin: What? It’s Phones McCoy.
Brian: “Bones” is a nickname for doctor, idiot.
Kevin: No, it’s like get the doctor on the phone, like house calls.
Brian: It’s BONES.

Just another day, let's say. To wit...

Kevin [lying on the ground as a woman passes]: Her dress is so short, you can see her clint.
Brian: What?
Kevin: Her clint, it’s in her pussy.
Howie: You mean “clit.”
Kevin: Fuck you, I mean like… clintasaurus.
Howie: It’s clitoris, you fuckin’ idiot.
Kevin: It’s a CLINT.
Brian: Yeah, like you can see Clint Eastwood in her pussy.

Next up: Kevin, Howie and clitorectomies.

Big John: And if I was a spy, what would you think of me then?
Howie: Well, I’d think that you are just like James Bond except James Bond doesn’t go around blowing boys.

Well, not that we know of.

Big John [talking with Howie about Gary]: You must be the only guy on Long Island who hasn’t fucked him. Such a slut. The only thing that hasn’t been used on him is his brain.

Anyone that remind you of?

Big John [after Howie quotes Walt Whitman]: Are you trying to seduce me?

Next up: quoting e.e. cummings.

Howie [reading along one of Big John’s tattoos]: “KILL THEM ALL, LET GOD SORT THEM OUT”

Now officially a part of the Republican Party platform by the way.

Gary [visiting his father in jail]: Oh, and Dad, don’t ever fucking hit me again.

Let's run that by Big John first.