Philosophy Now Forum

Roberto Bolaño

Life is shit, thought Pelletier in astonishment, all of it.

I wouldn't go much further than "most of it" myself.

I’m seventeen years old, my name is Juan García Madero, and I’m in my first semester of law school. I wanted to study literature, not law, but my uncle insisted, and in the end I gave in. I’m an orphan, and someday I’ll be a lawyer. That’s what I told my aunt and uncle, and then I shut myself in my room and cried all night.

Who wouldn't?

That's what art is, he said, the story of a life in all its particularity. It's the only thing that really is particular and personal. It's the expression and, at the same time, the fabric of the particular.

Not unlike the fabric of dasein?

Life left us all where we were meant to be or where it was convenient to leave us and then forgot us, which is as it should be.

Click, of course.

Then he went out without touching anything and put his arm around Ingeborg, and like that, with their arms around each other, they returned to the village while the whole past of the universe fell on their heads.

It ever fall on yours?

When I was done traveling, I returned convinced of one thing: we're nothing.

He means more or less of course.

Margin Call

Tuld: So, what you’re telling me, is that the music is about to stop, and we’re going to be left holding the biggest bag of odorous excrement ever assembled in the history of capitalism.
Peter: Sir, I not sure that I would put it that way, but let me clarify using your analogy. What this model shows is the music, so to speak, just slowing. If the music were to stop, as you put it, then this model wouldn’t even be close to that scenario. It would be considerably worse.

So, they lucked out?
Well, that and Barry.

Sam: John…let’s just say we pull that off, which is saying something…the real question is who are we selling this to?
Tuld: The same people you’ve been selling this to for the last two years…and whoever else will buy it.
Sam: If you do this you’ve killed that market for years. It’s over. And you are selling something you know has no value.
Tuld (cuts him off cold): We are selling to willing buyers at the current fair market price, so that WE may survive, Sam.
Sam: You’ll never sell a thing to any one of them again.
Tuld: I understand.
Sam: Do you?
Tuld: Do you?! This is it! I’m telling you, this is it.

Cue Dubya, Barry and the Deep State.
Fortunately, for most of the others, they were too big to fail. Their cronies in Washington really did see to that. The only consolation is watching them fuck each other over. The MBSs were literally junk and they stiffed their best clients. And they knew it?

Next up: Covid.

Tuld: Oh please, when did you become so soft.
Sam: Fuck you soft, you’re panicking.
Tuld: If you’re the first one out the door Sam, it’s not called panicking.

No, really, let's define "soft" here. Starting at the White House.

Jared [to Will]: Sometimes, in an acute situations such as this, often what is right can take on multiple interpretations.

Uh, they're right from their side and we're right from ours? On the other hand, who wields all the power here, Wall Street or Main Street?

Will: Jesus, Seth. Listen, if you really wanna do this with your life you have to believe you’re necessary and you are. People wanna live like this in their cars and big fuckin’ houses they can’t even pay for, then you’re necessary. The only reason that they all get to continue living like kings is cause we got our fingers on the scales in their favor. I take my hand off and then the whole world gets really fuckin’ fair really fuckin’ quickly and nobody actually wants that. They say they do but they don’t. They want what we have to give them but they also wanna, you know, play innocent and pretend they have no idea where it came from. Well, that’s more hypocrisy than I’m willing to swallow, so fuck em. Fuck normal people. You know, the funny thing is, tomorrow if all of this goes tits up they’re gonna crucify us for being too reckless but if we’re wrong, and everything gets back on track? Well then, the same people are gonna laugh till they piss their pants cause we’re gonna all look like the biggest pussies God ever let through the door.

God and capitalism.
They be mates?

Sarah: I didn’t think they were going to be able to get you back here.
Eric: Well, they told me they were going to drag me through hell on everything for the next two years - my options, my healthcare. Or I could come back here and make, uh, 176,471 dollars an hour to sit quietly in this room. Didn’t seem like much of a choice.
Sarah: It never is.

And, no, not just theoretically.

Tuld: So you think we might have put a few people out of business today. That its all for naught. You’ve been doing that everyday for almost forty years Sam. And if this is all for naught then so is everything out there. Its just money; its made up. Pieces of paper with pictures on it so we don’t have to kill each other just to get something to eat. It’s not wrong. And it’s certainly no different today than its ever been. 1637, 1797, 1819, 37, 57, 84, 1901, 07, 29, 1937, 1974, 1987-Jesus, didn’t that fuck up me up good-92, 97, 2000 and whatever we want to call this. It’s all just the same thing over and over; we can’t help ourselves. And you and I can’t control it, or stop it, or even slow it. Or even ever-so-slightly alter it. We just react. And we make a lot money if we get it right. And we get left by the side of the side of the road if we get it wrong. And there have always been and there always will be the same percentage of winners and losers. Happy foxes and sad sacks. Fat cats and starving dogs in this world. Yeah, there may be more of us today than there’s ever been. But the percentages-they stay exactly the same.

Uh-oh, what if this really is the best of all possible worlds?

Sam [of Peter]: You’re keeping the kid?
Tuld: Keeping him? He’s getting promoted. It’s all hands on deck now Sam. There’s going to be a lot of money to be made coming out of this mess, we’re going to need all the brains we can get around here.

Start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shock_Doctrine

Based on a true story.

Okay, but I’m not a big fan of boxing. And I’m not a big fan of boxing movies. But I am a big fan of good movies. And I am also a big fan of good Christian Bale movies.

So here we are.

Take Bale out though and, well, I’m not sure we would be.

Apparently, being a brawler ain’t the same thing as being a boxer. Boxing is more like…playing chess. But what do I know about the “fight game”? As soon as they start boxing here, I’m busy fast forwarding it. It will probably always be an ugly, brutal “sport” to me. Still, how is this not but another "rooted existentially in dasein" personal opinion?

Also, I always have a hard time with films set in the belly of the working-class beast. That’s where I’m from. Being down to earth is a quality that only goes so far though once you get up out of it. The ambivalence draws and quarters me. Why? Because I can see the parts I’m still drawn to.

But what a brood this one is!

Was that Jack Lemmon at the Sanchez fight?!

Christian Bale spent hours of time with the real Dicky Eklund to learn how to emulate him properly. He had to lose 30 pounds of weight because Eklund was a crack addict at the time. Director David O. Russell said it was much more than mimicry. He remarked: “Dicky has a rhythm to him, a music. Christian had to understand how his mind works.”

Dicky Eklund did not like how his mother and sisters were portrayed in the film. He yelled at Christian Bale after a screening in anger. His sisters also did not like their portrayals. Beaver Eklund walked out of a screening of the film in protest. IMDb



The Fighter

Charlene: Are you just gonna stand there and stare at my ass? My father stares at my ass, but he talks to me.

Fair enough?

Charlene: You pave streets, don’t you?
Mickey: Yeah, and I’m a fighter.
Charlene: I heard you were a stepping-stone.
Michey: No, I’m no stepping stone.
Charlene: You’re the guy they use against the other fighters to move the other fighters up.

Ouch.

Dicky [after Mickey slaps someone at a bar]: Hey, don’t hurt your hands! We got a fight next week. Besides, you wipe your ass with that one.

A pragmatist?

Charlene [looking at his face]: Did the black Jewish guy do this?
Micky: I didn’t get to fight the black Jewish guy.
Charlene: You didn’t get to go head, body, head?

A girl, right?

Charlene [after watching Belle Epoque with Micky]: That’s the movie you wanted to see? There wasn’t even any good sex in it. Had to read the whole fuckin’ movie. Fuckin’ subtitled. Some guy from a road crew recommended it to you, a fuckin’ subtitled movie?

On the other hand, Penelope Cruz and a 95% fresh rating at RT.

Micky [to Charlene]: I came here because I don’t wanna show my face in Lowell. I told everybody I was gonna win that fight and get back on track. I told my daughter I was gonna get a bigger apartment so she could move in. You don’t think I wanted to call you? I was embarrassed. I mean, I’m sick of bein’ a fuckin’ disappointment.

A boxing thing or the human condition in a nutsell? You know, for some.

Charlene: Oh, stop callin’ me an MTV girl, whatever the fuck that means.

Does anyone here know? Or is it more or less like the "it" girl at Sundance?

Wolfie: This ain’t any anti-Cambodian thing. White people do this to other white people, which is what makes the world go around.

And that certainly includes philosophy, of course.

Micky [visiting Dicky in prison]: Why can’t you just shut up and be happy for me? I spent the last ten years of my life in bad fights set up by you and Alice. I finally got a good thing going for me and you can’t be fuckin’ happy for me? Why?

My guess: it's complicated.

Micky [to Dicky]: I made a promise to them I would never work with you again.

On the other hand...

Micky: I’m the one fighting, okay? Not you, not you, and not you. I know what I need.
Charlene: And you need Dicky?
Micky: I want Dicky back. I want my family back. And I want you, Charlene. And I want O’Keefe. What’s wrong with that?
Charlene: That’s not the deal we made, baby.
O’Keefe: That’s not the deal.

Next up: deals made here.

Charlene: Alright, I’ll see you in Micky’s corner but otherwise go fuck yourself.
Dicky: Okay, it’s a deal.

You know, for now.

Dicky: Are you like me? Huh? Was this good enough to fight Sugar Ray? Never had to win, did I? You gotta do more in there. You gotta win a title. For you, for me, for Lowell. This is your time, all right? You take it. I had my time and I blew it. You don’t have to. All right? You fuckin’ get out there, and use all the shit that you’ve been through, all that fuckin’ hell, all the shit we’ve gone through over the fuckin’ years, and you put it in that ring right now. This is yours. This is fuckin’ yours.

And, of course, the equivalent of that here.
Well, one of these days, perhaps...?

Ain’t no country for young men either. But we know the kind that make it their home. The ones who sell dope, for example. And the ones who buy it. And there’s just something about tons of money that brings out the worst in folks.

And suppose you stumble fortuitously across a big pile of it? Take it, sure. But assume those who lost it might have a way of keeping track of where it goes. And once the massacre is over don’t go back with a bottle of agua for survivors. Take the money and then, after checking it carefully, run like hell to the middle of nowhere.

What kind of world is it where so many people need so much dope just to make it through the day? You can only be talking about pain, boredom, alienation and the like on an epic scale.

And Tommie Lee jones demonstrates once again how inflection and intonation separate the good from the great actors. The guy is fucking amazing in films.

This film is about how we stumble into situations we may or may not be cut out to deal with. And role that contingency, chance and change plays in it all. And fate. Some are just better at licking it than others. Lots of practice. Though some things, it seems, are getting worse and worse.

Easy [as they say] gets harder everyday.

Contrary to most successful films made from books, much of the film’s action is taken word for word from Cormac McCarthy’s novel, and occurs in the same order.

The three main characters, Moss, Bell, and Chigurh, do not share any screen time together. Carla Jean is the only character to talk to all three main characters. IMDb



No Country For Old Men

Deputy [on phone]: Yes, sir, I just walked in the door. Sheriff, he had some sort of thing on him…like a oxygen tank for emphysema or something…and a hose that run down his sleeve.
Sheriff: Oxygen tank? What the hell’s he got that for?
Deputy: You got me. Well, you can look at it when you get in.
Sheriff: I’ll be down there in a bit.
Deputy: Yes, sir, I got it under control.

Does he?

Carla Jean: Where’d you get the pistol?
Llewelyn: At the gettin’ place.

Walmart?

Carla Jean: Fine. I don’t want to know. I don’t even want to know where you been all day.
Llewelyn: That’ll work.

He still loves her though.

Llewelyn: If I don’t come back, tell mother I love her.
Carla Jean: Your mother’s dead, Llewelyn.
Llewelyn: Well then I’ll tell her myself.

Of course, he'll need all the wit he can muster against the guy with all the coins.

Chigurh: What’s the most you ever lost on a coin toss.
Gas Station Proprietor: Sir?
Chigurh: The most. You ever lost. On a coin toss.
Gas Station Proprietor: I don’t know. I couldn’t say.
[Chigurh flips a quarter from the change on the counter and covers it with his hand]
Chigurh: Call it.
Gas Station Proprietor: Call it?
Chigurh: Yes.
Gas Station Proprietor: For what?
Chigurh: Just call it.
Gas Station Proprietor: Well, we need to know what we’re calling it for here.
Chigurh: You need to call it. I can’t call it for you. It wouldn’t be fair.
Gas Station Proprietor: I didn’t put nothin’ up.
Chigurh: Yes, you did. You’ve been putting it up your whole life you just didn’t know it. You know what date is on this coin?
Gas Station Proprietor: No.
Chigurh: 1958. It’s been traveling twenty-two years to get here. And now it’s here. And it’s either heads or tails. And you have to say. Call it.
Gas Station Proprietor: Look, I need to know what I stand to win.
Chigurh: Everything.
Gas Station Proprietor: How’s that?
Chigurh: You stand to win everything. Call it.
Gas Station Proprietor: Alright. Heads then.
[Chigurh removes his hand, revealing the coin is indeed heads]
Chigurh: Well done.
[the gas station proprietor nervously takes the quarter with the small pile of change he’s apparently won while Chigurh starts out]
Chigurh: Don’t put it in your pocket, sir. Don’t put it in your pocket. It’s your lucky quarter.
Gas Station Proprietor: Where do you want me to put it?
Chigurh: Anywhere not in your pocket. Where it’ll get mixed in with the others and become just a coin. Which it is.

Heads I post this, tails I don't.
Okay, 2 out of 3.

Wendell: It’s a mess, ain’t it, sheriff?
Ed Tom: If it ain’t, it’ll do till the mess gets here.

Tell us about it!

God

“The world looks like something God had just imaged for his own pleasure, doesn't it?” L.M. Montgomery

God...the Sadist?

“I feel like, God expects me to be human. I feel like, God likes me just the way I am: broken and empty and bruised. I feel like, God doesn't look at me and wish that I were something else, because He likes me just this way. I feel like, God doesn't want me to close my eyes and pray for Him to make me holy or for Him to make me pure; because He made me human. I feel like, God already knows I'm human...it is I who needs to learn that.” C. JoyBell C.

A whole new spin?

“He paused, twisting his goatee, considering the law in Deuteronomy that forbade clothes with mixed fibers. A problematic bit of Scripture. A matter that required thought. "Only the devil wants man to have a wide range of lightweight and comfortable styles to choose from," he murmured at last, trying out a new proverb. "Although there may be no forgiveness for polyester. On this one matter, Satan and the Lord are in agreement.” Joe Hill

You tell me: https://www.google.com/search?q=Deutero ... URT-reRWmz

“Then Hwin, though shaking all over, gave a strange little neigh and trotted across to the Lion.
"Please," she said, "you're so beautiful. You may eat me if you like. I'd sooner be eaten by you than fed by anyone else.” C.S. Lewis

In other words, if you're going to Hell, best to be sent there by the Christian God?

“It is hard to see how a great man can be an atheist. Without the sustaining influence of faith in a divine power we could have little faith in ourselves. We need to feel that behind us is intelligence and love. Doubters do not achieve; skeptics do not contribute; cynics do not create. Faith is the great motive power, and no man realizes his full possibilities unless he has the deep conviction that life is eternally important, and that his work, well done, is a part of an unending plan.” Calvin Coolidge

Yeah, that part is still going around.

“Then he just knelt in the ashes. He raised his face to the paling day. Are you there? he whispered. Will I see you at the last? Have you a neck by which to throttle you? Have you a heart? Damn you eternally have you a soul? Oh God, he whispered, Oh God.” Cormac McCarthy

Next up: God and Gaza?

No Country For Old Men

Wendell: You think this boy Moss has got any notion of the sorts of sons of bitches that’re huntin’ him?
Ed Tom: I don’t know, he ought to. He’s seen the same things I’ve seen, and it’s certainly made an impression on me.

Then back to this part:

"And suppose you stumble fortuitously across a big pile of it? Take it, sure. But assume those who lost it might have a way of keeping track of where it goes. And once the massacre is over don’t go back with a bottle of agua for survivors. Take the money and then, after checking it carefully, run like hell to the middle of nowhere."

Cab driver: Look, I don’t wanna get into some kind of a jackpot here. Why don’t I just set you down right here and we won’t argue about it?
Llewelyn: Take me to another motel.
Cab driver: Let’s just call it square.
Llewelyn [stuffing $100 in his hand]: You’re already in the jackpot. I’m trying to get you out of it.

Yet he keeps diving deeper and deeper into it himself.

Llewelyn [aloud to himself]: There just ain’t no way.

Now he thinks of it?

Wells: Buenos Dias. I’m guessing this isn’t the future you had planned for yourself when you first clapped eyes on that money. Don’t worry, I’m not the man who’s after you.
Llewelyn: I know that. I’ve seen him.
Wells: You’ve seen him, and you’re not dead?

He said, prophetically.

Wells: Call me when you’ve had enough. I can even let you keep a little of the money.
Llewelyn: If I was cuttin’ deals, why wouldn’t I go deal with this guy Chigurh?
Wells: No no. No. You don’t understand. You can’t make a deal with him. Even if you gave him the money he’d still kill you. He’s a peculiar man. You could even say that he has principles. Principles that transcend money or drugs or anything like that. He’s not like you. He’s not even like me.
Llewelyn: He don’t talk as much as you, I give him points for that.

How would you explain him?

Chigurh: Let me ask you something. If the rule you followed brought you to this…of what use was the rule?
Wells: Do you have any idea how crazy you are?
Chigurh: You mean the nature of this conversation?
Wells: I mean the nature of you.

Let's just say that heads Chigurh wins, tails Wells loses.

Werner Herzog

I believe the common denominator of the universe is not harmony; but chaos, hostility and murder.

Lock Him up! Lock Him up!

In the face of the obscene, explicit malice of the jungle, which lacks only dinosaurs as punctuation, I feel like a half-finished, poorly expressed sentence in a cheap novel.

I was once that optimistic myself.

Civilization is like a thin layer of ice upon a deep ocean of chaos and darkness.

I was once that optimistic myself.

If you truly love film, I think the healthiest thing to do is not read books on the subject. I prefer the glossy film magazines with their big color photos and gossip columns, or the National Enquirer. Such vulgarity is healthy and safe.

Next up: you truly love philosophy.

People think we had a love-hate relationship. Well, I did not love him, nor did I hate him. We had mutual respect for each other, even as we both planned each other's murder.

Pick one:
1] God
2] Kinski

There are deeper strata of truth in cinema, and there is such a thing as poetic, ecstatic truth. It is mysterious and elusive, and can be reached only through fabrication and imagination and stylization.

Not a whole lot that can't be though.

No Country For Old Men

Llewelyn: You know she won’t be there.
Chigurh: It doesn’t make any difference where she is.
Llewelyn: So what are you going up there for?
Chigurh: You know how this is going to turn out, don’t you?
Llewelyn: Nope.
Chigurh: I think you do. So this is what I’ll offer -- you bring me the money and I’ll let her go. Otherwise she’s accountable, same as you. That’s the best deal you’re gonna get. I won’t tell you you can save yourself, because you can’t.

Next up: Judgment Day.
Flipping coins at the Pearly Gates?

Ed Tom [to Wendell]: Here last week they found this couple out in California. They rent out rooms for old people, kill’em, bury’em in the yard, cash their social security checks. Well, they’d tortur’em first, I don’t know why. Maybe the television set was broke. And this went on until, here, I quote… “Neighbors were alerted when a man ran from the premises…wearing only a dog collar.” You can’t make up such a thing as that. I dare you to even try.

How about the equivalent of that here, Mr. Pinhead?

Local Sheriff: It’s all the goddamn money, Ed Tom. Money and the drugs. It’s just goddamn beyond everything. What’s it mean? What’s it leading to? You know, if you’d have told me 20 years ago. I’d see children walking the streets of our Texas towns…with green hair, bones in their noses…I just flat-out wouldn’t have believed you.
Ed Tom: I think once you quit hearing “sir” and “ma’am,” the rest is soon to foller.

Next up:
1] Trump is reelected
2] Trump invades Mexico and wipes out the cartels
3] we all live happily ever after

Ed Tom [to Ellis]: I always figured when I got older, God would sorta come inta my life somehow. And he didn’t.

Unless, perhaps, Anton Chigurh himself is the second coming of Christ?

Carla Jean: You don’t have to do this.
Chigurh [smiles]: People always say the same thing.
Carla Jean: What do they say?
Chigurh: They say, “You don’t have to do this.”
Carla Jean: You don’t.
Chigurh: Okay.
[Chigurh flips a coin and covers it with his hand]
Chigurh: This is the best I can do. Call it.
Carla Jean: I knowed you was crazy when I saw you sitting there. I knowed exactly what was in store for me.
Chigurh: Call it.
Carla Jean: No. I ain’t gonna call it.
Chigurh: Call it.
Carla Jean: The coin don’t have no say. It’s just you.
Chigurh: Well, I got here the same way the coin did.

New thread!

Boy on Bike: Mister? You got a bone stickin’ out of your arm.

Hmm, he wondered, what did happen to him...?

Another rendition of love and human remains: Two’s company, three’s a crowd. In the bedroom especially.

And here, small towns are the same as big ones.

We love our families. Or maybe we don’t. But we don’t get to pick them. Then we fall in love with someone that we do get to pick. But it’s still all entangled in parts we didn’t. Love is one slippery [and sometimes slimy] slope. And not many beat the odds.

So much can ride on making either the right choice or the least wrong one. What this movie brings out is just how hard it can be making them. Grappling with [among other things] what you think you understand about what others think they understand about you. It can destroy relationships. It can literally cost you your life.

Next up: the criminal justice system. And here [small towns and big towns also alike] it can still be bought and paid for. It’s always the path of least resistance—for them.

Finally, like an avalanche, all the complex, contradictory thoughts and feelings come crashing down. Burying both of them. And all we get to see of course is the part that is scripted. The reality?

Here, whatever is scripted next. Like the ending.


In The Bedroom

Matt: The trap has nylon nets called “heads”. Two side heads to let the lobster crawl in. And inside, what’s called a bedroom head holds the bait…and keep him from escaping. You know the old saying: “Two’s company, three’s a crowd”? Well, it’s like that. More than two of these in a bedroom and something like that happens.

The plot here in a nutshell?

Richard: Where are the boys…with him?
Natalie: It’s none of your business.
Richard: Oh, I see. They’re my boys, but they’re none of my business.

Cue Keith Morrison?

Natalie: Richard…you don’t change. You don’t change, do you?
Richard: Change? No, I don’t change. Everything around me changes. You change. You take my house…and you take my kids…and you fuck this other guy. But me, no, I don’t change.

He said, she said. Just leave it at that?

Natalie [walks up to Ruth]: Oh, I was hoping we could talk.
[pauses]
Natalie: I wanted to tell you how truly sorry I am…
[pauses again]
Natalie: …and if there’s ever anything I can ever do… to-to talk with you.
[long pause]
[Ruth slaps Natalie across the face, Natalie screams, and Ruth goes back to work; Natalie walks off in shock and sadness]

Some things just are what they turn out to be. Then it's just a matter of figuring out if that's everything.

Matt: You’re obviously upset. Is there something we can talk about?
Ruth: Talk? Who, us? What if somebody walked in? They wouldn’t recognize us. They’d think they were in the wrong house.

Separate lies, let's call them, Matt.

Matt: Are you saying that I…that I’m the one responsible for Frank’s death? Is that it? Well… Let me tell you something. Let me tell you: you got it backwards! I know what you think, that I was too lenient! That I let him get away with…
Ruth [explosively]: Everything! Everything!..You were winking at him the whole time. You encouraged him. You wanted what he had. Her.
Matt: My God, you’ve gotta be kidding!
Ruth: You know it! You wanted it and you couldn’t get it. That’s why you didn’t stop him. So you could get your kicks through your son. You can’t admit the truth to me or to yourself…that Frank died for your fantasy piece of ass!

Too close to call?

Matt: Do you wanna know why our son is dead? Do you really wanna know? He went there not because of me. He was with her not because of me. He went there because of you. Because you are so controlling, so overbearing, so angry, that he was it! That he was our only son!
Ruth: That is not true!
Matt: Oh, yes it is. Yes, it is. Ever since he was little, you were telling him how he was wrong. I remember, one time you yanked him out of a little league game and sent him home, for throwing his glove in the dirt. He was what? Nine years old. Everything he did was wrong. Well, what was wrong with him, Ruth? You are so unforgiving. You are. That’s what he said. And now you’re pulling the same shit with me, and that’s a horrible way to be. It’s a horrible. You’re bitter, Ruth. And you can point your finger all you want at me, but you better take a damn good look at yourself first.

Too close to call? Forget about it.

Willis: Ever notice that even the worst bastards have friends?

If not the same God?

Ruth: Are you all right, Matt?
Matt: There was a picture of him and Natalie on the wall.
Ruth: What is it, Matt?
Matt: The way she was smiling.
Ruth: What?
Matt: I don’t know.
Ruth: Matt…

Then all the way to the grave for all parties.

Probably not for those who really do know what it’s like to look around them and think, “this is as good as it gets”. This being basically a shithole.

Being “damaged” psychologically is so much more exasperating than enduring aliments that afflict us physically. For the somatic sort there are things that can be spotted on xrays or through symptoms or in just probing the way the body actually behaves. The head stuff [sans, say, a tumor] not so much. And then the psycho and the somatic can get tangled up in ways that your life becomes a living hell.

And then you can become a sonofabitch around others because you’re so miserable yourself.

I’ve had my share of them. But how lucky I feel never to have been stricken with a compulsive disorder. Counting how many times you lock the door and avoiding cracks in the sidewalk? Obsessed with germs? Jesus.

And here in America we have this thing called “healthcare for the rest of us”. Something folks in the rest of the civilized world know less about. It bankrupts some. And others are denied the care they need. Kids, for example.

I really didn’t buy the relationships here towards the end. It was just too much like in the movies.

Courtney Love turned down the role of Carol as she was recording the ‘Celebrity Skin’ album with her band Hole. IMDb

I can’t even imagine it


As Good As It Gets

Melvin: You’ve pissed on your last floor, you dog-eared monkey.
[he puts the dog in the garbage chute]
Melvin: This is New York, pal. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere!

Good point?

Melvin: Oh, you were talking about your dog. I thought you were referring to that colored man I’ve been seeing in the hall.
Simon: Uh, what color would that be?
Melvin: Like uh, like thick MO-lasses…with a broad nose.

He'll be seeing him again.

Melvin: I work all the time. So never, never, interrupt me, okay? Not if there’s a fire, not even if you hear the sound of a thud from my home and one week later there’s a smell coming from there that can only be a decaying human body and you have to hold a hanky to your face because the stench is so thick that you think you’re going to faint. Even then, don’t come knocking. Or, if it’s election night, and you’re excited and you wanna celebrate because some fudgepacker that you date has been elected the first queer president of the United States and he’s going to have you down to Camp David, and you want someone to share the moment with. Even then, don’t knock. Not on this door. Not for ANY reason. Do you get me, sweetheart?
Simon: Uhm, yes. It’s not a…subtle point that you’re making.

That's what I thought too.

Melvin: I’ve got Jews at my table.
Carol: It’s not your table, it’s the places, behave! This once, you can sit at someone else’s station.
[all the other waitresses gasp]
Carol: Or you can wait your turn.

It's the "condition" talking, Carol.

Carol: You’re going to die soon with that diet. You know that, right?
Melvin: Oh, we’re all going to die soon. I will, you will, and it sure sounds like your son will.
Carol [angrily, after long pause]: If you ever mention my son again, you will never be able to eat here again. Do you understand?
[Melvin is speechless]
Carol: Give me some sign you understand or leave now. Do you understand me…you crazy fuck? Do you?!?
[Melvin nods]
Melvin: Yes.

And for a few minutes there, he actually did.

Melvin [reading aloud a book he is typing into the computer]: “He had made the girl happy. And what a girl. ‘You’ve saved my life,’ she said, ‘you’d better make it up to me.’”

Grim, but clever?

Death

“But on paper, things can live forever.
On paper, a butterfly
never dies.” Jacqueline Woodson

And if you toss the paper into a fire?

“Until death it is all life.” Miguel de Cervantes

Theoretically?

“It would be wrong to refuse to face the fact that everything is fundamentally sick and sad.” Thomas Bernhard

Theoretically?

“Dying should come easy:
like a freight train you
don't hear when
your back is
turned.” Charles Bukowski

Next up: turning your back on it here.

“Death is contagious; it is contracted the moment we are conceived.” Madeleine L'Engle

Praise the Lord?

“Is today a good day to die?” Jennifer Niven

Or, perhaps, see what tomorrow brings?

As Good As It Gets

Melvin [aloud to himself]: Worst sidewalk in New York and look where they put it.

Next up: the cracks here.

Dr. Green: If you want to see me, you will not do this. You will make an appointment.
Melvin: Dr. Green, how can you diagnose someone as an obsessive compulsive disorder, and then act like I have some choice about barging in here?!

What about that, Bob?

Melvin [to a group of depressed psychiatric patients]: What if this is as good as it gets?

Uh, here too?

Carol? What are you doing here? Are you totally gone? This is my private home!
Melvin: I am trying to keep emotions out of this. Even though this is an important issue to me and I have strong feelings about the subject.
Carol: What subject? That I wasn’t there to take crap from you and bring you eggs? Do you have any control over how creepy you allow yourself to get?
Melvin: Yes, I do, as a matter of fact…and to prove it I have not gotten personal and you have.

The turning point, let's call it.

Melvin: You’re a disgrace to depression.
Simon: Rot in hell, Melvin!
Melvin: No need to stop being a lady. Quit worryin! You’ll be back on your knees in no time!

Nope, no turning point here though.

Zoe: How do you write women so well?
Melvin (as he turns toward her): I think of a man and take away reason and accountability.

Of course, he's only paraphrasing J.D. Vance.

Philosophy

“The shame of being a man - is there any better reason to write?” Gilles Deleuze

Let's run that by the women here.

“If your life is worth thinking about, it is worth writing about.” Robin Sharma

If only up in the philosophical clouds?

“The more powerful the class, the more it claims not to exist.” Guy Debord

Let's run this by, among others, the ruling class here.

“It is a self-deception of philosophers and moralists to imagine that they escape decadence by opposing it. That is beyond their will; and, however little they acknowledge it, one later discovers that they were among the most powerful promoters of decadence.” Friedrich Nietzsche

Next up: the decadent objectivists here.

“Truth would quickly cease to be stranger than fiction, once we got as used to it.” H. L. Mencken

Try to get used to mine?

“All the times I have suddenly realized that my parents are dead, even now, it still surprises me, to exist in the world while that which made me has ceased to exist.” Nicole Krauss

And it never seems to skip a generation.

As Good As It Gets

Carol: Why did you do this for me?
Melvin: To get you back at work so you can wait on me.
Carol: But you do have some idea how strange that sounds??? I’m worried that you did this because…
Melvin: You waiting for me to say something? Look, I’ll be at the restaurant tomorrow.
Carol: I don’t think I can wait until tomorrow. This needs clearing up.
Melvin: Clear what up?
Carol: I’m not going to sleep with you. I will never, ever sleep with you. Never. Not ever.

Talk about a failure to communicate.

Melvin [introducing Carol to Simon]: Carol the waitress, Simon the fag.

Uh, tongue in cheek?

Melvin: Can I ask you a personal question?
Simon: Sure.
Melvin: You ever get an erection over a woman?
Simon: Melvin…
Melvin: I mean, wouldn’t your life be easier if you weren’t…
Simon: You consider your life easy?
Melvin [pause]: All right, I give you that one.

And then some.

Melvin: Now, I’ve got a really great compliment for you…and it’s true.
Carol: I’m so afraid you’re about to say something awful.
Melvin: Don’t be pessimistic, it’s not your style. Okay, here I go: Clearly, a mistake. I’ve got this, what - ailment? My doctor, a shrink that I used to go to all the time, he says that in fifty or sixty percent of the cases, a pill really helps. I hate pills, very dangerous thing, pills. Hate. I’m using the word “hate” here, about pills. Hate. My compliment is, that night when you came over and told me that you would never…all right, well, you were there, you know what you said. Well, my compliment to you is, the next morning, I started taking the pills.
Carol: I don’t quite get how that’s a compliment for me.
Melvin: You make me want to be a better man.

And getting him closer and closer to the bedroom?

Carol: When you first entered the restaurant, I thought you were handsome…and then, of course, you spoke.

That'll do it. Here in spades.

Simon: Thank you, Melvin. You overwhelm me.
Melvin: They did a nice job…Cozy, huh?
Simon: I love you.
Melvin [pretentions fall]: I’ll tell you, buddy, I’d be the luckiest guy alive if that did it for me.

Falling...or just shifting existentially in a new direction?

Simon: The only real enemy you have is her ability to think logically. And the best thing you have going for you is your willingness to humiliate yourself.

As good as it gets?

Is this a parody? His shrink?! That’s the guy he is hired to hit? Or maybe his mother and father set it up.

There must be more films about hitmen than there are people who hitmen have actually killed.

Yeah, if only that were true. But there sure are a lot of them.

Are there actually families like this though? You become a hitman because Daddy is?

Here there is a lot of mumbo jumbo about “destiny”…about figuring out the best way to figure out the best way to live. What part does “I” play in it? Is there a me already existing I have to come to terms with…or do we [more or less] make it all up as we go along? In other words, out in a world we can only have so much understanding of and control over.

You know where I come down [resoundingly] here: Maybe. Dasein is written all over this one. For example, I had no relationship at all with my own father…so what could I know about what Alex is going through with his?

Anyway, these people are seeing shrinks so at least they are not boring. But are they dangerous? To each other, I mean.

Look for Cinnamon Carter.


Panic

Alex [first lines]: You ever get the feeling you're dead? Like some dog lying in the street, that's been hit by a car and left there to rot? Like I don't know why .. why I bother getting up in the morning.

American Beauty?

Michael: You pussy-whipped, son? I think you're pussy-whipped. Don't feel bad about it. We're all fuckin' pussy-whipped. Women run the world. Don't let anyone tell you different. Women, not men. Fuck them.
[long sigh]
Sneaky, the way they do it. That's what they're good at: being fucking sneaky. Who decides what you're gonna' eat tonight? Who decides how much booze you should drink? Who decides what movie you're gonna' go see? Follow my drift, Alex? Women are vipers.

He means men, of course.

Dr Parks: What do you do for a living?
Alex: Uh, I’ve got two jobs. I run a small mail order business out of my home…lawn ornaments, kitchen doodads, sexual aids…things like that.
Dr Parks: And the rest of the time?
Alex: I work for my father.
Dr Parks: Doing what?
Alex: I kill people.

And, no, he's not a comedian.

Alex: I don’t believe in shrinks. I mean, we are who we are right?

Click?

Sarah: I like pussy alright, is there anything wrong with that?
Dr. Leavitt: Nope.
Sarah: Then why are you staring at me like I kill people?

Let alone for a living.

Sammy: Dad… When can I get a Guitar?
Alex: When you’ve mastered the harmonica.
Sammy: When can I get an electric guitar?
Alex: When you’ve got your own house.

Kill him?

Michael [father]: Every man has a destiny, Alex. Life is not… random. The trick is discovering your destiny, knowing it. Once you do that, everything else comes easy… just flows.

Michael then pulls out a gun. And young Alex meets his “destiny”.

Michael: I know and you know what you do. Your mother knows because she helped me to get started in the business. But nobody else can.

Especially God, he suspected.

Alex [holding up a pair of handcuffs]: What are these for?
Sarah: You don’t know me well enough to ask that question.

That point here.

Sarah: Okay. Here are the rules: She never finds out and we never fall in love. Agreed?

Of course, some rules are just made to be broken.

Sarah: All you're doing is walking along the street with a beautiful young girl.
Alex: That's enough to get me killed.
Sarah: Your wife's possessive?
Alex: All women are possessive.
Sarah: Hah! All women?
Alex: Yeah.
Sarah: Each and every one the world over?
Alex: Sure.

Think veggie and every single man here?

Sammy [to Alex]: I killed a squirrel.

Let the bloodbath begin.