Quote of the day

[iambiguous]

Ludwig Wittgenstein

The philosopher's treatment of a question is like the treatment of an illness.

And how sick is that?

A philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never goes into the ring.

And we must have at least hundreds of them here.

What is the use of studying philosophy if all that it does for you is to enable you to talk with some plausibility about some abstruse questions of logic, etc., & if it does not improve your thinking about the important questions of everyday life, if it does not make you more conscientious than any journalist in the use of the DANGEROUS phrases such people use for their own ends.

A new thread? Or, perhaps, a new philosophy forum?

It is obvious that an imagined world, however different it may be from the real one, must have something - a form - in common with it.

You first.

What people accept as justification shows how they think and live.

Let's just leave it at that.

Here it can be seen that solipsism, when its implications are followed out strictly, coincides with pure realism.

I doubt that.

[iambiguous]

Another thriller. But this is no ordinary one. On 45 reviews, it got a 98% fresh at RT. It is more along the lines of a Blood Simple thriller. You’re never quite exactly sure what leads to who and who leads to what.

And it is also character driven. So meet Dale “Hurricane” Dixon. A character and a half. A cracker sheriff if there ever was one. How bad? Let’s just say the cops from Los Angeles are in way over their heads getting to the bottom of him. Only they think it is the other way around. And they’re both right.

He used her. And then he just dumped her. But sometimes the past has a way of creeping up on you. And, depending on where you are in the present, it can tie you in knots…knots you have no way of escaping. Or even kill you.

It’s dope again. I mean, one way or another, it always is, right? These folks just happen to be particularly vicious when you cross them. Or when they think you did. On the other hand, Ray did let Fantasia go looking for the little boy. That’s the best we can hope for from a psychopath. Only unlike Dick and Perry above we don’t really have a clue regarding what went into the making of these folks.

And then the part about race. Where to even begin down in rural Arkansas.

In the end: What goes around comes around.


One False Move

Bobby: How you doing?
Fantasia: Fine.
Bobby: Is Ray with you?
Fantasia: No.
Bobby: That’s good. Real good.

And we're about to find out why.

Jackie: If we tell where Marco lives, he’ll kill us.
Ray: Well what the fuck do you think we’re going to do?

See?

Dale [on phone]: You got six people dead out there at the same time. That don’t happen much here. Sometimes we get a stabbing. Colored boys, generally. One of them sticks another over a card game.

A good ole boy, let's call him.

Fantasia: I don’t get you. Why don’t you loosen up and have some fun? Why don’t you get high with Ray and me? Don’t you want to feel good?
Ray: This is the biggest thing to ever happened to us. And you just sit there like a little brown turd.

Let's just say he has his reasons.

Ray [seeing his picture in the paper about the murders]: That goddamn kid! Why didn’t you tell me about that fucking kid?!
Fantasia: I swear to God, I didn’t see any kid! He must have been hiding. Hiding real good.
[Ray smacks her hard across the face]
Ray: Quit lying!
Fantasia: Don’t hit me no more. Pluto, don’t let him hit me no more.
Pluto: Get rid of her, Ray.

A loose end, right Ray?

Dale: I hope he does show up. 'Cause I got news for you. That white trash and them two niggers are…
[Cheryl Ann kicks him hard under the table; she motions with her eyes to Detective McFeely who is black]

Oops.

Cheryl Ann: I want to apologize for that comment before. I bet John feels terrible. Dale didn’t mean it. He just grew up talking that way.

Well, yeah, that's true. Sort of.

Cheryl Ann: These people are dangerous, aren’t they?
Det. Cole: Yes, they are.
Cheryl Ann: I’ve never seen Dale this excited before. This case is the biggest thing that’s ever happened to him. He really likes you and John. I can tell. I think he looks at you like you’re heroes.
Det. Cole: Well, we’re far from that.
Cheryl Ann: You might want to tell him that. I have a little girl who needs her daddy. Dale doesn’t know any better. He watches TV. I read nonfiction.

That sure explains something, I suppose.

[overheard by Dale in the restaurant]
Det. McFeely: Hurricane is waiting on the bad guys the way a kid waits for Christmas.
Det. Cole: Hurricane is a force of nature.
Det. McFeely: I like old Hurricane. He’s a nice fella.
Det. Cole: Guess what he told me this morning? He wants to come to L.A. And join the force.
Det. McFeely: You’re kidding.
Det. Cole: Honest to God. He said he thought that me and him and “Macintosh” would make a great team.
Det. McFeely: No shit.
Det. Cole: He said he wanted a crack at the big time.
Det. McFeely: What did you say?
Det. Cole: I told him it was an interesting idea.
Det. McFeely: That’s the funniest thing I ever heard. Can you imagine that motherfucker roaming around Parker Center? He’ll put a stopper in the bottle. That yokel won’t last ten minutes.

So, did they go too far or not nearly far enough?

Det. McFeely: Hurricane, just how well do you know this gal?
Dale: What do you mean?
Det. McFeely: You know what I mean.

Yep, he's the father, alright.

Dale: Lila, even if I wanted to, I can’t help you.
[pauses]
Dale: I don’t have the legal authority.
Fantasia/Lila: You didn’t have the legal authority to fuck me when I was 17 years old…but that didn’t stop you, did it?

And now look where they are.

Fantasia/Lia: Instead of spying on me…why didn’t you come in and say hello to your son?
Dale: He’s not my kid.
Fantasia/Lia: Not your kid? He’s nearly as white as you are.
Dale: That proves nothing.
Fantasia/Lia: Are you calling me a whore? I was a virgin when we met, and you know it.

Men!

Fantasia/Lia [after Dale finds a gun in her purse]: I forgot that thing was even in there. Ray gave it to me for protection. I don’t know how it works.
Dale: You pull the damn trigger.

Yep, that's how mine works.

Fantasia/Lila: Me and my brother’s daddy was white, did you know that? Of course, we never knew him. He had another family. That’s why I kind of look white. Because my daddy was white. You figured since I kind of look white, you could fuck me, what the hell…Because I was kind of black…you could dump me, what the hell.

Or something like that, no doubt.

Little boy [Dale’s son…to his father]: Are you dead, mister?

No, but the "bad guys" are.

[iambiguous]

Out of the blue a “normally terrrific kid” starts behaving in a destructive manner. The other kids were “annoying” him. That’s how it all begins. His disease. It stumps everyone. And it is a disease without a remedy.

This is a tough film to watch. Many wouldn’t if they didn’t have an inkling of how it ends. There is just something about the suffering of children that appalls us. Especially if you don’t have God to fall back on.

God. The one who was there when the disease began and when it was finally beaten back. I mean, what was He thinking when He came up with this one? It’s not only that innocent young children die…but in such a ghastly manner. It’s terrible. Even knowing it’s all acting I still find myself fast-forwarding from time to time.

There are so many things it might be. So welcome to the world of modern medicine. Miraculous in some respects and utterly, utterly exasperating in others. The parents are often forced to choose between ghastly or ghastlier alternatives. And some parents begin to wonder if their sick children are there for the scientists more or less than the scientists are there for the sick children. And the paradox for the parents is that in order to understand the disease well enough to tackle it themselves they have to spend less time with their child. And he has very little time left. Here you find yourself getting pissed off at lots of different people because they don’t seem to use common sense. But what the hell is that in complex bio-genetic syndromes like this? Still, different folks [parents, scientists, doctors, politicians] have different agendas. And all of them insist it is with the very best of intentions. But this in fact really is an indictment of those reactionaries in the medical “establishment” and the “competitive” scientific community who refuse to bend the protocal even in the face of overwhelming empirical evidence.

Some sick children can only hope they have parents like this child had.


Lorenzo's Oil

Doctor: There is a family of diseases that’s quite rare: the leukodystrophies. Lorenzo has one of them. It’s called ALD. What ALD is is an inborn error of metabolism that causes a degeneration of the brain. It only effects males, usually between the ages of 5 and 10. Its progress is relentless. The end is inevitable. All boys with ALD die, usually withing two years of diagnosis.
Michaela: And there are no exceptions?
Doctor: No.
Michaela: Are you absolutely sure?
Doctor: I am so sorry.

They'll have to find one themselves.

Professor Nikolias: ALD is only carried on the female chromozone.
Michaela: Are you saying that Lorenzo got this directly from me?
Professor Nikolias: Well, in the sense that ALD is sex-linked, yes. It goes from mother to son.
Michaela: Then how did I get it?
Professor Nikolias: Well, the woman gets it from her mother.
Michaela: And if I inherited the defect, why don’t I have the disease?
Professor Nikolias: No, the woman is only the carrier, nothing else, but with each conception she has a 50-50 chance of passing on the defect. And when that happens…it’s the cruelest kind of genetic lottery.
Michaela: Lottery?
Professor Nikolias: It’s a clumsy word. I use it because it’s all arbitrary. No one is to blame.

Let's run this by God. Yours first, okay?

Augusto: All right, all right. ALD has many dimensions, right?
Michaela: Yes
Augusto: So, in order to understand it, we need to command genetics, biochemistry, microbiology, neurology, ology-ology.
Michaela: Augusto, we don’t have time to go to medical school.
Augusto: Michaela, the doctors are in the dark. They’re groping in the dark. The’ve got Lorenzo on a turvy-topsy diet. And that bloody immunosuppression is brutal and useless. Michaela, we should not have consigned him blindly into their hands. He should not suffer by our ignorance. We take responsibility. So…we read a little. And we go out and inform ourselves.
Michaela: But…to miss time with him while he can still speak to us…
Augusto: Yes, I know, I know. But he expects it of us.

Stuck between the proverbial rock and the proverbial hard place.

Professor Nikolias [to Augusto]: Do you know how many children die every year from choking on french fries? Many more than from Adrenoleukodistrophy. You see, ours is what is known as an orphan disease, too small to be noticed, too small to be funded, especially with the iron hand of “Reganomics”.

Of course: politics!

Ellard Muscatine: When Michael, our first boy, got sick, we searched around looking for anything that might help him. You know what was the best thing that happened? He was taken quickly. Now Tommy… he has lasted three years, for two of them, he’s been without his sight, his mind, everything that makes him a human being, he’s a vegetable. Y’know if you would just stop all this denial, you wouldn’t do a thing to prolong your boy’s suffering and indignity one minute longer.
Loretta Muscatine: Has it occurred to you that maybe he doesn’t want to be around anymore?

Christ, what do you say to that?

Michaela [to her suffering son]: Lorenzo, Lorenzo, listen to Mama. Can you hear me, my darling? If this is too much for you, my sweetheart, well, then, you fly. Fly as fast as you can to Baby Jesus. It’s okay.

What else is there?
Right, God?

Michaela: The life of one boy is not enough reward for you to risk the reputation of the institution and the esteem of your peers.
Professor Nikolias: That was uncalled for. Your responsibility is merely towards your own child. My responsibility is towards all the boys that suffer from this disease, now and in the future. Of course I anguish for the suffering of your boy. And of course I applaud you for the efforts you make on his behalf. But I will have nothing to do with this oil.
Michaela: We are not asking, Doctor, for your anguish or your applause. We are asking merely for a little courage.

If you know what she means. And who doesn't these days.

Professor Nikolias [to the families of ALD patients]: Let me say you’re not going to get any insurance company or any government to support you unless you have our approval. And the only way to get this approval is through thorough testing!
Woman in the audience: That’s what they told the AIDS people about AZT. They fought for it and got it.
Woman in the audience: Because they were dying and didn’t have time to wait!
Man in the audience: We padded our walls yesterday. We want that oil!

The medical industrial complex. What, you expected it to be any different from all the rest of them.

Title card: This film was completed at the end of 1992 and so far doctors all over the world have begun to prescribe Lorenzo’s Oil. If a diagnosis is made early enough the treatment stops the disease. So there is now a growing army of boys kept free from the ravages of ALD.

Next up? God'll think of something.

[iambiguous]

Science

“I shall not commit the fashionable stupidity of regarding everything I cannot explain as a fraud." C.G. Jung

With obvious exceptions here, of course.

“To protest about bullfighting in Spain, the eating of dogs in South Korea, or the slaughter of baby seals in Canada while continuing to eat eggs from hens who have spent their lives crammed into cages, or veal from calves who have been deprived of their mothers, their proper diet, and the freedom to lie down with their legs extended, is like denouncing apartheid in South Africa while asking your neighbors not to sell their houses to blacks.” Peter Singer

How about this: don't get me started and I won't get you started.

“Science may be described as the art of systematic oversimplification.” Karl Popper

Uh, theoretically?

“And when you look at the sky you know you are looking at stars which are hundreds and thousands of light-years away from you. And some of the stars don’t even exist anymore because their light has taken so long to get to us that they are already dead, or they have exploded and collapsed into red dwarfs. And that makes you seem very small, and if you have difficult things in you life it is nice to think that they are what is called negligible, which means they are so small you don’t have to take them into account when you are calculating something.” Mark Haddon

Or something like that.

If this book has a lesson, it is that we are awfully lucky to be here-and by 'we' I mean every living thing. To attain any kind of life in this universe of ours appears to be quite an achievement. As humans we are doubly lucky, of course: We enjoy not only the privilege of existence but also the singular ability to appreciate it and even, in a multitude of ways, to make it better. It is a talent we have only barely begun to grasp.” Bill Bryson

Of course, we still all die in end.

“If you've got the truth you can demonstrate it. Talking doesn't prove it.” Robert A. Heinlein

Unless, of course, it's clouds all the way down.

[iambiguous]

Have you ever been a conjoined twin? Me neither.

Penny [the prostitute] doesn’t quite know what to make of them. She just wants to get the hell out of the room. Though they are rather handsome. And truly dead ringers. But as with Chang and Eng, one was the “sickly” twin.

I suspect you won’t have ever seen a film quite like this one.

For the bulk of my life I was surrounded by people. And now I choose to live apart from them. But imagine going through your entire life and never being able to choose that. Always another right by your side. Literally a part of you. Though some I suppose would actually crave that. A guarantee of never really being alone in the world.

But, as Francis explains to Penny, they have nothing else to compare their life against.

And this wouldn’t be America if there wasn’t someone around trying to turn the whole thing into a buck. But then we wonder how they managed to support themselves until now. And then we find out.

Sometimes, there’s just no getting around having to endure being what others think you are.

And when the first dies?


Twin Falls Idaho

Penny: What’s that smell?
Elevator operator: Pee.

And only pee if you're lucky.

Miles: I thought you had given up on this…get-rich-quick profession.
Penny: Well, it’s funny. I ain’t rich yet.
Miles: Well…as long as you don’t start to smoke the pipe.
Penny: Yeah. Me, the crack whore.

Not much here that isn't possible.

Penny: Do you ever get lonely?
Blake: When?
Penny: Well, I was thinking, you were born with somebody…at your side. So I was wondering if you ever got lonely. You don’t have to answer me if you don’t want to.
Blake: No, that’s okay. I just never get a question like that. It’s usually if Francis and I share the same dick.

Or the same asshole?!

Penny: Do you ever think about separation?
Francis: Blake always says…‘‘We checked in together… we’ll check out together.’’ Blake could live a normal life when I go. He has a very strong heart. He’s the reason why my blood pumps and my heart beats. I’m alive because of Blake.

How to wrap your head around that?

Francis: What’s wrong?
Blake: Us… lying here, back in this bed.
Francis: You want to leave?
Blake: I wish I could. I wish I could just get up and walk out of here…on my own.
Francis: And separate? You’d only be half a man to her.
Blake: I’d be free.

Too close to call.

Francis: It’s not about freedom, it’s about cutting us…in half. You’d be a cripple. You’d be maimed. Somebody who pisses in the bag and carries it around with them.
Blake: Well, it may be better than carrying you around. Come on, Francis. Let go!
Francis: You took the short road. You always fall in love too quickly!
Blake: Did you ever think that if I took the long road you would have never lasted? Did you ever think…about me?

I suspect almost all the time.

Doctor [looking at x-rays of Blake and Francis]: Intriguing, isn’t it?
Penny: Yeah.
Doctor: You look at something like this, and you go, ‘‘Wow… they are connected.’’ What’s important now is what they don’t share. Whether we did this on the day they were born or ten years from now…this day was gonna present itself.
Penny: It’s a doctor’s career day.
Doctor: If I could figure out why the fusion occurred in the first place… that would be a career day. There’s not one clue in the medical books why this happens. Why does the egg stop splitting in them…and not some other pair of twins? We’re just left with whatever Mother Nature decides to give birth to.

Her again.

[iambiguous]

Based on actual events. And since this is a peek inside the real world of capitalism you can be reasonably sure it is going on still. The tip of the iceberg they call it.

For the Big Buckmeisters, real competition can be a drag. On the bottom line, for example.

The good news here is that the afflictions are mostly to our wallets. Rather than mostly to our very existence itself. See, for instance, Erin Brockovich above.

But this guy Whitacre plays the game on a whole other level. Especially when ADM brings the FBI into it. There are just so many balls you can keep up in the air. He’s a whistle blower, sure. But it’s more, uh, complicated than that. Way more.

Not only that but he is a veritable font of superfluous information. Only it seems so much less so coming from him. He thinks of himself here as secret agent 0014. Why? Because he is twice as smart as agent 007. And yet he actually thinks ADM will let him keep his job after the shit hits the fan. Why? Because he is so smart…and he did the right thing. He thinks he’ll be put in charge of running the company!!

His wife on the other hand thinks it’s the FBI: They’re brainwashing him! And then come all the “hypotheticals”. That’s when things really get complicated. It’s unbelievable. Jesus, this guy ends up with a prison term three times longer than the crooks he helped to catch! The government used him…and then dumped him.

But the truth of the matter is…

Well, forget that.

In an NPR radio interview, Matt Damon said that Steven Soderbergh, to get Mark Whitacre’s final apology to the judge just right, directed Damon to perform the lines as if he were accepting an Academy Award. (Damon said it was an example of “perfect direction” IMDb


The Informant

Mark [voiceover]: You know that orange juice you have every morning? You know what’s in that? Corn. And you know what’s in the maple syrup you put on your pancakes? You know what makes it taste so good? Corn. And when you’re good and help with the trash, you know what makes the big, green bags biodegradable?
Mark [to his son]: Do you?
Alexander: Uh-huh. Corn.
Mark: Corn starch. But Daddy’s company didn’t come up with that one. DuPont did.

Corn. Don't leave home with out it.

Mark [voiceover]: Archer Daniels Midland. Most people have never head of us, but chances are, they’ve never had a meal we’re not a part of. Just read the side of the package. That’s us. Now ADM is taking dextrose from the corn and turning it into an amino acid called lysine. It’s all very scientific, but if you’re a stockholder, all that matters is corn goes in one end and profit comes out the other.

Especially from a stacked deck of it.

Terry: Did the Japanese have these kind of problems with lysine?
Mick: I don’t give a shit about the Japanese. You just gotta get the goddamn lysine bugs to eat the dextrose and shit us out some money.

Of course, we know better.

Mark [voiceover]: The pilgrims loved the corn-- they came for the religious freedom but they stayed for the corn-- but its missing three of your eight essential amino acids-- especially lysine. That’s why the Indians ate it with beans or lime. You feed a chicken corn and it gets sick. You feed it corn and lysine and it goes from egg to supermarket fryer in six months instead of eight.

A little inside information, let's call it.

Mark [voiceover]: I’ve been to Tokyo. They sell little-girl underwear in the vending machines right on the main drag, the Ginza, or whatever. Guys in suits buying used girl panties. How is that okay? That’s not okay.

On the other hand, what he's doing...?

Mark [voiceover]: Paranoid is what people who are trying to take advantage of you call you to get you to drop your guard!

I'll drop mine here then and see what happens,

Mark [voiceover]: There are these butterflies in Central America. They’re blue and orange and yellow and have poison in their wings, just enough to stop a bird heart. But the birds know this somehow, so they don’t eat them. But there are other ones, butterflies, they’re orange, blue and yellow too but no poison wings. They’re just flying around, looking dangerous, getting by on their looks.

Mother fucking Nature, right?

Mark [to Agent Shepherd]: Look, the price fixing is over. You tell me how I can prove it to you and I will.

Oops.

Mark: Hey, how’d I do?
Shepherd: Mark, we have some problems.
Mark: Hey, wait a minute. I was looking at the thing. The needle didn’t even move.
Shephard: Mark, you don’t know how to read a polygraph.
Herndon: Mark, you splattered the walls with ink.

Now things start to get really, really surreal...every time mark opens his mouth with the revised assessment for example.

Mark [voiceover]: When polar bears hunt, they crouch down by a hole in the ice and wait for a seal to pop up. They keep one paw over their nose so that they blend in, because they’ve got those black noses. They’d blend in perfectly if not for the nose. So the question is, how do they know their noses are black? From looking at other polar bears? Do they see their reflections in the water and think, “I’d be invisible if not for that.” That seems like a lot of thinking for a bear.

Mother fucking nature!

Mark [to the FBI task force]: You guys still think I’m gonna be okay at the company, right? I mean, you guys are going to take down the bad guys, but I’ll be okay, right?

Oh, sure, Mark. On the other hand, define "bad guys?"

Mark [voiceover]: I don’t owe Brian Shepherd the truth. I gave Brian Shepherd two and a half years of my life and now I have legal bills to show for it. And I’m the good guy in all this. I’m the guy who took on ADM. Is Brian Shepherd going to lose his job for that? His standard of living? I did enough for Brian Shepherd. Who’s gonna take care of me?

He might even actually believe this.

Mark: What if I just put out some hypotheticals. I’ll talk about certain financial situations, and you guys can tell me if they’re wrong, or how serious they might be. Okay, for instance, what if a company gave an executive a car, you know, a corporate car, and instead of driving that to work, he used his personal car, and gave his company car to his daughter. That be a problem?
Herndon: That’s it? That’s hypothetical?
Shepard: That shouldn’t be a problem.
Mark: Okay, what if it was a corporate plane, and the executive was using that for personal use.
Herndon: Basically the same thing.
Shepard: Maybe some IRS issues, but…
Mark: Okay, what if it was standard practice at ADM for executives to regularly accept kickbacks in cash.
Shepard [stunned]: How much money are we talking about, Mark?
Mark: Well, Brian, hypothetically, $500,000.

Closer to $5 million, then $7.7 million, then $9.5 million, then 11.5 million. According to Ginger, they bought 8 cars and never even drove 3 of them.

Ginger being stuck in the middle of all this...or is she behind it all?

Mark [voiceover]: Didn’t these guys see The Firm? Or read the book? It’s all there. Everything they did to me, they did to Tom Cruise.

Come on, is that even possible?

Mark [voiceover]: I read this study in Time magazine when I was at Cornell, which is an Ivy League school, and there were people, including my mother, who never believed I would make it into an Ivy League school. Maybe Ginger, who I met in marching in the eighth grade. And the study said people had nice, sympathetic feelings about people who were adopted, and treated them better. So I made up this adoption story, and people did treat me better. And when I got a job, one of my professors told people at Ralston Purina that I was this amazing guy that had accomplished all this in spite of being adopted. And so it was really other people who spread the story, not me. Although I admit it was wrong to start it and everything, it was other people who kept it going, even the people at ADM.

In other words, catch him if you can.

[iambiguous]

God

“Many may have stopped believing in you, but God hasn't.” Anita R. Sneed-Carter

Of course, that can be the good news or the bad news.

“Even if there were pains in Heaven, all who understand would desire them.” C.S. Lewis

Wow, same as in Narnia?

“People often ask: If there’s a God, how can He allow so much suffering in the world? Realize all world suffering you perceive is a mirror to your own psychological self-abuse, gender imbalance, prejudice, poverty, and hunger. You couldn’t even perceive each suffering aspect of external reality if it didn’t already exist within you. Touch and transmute your own psychological suffering, and perceive the world in kind.” Alexandra Katehakis

In other words, There's practically nothing these folks can't convince themselves is the God's honest truth.

“This universe is shot through with mystery. The very fact of its being, and of our own, is a mystery absolute, and the only miracle worthy of the name. The consciousness that animates us is itself central to this mystery and the ground for any experience we might wish to call 'spiritual.' No myths need be embraced for us to commune with the profundity of our circumstance. No personal God need be worshiped for us to live in awe at the beauty and immensity of creation. No tribal fictions need be rehearsed for us to realize, one fine day, that we do, in fact, love our neighbors, that our happiness is inextricable from their own, and that our interdependence demands that people everywhere be given the opportunity to flourish.” Sam Harris

Well, click of course. Or is that somehow built right into everything he says?

“God sends meat and the devil sends cooks.” Thomas Deloney

Let's explain that as best we can.

“When you are convinced that everything that happens is the will of God, what is there to do but wait until God has mercy?” Maaza Mengiste

So, how long have you been waiting...rounded off in years.

[Belinda]

“Many may have stopped believing in you, but God hasn't.” Anita R. Sneed-Carter

and as quoted above by Iambiguous.

That's good for what we call today "mental health". For "God" read ,not some supernatural being, but the individual's soul trying to survive.

[iambiguous]

Probably not based on a true story. Although any number of folks no doubt wish it could have been based on theirs.

As for all the lessons to be learned from watching it, I more or less discarded them and decided to stick with the one I call my own: that, coming or going, one way or the other, it’s still all dasein. And out in a world of contingency, chance and change. Even in a world of fantasy. There’s no getting around the way we bump into each other and set things into motion…things we can scarcely hope to fully understand. Let alone fully control.

And there is no getting around the part about being old. Whether you experience it first or [like most of us] last it can grind you down to the proverbial pulp. And fuck all the movies that try to make it seem instead like “the golden years”. That’s a lie. Or will be eventually. You may be as young as you feel but sooner or later it only goes in one direction. And while Benjamin notes there is nothing wrong with old age it’s not for nothing he’s going in the other direction.

So don’t ever forget: A life is a terrible thing to waste. As for what it means not to waste one, Benjamin Button may just as well have been Forrest Gump as far as I was concerned. Some folks wish life could be like this while others are eternally grateful it’s a whole lot more. Or a whole lot different.

For me the whole movie seems to revolve around this: “Sometimes we’re on a collision course, and we just don’t know it. Whether it’s by accident or by design, there’s not a thing we can do about it.”

Except for the parts we can.

In other words, it’s how all the parts become the whole. And the extent to which we can understand and contol it. Or as Benjamin puts it. “…life being what it is - a series of intersecting lives and incidents, out of anyone’s control…”

…shit happens. Or it misses us altogether. But not for long.

The short story based on a remark by author Mark Twain. Twain famously remarked that ‘the best part of life was from the beginning and the worst part was the end’. IMDb


The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Dr. Rose: Queenie, some creatures just aren’t meant to survive.

Yet here the fuck we are.

Queenie: You never know what’s comin’ for ya.

Let alone what put you here.

Benjamin: Momma? Momma? Some days, I feel different than the day before.
Queenie: Everyone feels different about themselves one way or another, but we all goin’ the same way. Just taking different roads to get there, that’s all.

How's that for comforting?

Ngunda Oti: You’ll see little man, plenty of times you be alone. You different like us, it’s gonna be that way. But I tell you a little secret I find out. We know we alone. Fat people, skinny people, tall people, white people… they just as alone as us…but they scared shitless.

Or, rather, we want them to be.

Mrs. Maple: Benjamin, we’re meant to lose the people we love. How else would we know how important they are to us?

This has always struck me as a crock of shit. Just the sort of thing you convince yourself is true in order rationalize getting old.

Benjamin: It’s a funny thing about comin’ home. Looks the same, smells the same, feels the same. You’ll realize what’s changed is you.

With the possible exception of some and "Willoughby...next stop Willoughby."

Benjamin: You can be as mad as a mad dog at the way things went. You could swear, curse the fates, but when it comes to the end, you have to let go.

Right, like for some what they're letting go of isn't considerably more than others.

Benjamin [voiceover]: Sometimes we’re on a collision course, and we just don’t know it. Whether it’s by accident or by design, there’s not a thing we can do about it. A woman in Paris was on her way to go shopping, but she had forgotten her coat - went back to get it. When she had gotten her coat, the phone had rung, so she’d stopped to answer it; talked for a couple of minutes. While the woman was on the phone, Daisy was rehearsing for a performance at the Paris Opera House. And while she was rehearsing, the woman, off the phone now, had gone outside to get a taxi. Now a taxi driver had dropped off a fare earlier and had stopped to get a cup of coffee. And all the while, Daisy was rehearsing. And this cab driver, who dropped off the earlier fare; who’d stopped to get the cup of coffee, had picked up the lady who was going to shopping, and had missed getting an earlier cab. The taxi had to stop for a man crossing the street, who had left for work five minutes later than he normally did, because he forgot to set off his alarm. While that man, late for work, was crossing the street, Daisy had finished rehearsing, and was taking a shower. And while Daisy was showering, the taxi was waiting outside a boutique for the woman to pick up a package, which hadn’t been wrapped yet, because the girl who was supposed to wrap it had broken up with her boyfriend the night before, and forgot. When the package was wrapped, the woman, who was back in the cab, was blocked by a delivery truck, all the while Daisy was getting dressed. The delivery truck pulled away and the taxi was able to move, while Daisy, the last to be dressed, waited for one of her friends, who had broken a shoelace. While the taxi was stopped, waiting for a traffic light, Daisy and her friend came out the back of the theater. And if only one thing had happened differently: if that shoelace hadn’t broken; or that delivery truck had moved moments earlier; or that package had been wrapped and ready, because the girl hadn’t broken up with her boyfriend; or that man had set his alarm and got up five minutes earlier; or that taxi driver hadn’t stopped for a cup of coffee; or that woman had remembered her coat, and got into an earlier cab, Daisy and her friend would’ve crossed the street, and the taxi would’ve driven by. But life being what it is - a series of intersecting lives and incidents, out of anyone’s control - that taxi did not go by, and that driver was momentarily distracted, and that taxi hit Daisy, and her leg was crushed.

The Benjamin Button Syndrome let's call it.

Benjamin [voiceover]: Her leg had been broken in five places. And with therapy and time, she might walk again. But she’d never dance.

Workman's comp?

Daisy: You are so much young.
Benjamin: Only on the outside.

And then the Elegy Syndrome:

"David [narrating]: I think it was Betty Davis who said old age is not for sissies. But it was Tolstoy who said the biggest surprise in a man’s life is old age. Old age sneaks up on you, and the next thing you know you’re asking yourself, I’m asking myself, why can’t an old man act his real age? How is it possible for me to still be involved in the carnal aspects of the human comedy? Because, in my head, nothing has changed."

Or back to this:

Mary Carson: "Let me tell you something Cardinal de Bricassart about old age and about that God of yours. That vengeful God who ruins our bodies and leaves us with only enough wit for regret. Inside this stupid body, I am still young! I still feel! I still want! I still dream!"

Okay, carry on with what's left of you.

[iambiguous]

Joe Abercrombie from The Blade Itself

“Everything frightens me, and it's well that it does. Fear is a good friend to the hunted, it's kept me alive this long. The dead are fearless, and I don't care to join them."

And all you have to do now is just believe it.

"'Life – the way it really is – is a battle not between good and bad, but between bad and worse’ Joseph Brodsky”

On the other hand, perhaps that is actually truer for some than for others.

Different men have different ways, Logen had told him once, and you have to have fear to have courage.

The only thing that some are afraid of, however, is everything.

The lowly squabble over trifles. The great wage secret wars for power and wealth, and they call it government. Wars of words, and tricks, and guile, but no less bloody for that.

Next up: the equivalent of blood here. In other words, your guess is as good as mine.

Straining and straining, getting nowhere, but unable to stop pushing in case the rock should fall and crush him. Meanwhile, arrogant bastards who were in just the same danger lazed on the slopes beside him saying, ‘Well, it’s not my rock.'

That ever happen to you?
Too?

You have to have fear to have courage.

The part some leave out, of course.

[iambiguous]

Next to the downside of anger, the upside still holds the edge. Or, for some of us, is way out in front. It always depends on what it is exactly that pisses you off…and on what you can do about it. And on whatever happy stuff is still left standing. Then it’s all invested in the passage of time. Angry and glad, angry and glad…all the way from the cradle to the grave. Some keep score, some don’t.

The trials and the tribulations of upper middle class white suburbanites. All of them gorgeous. Some of them retired sports heroes. But, sure, they share things in common with the rest of us. I spotted a couple myself.

One thing’s for sure: Different things make different people angry. Not only that but the things that make some folks angry make other folks beam with delight. For example, I’m delighted that none of this shit ever happened to me. But I’m enraged at some of the stuff that did. Stuff these sort of folks know nothing about. But the common denominator is always the same: if it is big enough it can change your life – anyone’s life – forever.

Now, I know it’s just a cliche but there are any number of folks who would love to have these problems. But then who am I to make light of the stuff that makes others angry?

Just think of this as Parenthood with a smaller brood. On the other hand, I never saw the water well thing coming. Turns out she is angry for nothing and the upside is entirely fortuitous.


The Upside of Anger

Andy [voiceover]: A case in point in anger’s ability to change us is my mother. My mother was always the nicest person I ever knew. She was the nicest, sweetest woman than anyone who knew her ever knew. Then things changed…then she changed. She got angry. Good and angry. Anger has turned my mother into a very sad and bitter woman. If she wasn’t my mother, I’d slap her.

Ah, the downside of anger.

Terry [to her daughters]: Okay. You ladies are old enough now, I’m not gonna pull any punches here. He took his wallet…and he left. When he didn’t come home the other night, you know, I thought we got lucky and he was just in a car crash, dead by the side of the road, but the fact is, he’s run off with his little Swedish secretary, who, oh, what a coincidence, mysteriously left work three days ago and moved back to Sweden!

Of course, those things do happen.

Terry: Your father is a small man. A very small man!
Hadley: I hope you’re not referring to his genitals because that would just be gross.
Lavender: Aww, dude, I was about to eat a string bean!

I guess they'll never know.

Hadley [seeing the dog is eating the chicken prepared for dinner]: Buddy, Goddamn you! Out!
Emily: What’s the big deal? He wasn’t licking it more than three seconds.
Hadley: The three second rule is for floors, not dog’s mouths. He spends all day licking other dogs’ asses.
Emily: It’s fine. You guys, it’s good chicken. It’s fine.
Andy: Like you’d eat it.
[waiting for her to try a piece]
Emily [tasting a piece of chicken]: It’s fine.
Hadley: You know the Zilwaukees’ Great Dane, “Mo’fo?” You’re licking his asshole right now.

Any truth in that?

Terry [to her daughters]: He’s a pig, your dad. Just a vile, selfish, horrible pig, but you know what? I’m not gonna trash him to you girls. I’m not.

Starting tomorrow, say?

Terry [to waiter]: I need a Bloody Mary as soon as is humanly possible.

Yesterday always works for me.

Emily: Do you have any idea what a fucking idiot you sound like sometimes?
Terry: I love how you worry about how the letter you wrote to the parent that deserted you is too mean, but to the one who’s still here in the fight, you have no trouble saying the most vile things. Isn’t that a tad odd?

Yeah. But she still sounds like a fucking idiot sometimes.

Gorden [after Lavender kisses him]: I’m gay.
Lavender: What?
[laughs]
Lavender: No you’re not.
[pause]
Lavender: Are you just saying that cause you don’t wanna kiss me?
Gorden: I like men.
Lavender: Have you ever had gay sex? What about sex with a woman? Just have sex with me and if you don’t like it, then you can be gay.
Gorden [sarcastically]: That’s really nice of you.
[he walks out of the room]

Who could blame him.

Shep [after Terry slaps him for sleeping with her daughter]: Who should I sleep with, Terry? Women like you? Your age? My age? I don’t. You know why? 'Cause younger women are nice. You take them out, and they’re actually grateful. “Oh look, a steak. Yummy.” You go for a walk after dinner, the air smells nice, they say, “Thank you. This was nice. This was fun. You’re funny. Tee-hee-hee.” What should I do, Terry? Settle down and marry some pissed-off thing like you? I’d rather have someone come over and do dental work, every day, from my backside, up… through my ass!

Too close to call?

Denny [to Terry]: I am so sick of being your bitch. I put up with your shit because I know how much pain you’re in! But it’s ENOUGH! It’s a tall order for a patient motherfucker, and I am the furthest thing from that that you’re ever going to lay eyes on.

Hear, hear!

Lavender [voiceover]: People don’t know how to love. They bite rather than kiss. They slap rather than stroke. Maybe it’s because they recognize how easy it is for love to go bad, to become suddenly impossible… unworkable, an exercise of futility. So they avoid it and seek solace in angst, and fear, and aggression, which are always there and readily available. Or maybe sometimes…they just don’t have all the facts.

And what might they be?

Lavender [voiceover]: Anger and resentment can stop you in your tracks. That’s what I know now. It needs nothing to burn but the air and the life that it swallows and smothers. It’s real, though - the fury, even when it isn’t. It can change you…turn you…mold you and shape you into something you’re not. The only upside to anger, then…is the person you become. Hopefully someone that wakes up one day and realizes they’re not afraid to take the journey, someone that knows that the truth is, at best, a partially told story. That anger, like growth, comes in spurts and fits, and in its wake, leaves a new chance at acceptance, and the promise of calm. Then again, what do I know? I’m only a child.

In other words, he thought, blah, blah, blah.

[iambiguous]

This’ll kill you. Or will if you like clever parodies of mobster films. A pitch black comedy acted to perfection.

The family: Until death do they part. As in a blood oath.

She’s married to a hitman. He’s married to a hitwoman. They both get contracts to kill each other. What could go wrong?

Charley is dumb. I mean we’re talkin’ Sopranos dumb. Every time he turns around something knocks him for a loop. Which is almost every other scene.

And, as in the real world, the rationale is always the same: money. But right up there next to it is honor. Family honor. All the stuff about your comportment inside the family. But don’t try to explain the gap in logic to these guys. If you are outside the family you may as well be a bug. On the other hand, you can take advantage of it all by channeling Machiavelli from time to time. Expediently, as it were. An opportunist. Works the same for the cops too.

Only keep that part to yourself.

Still, below all the yuks, just how much different is this from the way things really do unfold among these folks? In other words, this is hardly what could be called a broad farce.

There are reports that John Huston’s continual advice to Jack Nicholson before takes was, “Remember, he’s stupid.” IMDb

And he takes it. Really, the look on Charley’s face will sometimes remind you of R.P. McMurphy after the lobotomy.


Prizzi's Honor

Charley: Mae, you’re still beautiful. Why don’t you find yourself someone who has nothing to do with the families. Settle down…have a couple of kids, a life. Practice your meatballs.
Maerose [sarcastically]: Sure, Charley. Thanks a hell of a lot. You’re a big help.
[she stalks away…the look on his face: priceless]

Or even double that.

Marxie: I think you broke my wrist!
Charley: You won’t be needing it.

Let's figure out why.

[Charlie tells Maerose about Irene]
Charley: I met her in a church. It just happened. I knew she was the woman for me. She’d organized the scam in Vegas. I go looking for the bad guy and it turns out to be my woman, can you imagine this? Not only that - Pop tells me she’s the piece man for the Nettabino contract. Just the same, I love her, Mae… I love her.
Maerose: Well…
Charley: How can I live with this? I gotta do something about it. I gotta straighten it out.
Maerose: Then do it.
Charley: Do what? Do I ice her? Or do I marry her? Which one?

Cue Anton Chigurh?

Pop: Say listen, the Don wants you here for a big meeting tomorrow night.
Charley: Jesus, Pop, what about my honeymoon?
Pop: Well, you’ll have it in Brooklyn!

The one in New York, I'm guessing.

Charley [annoyed]: If Marxie Heller is so fuckin’ smart, how come he’s so fuckin’ dead?

Of course, eventually, we all fuckin' die.

Irene: I can’t believe it. I mean, what kinda creep wouldn’t catch a baby? If it was real it coulda been crippled for life.
Charley: He wasn’t paid to bodyguard no baby.

Mob logic, let's call it.

Charley: What’s the other thing you got to tell me?
Irene: Dominic, has put a contract out on you?
Charley: What, are you fucking nuts?
Irene: Charley, I’m the contractor.
Charley: Dominic hires my own wife to clip me?!

All in the family/

Irene: Charley, I’ve been doin’ three to four hits a year for the past couple of years, most at full pay.
Charley: That many?
Irene: Well, it’s not many when you consider the size of the population.

Perspective, let's call it.

Charley [to Irene who wants here “nine hundred dollars” back]: That ain’t gonna make no sense to the Prizzis, honey. Remember the words of the late great Marxie Heller: “We’d rather eat our children than part with money.”

Of course, that could be practically anyone.

Don Prizzi [after Charley demurs when ordered to hit Irene]: Charley, you swore an oath of blood, my blood and yours, that you would always put the family before anything else in your life. We are calling on you to keep that sacred oath.
Charley: Irene is my family. She’s my wife.
Pop: Charley, she is a woman you have known only for a few weeks. She is your wife. We are your life.

Family feuds let's call them.

[iambiguous]

Philosophy

“The problem with religion, because it's been sheltered from criticism, is that it allows people to believe en masse what only idiots or lunatics could believe in isolation.” Sam Harris

How about this though, Sam: click.

“Out of love for mankind, and out of despair at my embarrassing situation, seeing that I had accomplished nothing and was unable to make anything easier than it had already been made, and moved by a genuine interest in those who make everything easy, I conceived it as my task to create difficulties everywhere.” Søren Kierkegaard

I hear that!
That's what you're thinking, right?

“A few years ago it dawned on me that everybody past a certain age ... pretty much constantly dreams of being able to escape from their lives. They don't want to be who they are any more. They want out. This list includes Thurston Howell the Third, Ann-Margret, the cat members of Rent, Václav Havel, space shuttle astronauts and Snuffleupagus. It's universal.” Douglas Cupland

Of course, we'll have to run this by Big Bird.

“Whatever one man does, it is as if all men did it. For that reason, it is not unfair that one disobedience in a garden should contaminate all humanity; for that reason it is not unjust that the crucifixion of a single Jew should be sufficient to save it.” Jorge Luis Borges

Biblical bullshit some call it.

“No lake so still but it has its wave.
No circle so perfect but that it has its blur.
I would change things for you if I could; As I can't you must take them as they are.” Confucius

At least until the workers of the world unite around Donald trump.

“Anyone who says 'Trust me' is the last motherfucker you should ever trust.” R.D. Ronald

Let's list all the exceptions. You know, before it's too late.

[iambiguous]

This is a film that was generally panned by the critics. At RT it got only a 33% fresh rating. And only 9 critics bothered to see it at all! I can understand why. There are many things about it that shouldn’t have been about it at all. But the story itself is simply mindboggling.

And I was drawn into it for a number of reasons. First of all, it is based on the actual 1995 collapse of the Barrings Bank in London, England.

Barings? It was only the world’s oldest private bank.

And this was clearly a warning not heeded by the banking industry. After all, this revolved around those very same complex banking transactions that would eventually bring the world economy itself to near collapse. The film came out in 1999. Less than ten years later…

I guess more folks should have watched it. Not that it would have changed much if they had. The difficulty here is in the translation from microeconomics to macroeconomics. Only a tiny percentage of the world’s population has even the vaguest of clues as to how these transactions even work…let alone able to predict the dire consequences that can unfold “out in the world” all the rest of us live in. I mean don’t ask me to explain what the hell happened here. Not with any specificity.

And Nick Leeson surely embodied the mentality of those who brought it about. At wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Leeson

This goes way beyond greed. This is about men and women who were [and still are] monomanically obsessed only with making money.

And then there’s the part about “caning”. You know, in Singapore. Remember Michael Fay? There are just some behaviors “over there” that are not tolerated. Mooning women in a bar for example. And then the earthquake in Kobe. The guy couldn’t catch a break.


Rogue Trader

Nick [voiceover]: lt was thanks to Maggie Thatcher opening up the City of London that yours truly from Watford came to be working for a posh outfit like Barings.

So, is it still open?

Nick [voiceover]: lndonesia was one of the new ‘‘tiger economies’’ everyone was getting so excited about. ‘‘Emerging markets’’ they were calling them and Barings was one of the first to see their potential. The rewards were high. But so were the risks.

You bet!

Nick: I’d never even heard of Barings before I started working for 'em. It’s not like there’s a Barings Bank in Watford.
Lisa: Well, you’re a big hero back in London, they think the sun shines out your arse.

That won't last.

Nick [voiceover]: My team were young, they were hungry, and they didn’t have a clue.
[to the others]
Nick: A futures contract is an agreement to buy or sell a specified amount of a commodity at a specified price at a future date.
[they look at him blankly]
Nick: Alright, um…It’s like if I agree to sell you this cup of cappuccino, which I don’t yet own, at 45 cents a month from now, if I can buy the cappuccino at say, 43 cents, I make a profit. If the price goes the other way, I have to pay more and I lose. It’s timing, it’s buying and selling at the right moment. Sometimes expresso might be the best deal, or salt or pepper. The truth is we’re not buying and selling anything real. lt’s just numbers - contracts based on the value of the Nikkei, the Tokyo stock market.

This “team” he created didn’t even know what the hell futures trading was! One guy was more concerned that the color of their trading jackets was “unlucky”. What could possibly go wrong, right?

Nick: lt’ll be all right so long as we balance the books by the end of the month.
Bonnie: How?
Nick: We trade on our own account until we wipe out the losses, then we use money from the client account and pay it back with next month’s profits.
Bonnie: You mean, gamble?
Nick: Relax, Bonnie. That’s all the market is. One giant casino!

Heads they win, tails you lose.

Bonnie: Nick? Nick! l just worked out the balance in the eights account. The losses are over $10 million!
Nick [on the trading floor]: Keep your fuckin’ voice down! Look, there’s no need to panic.
Bonnie: There’s not enough in the client account to make margin payments.
Nick [grasping the meaning of that]: Right…

Time to rob Peter to pay Paul. But that works. Things turn around and he is sky high. His new philosophy: If you keep doubling up you’re bound to win. Until…

George: What if the market doesn’t rise, uh? What if it falls?
Nick: l’ve gambled and won before. l can gamble and win again.

Falls? Okay, but what if it fucking collapses all around you?

Nick [to police officer with the women he mooned]: Oh, you’ve got to be jokin’!
Police officer: No laughing matter. Outraging a lady’s modesty is a very serious crime in Singapore.

But, once again, “it was the profits” that saved him. But that’s about to change.

Nick [voiceover]: We were close to the end of another year and l was deeper in the shit than ever. Barings wanted me to speak at their annual group conference in London. l was their star trader, and they wanted to know the secrets of my success.

The gap let's call it.

Nick [voiceover]: lt was crazy going back. l couldn’t hope to survive the end-of-year audit. There was that little matter of the 7.8 billion yen which l’d fabricated to plug the hole in the five eights account.

This is where the expression “shoot the moon” comes in. You know, “go for broke.”

Wei Wei [over the phone]: This is Wei Wei from Coopers & Lybrand. ls that Nick?
Nick: Speaking.
Wei Wei: l’m compiling the end-of-year audit. There seems to be a big hole in the accounts. l’m missing the 7.8 billion yen receivable from SlMEX.

The look on Nick’s face!

Nick [voiceover]: And so, with scissors and paste, l created $78 million out of thin air. This was forgery, pure and simple…and there was no going back.

Catch him if you can?

Nick [looking into the mirror]: I, Nicholas Leeson, have lost 50 million quid…IN ONE DAY!

That's 24 hours by the way.

[Nick imagines himself tapping his glass at a dinner to draw the attention of all the Barings Bank executives]
Nick: Excuse me, I have an announcement to make. I know that some of you are worried about our exposure in the market and you’re probably wondering about the identity of our mystery customer X. Well, the fact is he doesn’t exist. We are the customer, Barings. And if you look properly at the five eights account, which is not a client account at all, it’s an errors account, you’ll realise that it’s concealing losses in the region of 200 million pounds. No, I tell a lie, it’s more like 230 after today.
[he then imagines them all suddenly starting to vomit in shock.]

Like me, you might want to watch it again and again.

Peter [getting off the phone]: That was the Sultan of Brunei’s office. They’ve decided not to proceed, they believe the risks are too great and the time too short in view of the need to have a rescue package in place by the time the markets open again in the Far East.
Simon: Is there really no one else?
Peter: We’ve tried everyone. It’s hopeless. I therefore have to inform you that Barings is insolvent and will go into immediate liquidation.
[Peter bursts into tears]

Fuck him, let's say.

Simon [on phone]: Peter Barings has gone on TV and said there’s been a conspiracy. They’ve lost 800 million quid!
Nick: I lost nowhere near that. It was more like 300 million!
Simon: But Barings didn’t do anything Friday. Now the word’s out, the market’s crashed.
Nick: Bloody idiots!
Simon: They think you’ve run off on your yacht.
Nick: What?!
Simon: l know. But listen, mate. You’ve got no friends here now, so just get the fuck out of Asia. Get back to London, Australia, anywhere. Just get out!
Nick: We’re tryin’.
Simon: Oi, Nick…get yourself a good lawyer.

By this time, however, his picture is on the front page or cover of every newspaper and magazine in town.

Nick [voiceover]: And that’s it, more or less. That’s the end of my story. Barings was eventually sold to the Dutch bank lNG for the princely sum of one pound. Lisa’s got a new life as a flight attendant for Virgin Atlantic. l hear she’s got herself a new fella. As for me, l fought unsuccessfully against extradition…from Frankfurt to Singapore on charges of fraud, forgery and breach of trust. l was sentenced to six and a half years in prison. Despite rumours of secret bank accounts and hidden millions, l did not profit personally from my unlawful trading. To be absolutely honest sometimes l wish l had.

Come on, who doubts that he did?

[iambiguous]

Jamie by a landslide. I mean it’s not even close. Well, not if I was Nola Darling. But [as it turns out] she is just not a one man woman. Okay, fine, I hope she knows what she’s doing. But just as lots and lots of men [and the occasional woman] recognize how exceptional Nola is, she rolls the dice here and risks losing what many, many women would recognize as an exceptional man in Jamie.

But that’s the gamble, I suppose.

Just so long as it’s not Greer! The guy takes 20 minutes to get out of his gym clothes. Every wrinkle must be addressed. And he could never love anyone anywhere near as much as he loves himself.

And Mars? Maybe on Mars. To me he is just obnoxious. But he calls it being funny.

In part, this is a film that revolves around a keen observation from Jamie. He notes that for each of us there is another person somewhere out in the world that we would be most compatable with. Our “soul mate”. But the problem is the odds are very slim that we will find this person. He/she could live right down the street…or reside in another country. But how do we increase the odds that we will make contact? And if you are one of lucky few and you do find this person…how do you make sure you don’t, as Jamie puts it, “blow it.”

So, does she? Or, instead, does he? Yeah, like there is a right answer.

IMDb

Because the film’s budget was so tight, there were no retakes of any scenes. IMDb

How tight?

Whenever the cast broke for a meal, Spike Lee would tell them not to throw away the aluminum soda cans because he would turn them in for recycling money. IMDb


She's Gotta Have It

Jamie [to camera]: I believe there is only one person, one person in this world, who was meant to be your soul mate, your lifelong companion. The irony is rarely do these two people hook up. They just wander about aimlessly. But if you are lucky, and you do find that person, you can’t blow it. Nola was that person.

Me? Supannika. I screwed that one up. On the other hand, now she's a fucking MAGA supporter!

Nola and "the dogs":
Dog #1: You so fine, baby, I’d drink a tub of your bathwater.
Dog #2: Congress has just approved me to give you my heat and moisture seeking MX missle.
Dog #3: I just want to rock your world.
Dog #4: Baby, it’s got to be you and me.
Dog #5: You may not realize it tonight, but you are sending out some very strong vibes. May I continue? Well, you’re lonely, you’re alone, you’re sad, you’re confused, you’re horny. You see, you need a man like me to understand you, to hold you, to caress you, to love you. You need me. What’s your number?
Dog #6: I know I only saw you for the first time in my life a minute ago, but I love you.
Dog # 7: Look, baby, let’s go to my house right now. Let’s do the wild thing. I mean let’s get loose.
Dog # 8: I got my B.A. from Morehouse, my M.B.A. from Harvard. I own a new BMW 318i. I make 53 thou a year after taxes, and I want you to want me.
Dog # 9: Girl, I got plenty of what you need. Ten throbbing inches of USDA, government inspected, prime cut grade A tube steak!

And then all the dogs here! Right ladies?

Jamie [spotting Nola by chance on the street]: Nola, I don’t want to chance not seeing you again. Whatever you want to do I’ll do, wherever you want to go I’ll take you. Will you see me?

So far, so good?

Mars [to the camera]: What about Nola Darling? What do you want to know? I thought she was a freak. You know, freaky-deaky? You ask why I’d continue to see her? Do I look like a retard? I’m not crazy. The sex was def! Nola had the goods and she knew what to do. Look, all men want freaks. We just don’t want them for a wife.

New thread? New forum?

Jamie [to the camera]: Now I know you’re thinking how do I know she was telling the truth about Opal. Well, Nola couldn’t lie, even if she wanted to. It wasn’t her nature. She could be brutally honest.

In and out of bed, let's say.

Greer [to the camera]: I was the best thing that ever happened to Nola Darling. She worshipped me. Oh, we were something else together. When we walked down the streets, heads turned. She was a little rough when I first started going out with her. Typical Brooklyn tackhead. But I refined her. I encouraged her to read more, exposed her to new ideas. Why you should have seen the way she dressed. It was I who made her a better person. I molded her. Greer Child was the sculptor and Nola Darling was but a mere lump of clay.

Uh, a dog?

Jamie [to the camera]: I got sick and tired of feeling like a spoke on a wheel, which is what I was. To Nola, we are all interchangeable, simply parts of a whole. And it didn’t matter who, just as long as it was a warm body. Nola had no devotion, allegiance or loyalty whatsoever. When she whispered, “Jamie they don’t matter, don’t matter at all”, that was no consolation at all. That “you can’t tell the player from the scorecard” shit had to go. When we’d be making love I found myself wondering who or what other men had been in this bed with her besides the two I knew about doing things to what I thought was mine. I had done enough sharing to last me a lifetime. Nola hurt me to the core but she’s gotta have it.

In other words, she's got to have it, but not necessarily yours.

Jamie [whispering into Nola’s ear]: “One day you’re gonna wake up in this bed and I’m gonna be long gone.”

Time to see the good doctor. Turns out though she’s not sick at all. She’s not a sex addict apparently. She just has a healthy sex drive. And don’t men love that.

Greer [to Nola at the Thanksgiving dinner]: How much longer must I tolerate these ignorant low-class ghetto Negros?

Yeah, she invites all three of them.

Mars: Jamie, you’re okay. With Nola, you get four days, I’ll get three.
Jamie: That’s mighty black of you.
Mars: But I get the weekends though.

And Greer?

Nola’s nightmare:
Woman #1: There goes that home wrecker.
Woman #2: I know she’s trying to steal my man.
Woman #3: You no-good sleeping around stank bitch!
Woman #1: You know I don’t blame Greer, I blame her. She knew he was mine.
Woman #3: If Nola had loved Jamie, it would be different.
Woman #2: Love? Oh, come on, she just fucks them and leaves them.
Woman #1: It’s sisters like her that are corrupting our men.
Woman #2: The few good ones left. I’ll be damned if she takes Mars from me, I’m four months pregnant!
Woman #3: The decent black men are all taken. The rest are in prison or homos.
Woman #2: I’ve gone to bed alone too much already. I’m from Brownsville. We don’t play that shit!
Woman #3: So what should we do to her?
Woman #2: Let’s set the bitch on fire!
Woman #1: Your fucking days are over!
Woman #3 [lighting matches]: This girl will never steal another man again.
[Nola wakes up screaming]
Nola: Fire! Fire! Fire!

False alarm?

Opal [arriving at Nola’s]: Hi, Jamie.
Jamie [leaving Nola’s]: You can have her.

Of course, she already tried, didn't she?

Nola: It’s really about control, my body, my mind. Who was going to own it? Them? Or me? I’m not a one-man woman. Bottom line.

Pick one:
1] touché
2] blah blah blah