Baffled European

Category: Movie review

  • Gone with the Revenge from Alcatraz

    Star Wars day yesterday, and the White House was on the ball. They are on a run at the moment, what with the Pope picture and that. Anyway, they wound up their AI generator and let it produce a suitable picture for the occasion. The result was a president with the physique of Conan the Barbarian, holding a light sabre. A red light sabre at that: the computer is intelligent enough to give him the weapon of one of the space nazis.

    Maybe it was this that prompted the next semi-coherent orange order. He has now added a 100% tariff, his favourite word, to all movies produced outside the USA. He doesn’t trust foreign movies because they are “messaging and propaganda” and therefore a “National Security threat”.

    This is part of a broader complaint. Parasite, a South Korean film, won an Oscar for best picture a few years ago, “what the hell was that all about? Can we get Gone With The Wind back, please?”

    Is this the impulse behind his plans to reopen Alcatraz? It’s been closed for over 60 years and is now a tourist attraction. Doesn’t matter, there won’t be any tourists anymore. Is it because he saw Clint Eastwood there in a film once? Good film that. Fine actor. Morgan Freeman as well, he’s black you know. Or was that the Shawshank Redemption?

    People voted for this. I hope they are all satisfied with what they’ve got.

  • The Democrats capitulate

    Star Wars fans are difficult to please. While the original films from the 70s and 80s are universally loved, the fans hate everything since then to a greater or lesser extent. Maybe there is a limit to how many times you can tell the story of space wizards and space nazis chasing a MacGuffin.

    Even on its release, the prequel trilogy at the turn of this century had a generally negative response. It tells the story of the rise of Darth Vader and the fall of the Galactic Republic. While its depiction of space politics has been widely derided as boring and ham-fisted, some of its aspects are interesting in retrospect.

    The old republic is portrayed as tired. It still appears to have the glory of the past, but it is riven with factional fighting and disputes. The old institutes appear to uphold the old traditions, but even they are a shadow of what they once were. Procedure takes the place of action even in crises; complacency and arrogance prevent them from noticing the reality of their decline.

    Palpatine, one of the space nazis, exploits these weaknesses and divisions, enabling him to declare a Galactic Empire. A lightsabre fight between Palpatine and Yoda destroys the Senate, symbolically indicating the end of the republic and democracy.

    They should have used chainsaws.