Later this year when the petrodollar crashes and burns most of you will probably be hoping the Mexicans will revise their immigration laws. Likely you’ll recall the last time the US economy fell on really hard times how US workers drifted to Mexico and further south looking for work. It wasn’t a lot better there, but there was less English speaking competition for jobs.
Here’s an example from the Bogart movie, Treasure of Sierra Madre:
Things haven’t really changed much, have they. Except the guy doing the hiring and cheating them out of their pay is a gringo in Mexico instead of a gringo in the US.
I’m betting those Mexicans will be tickled pea-green to have gringos coming down to work.
Hi readers. Who’d think a movie about a Chinese food joint in a US big city would be worth watching? Well friends, it’s streaming on Netflix.
Take Out 2004 NR 88 minutes An illegal immigrant gets behind on his debt to the crooks who smuggled him into the country, and has one day to find the money to make a payment. More Info Starring: Charles Jang, Jeng-Hua Yu Directors: Sean Baker, Shih-Ching Tsou
The Chinese gangsters who fronted him the money to get here use a ball-peen hammer on his ribs when he sends some bucks back to his family in China and gets behind on payments at 30% interest. So he delivers Chinese food all over trying to bicycle into enough tip money to keep them from coming back tonight.
Then he gets himself mugged out of it by some black guys in an elevator. Late in the day. He’s looking at a bad evening and he doesn’t even have to worry about multi-national banks, US Immigration Service, whatever. All he’s got to worry about is which gangsters will rob him next.
But if he lives he dreams of bringing over his wife and son he’s never seen once his debt to the loan sharks is paid off in four, five years.
Different enough and interesting enough to cause me to give it a five star rating.
Hi readers. Jeanne doesn’t watch movies much but someone told her I might enjoy some made-for-Netflix movie about women in a prison facility. Which I figured what the hell, might as well try it. Which I did. I’ve been known to watch and enjoy a chick flick and if the chicks are all in prison it might still be interesting.
Orange Is the New Black
2013-2014TV-MASeason 2 Now Available A dozen Emmy Award nominations went to this acclaimed comedy drama series including Outstanding Comedy Series, Outstanding Writing and Outstanding Lead Actress for star Taylor Schilling. A crime she committed in her youthful past sends Piper Chapman (Schilling) to a women’s prison, where she trades her comfortable New York life for one of unexpected camaraderie and conflict in an eccentric group of fellow inmates.
Fact is when I worked in Santa Fe with the Emergency Management Bureau we had some female prisoners working in our offices for a while, cleaning up and polishing our non body parts. But they started stealing so much when nobody was looking it became too much a pain in the ass to have them around.
Then, in Grants, when I was working for the motel. We had some female prisoners cleaning the rooms for a while. But they began selling sexual favors to anyone who’d pay, began screwing the motel manager until he was too exhausted to allow them around anymore. The regular female employees who usually filled his sexual needs began feeling neglected. So Orange whatchallit got my attention briefly.
I skipped over all the lingering chickflickisms, the slow motion leading-up-to-sex scenes, the flashbacks of flashbacks of flashbacks. The titillating leading-up-to lesbian stuff I also found I could skip past.
Which left approximately 10 minutes of viewing pleasure for this episode of Orange is somethingorother.
But Netflix, because I’d watched it, recommended Gun Hill Road.
Gun Hill Road 2011 R 86 minutes Enrique returns home from three years in prison to find his wife is a virtual stranger and his son is in the throes of a sexual identity crisis. More Info Starring: Esai Morales, Judy Reyes Director: Rashaad Ernesto Green
A decent sort of guy gets out of the slammer and finds his wife is on the rebound from an affair. Handles it fairly well. Gets a job. Handles it less well when he discovers his eldest son is one of those other kinds of guys. Wears sexy female attire and whatnot.
At that point I debated whether I wanted to watch any more of it, but while I was pondering the question the son began smooching with another character in the movie and feeling around, unzipping his trousers.
Soooooo. I’m not anti-Semitic about that sort of thing. Don’t even care if my brother marries one. Or my sister, for that matter.
But that isn’t the same as saying I want to see a lot of details of what they do to one another working up to the other stuff they do to one another.
Hi readers. Hells bells. Hugh Hefner started the sexual revolution back in the 1950s because he thought we were holding back, stuffing things back down inside. Psychologically repressing ourselves and generally, because sex could make Hugh Hefner a pile of money.
Mutantes: Punk Porn Feminism 2009 NR91 minutes This documentary maps the evolution of the “post-porn” movement, featuring interviews with pioneers like Annie Sprinkle, Carol Queen and Lydia Lunch. More Info Starring: Norma Jean Almodovar, Maria Beatty Director: Virginie Despentes Flowing on Netflix.
But if Hefner had seen this stuff coming down the pike I believe he’d have been shocked, maybe he’d have to ask himself if what he began was an unmitigated blessing.
Also streaming on Netflix:
Fuck for Forest
(Fuck for Forest) 2012 NR 1hr This documentary lays bare an unusual Berlin-based NGO that uses proceeds from homemade adult films to fund the restoration of Amazonian rain forests.
I’m sure it’s just me, but saving the planet by screwing just doesn’t make a lot of sense as a motivation.
Also streaming on Netflix:
Danland 2012 NR 88 minutes This documentary examines the psychology of amateur porn-film creator Dan Lear and what prompted him to choose such an unorthodox profession. More Info Starring: Dan Lear Director: Alexandra Berger
Orgasm Inc. 2009 NR 79 minutes Orgasm Inc. is a funny and sobering look inside “big pharma” and the marketing campaigns associated with a pill for female sexual dysfunction. More Info Starring: Elizabeth Canner, Kim Airs Director: Elizabeth Canner
Then there’s what’s happening in the courtesan industry. Streaming on Netflix.
American Courtesans 2013NR 86 minutes Follow 11 sex workers through massage parlors, brothels, strip clubs and New York high-rises in this documentary about their choices and fears. More Info
Sheeze man. I don’t object to any of this, but I’d pay good money to avoid being a part of a fair amount of it. And not only because it would likely bring on the big one.
Based on the acclaimed novel by Judy Blume. Following her father’s murder, a teenager goes to stay with relatives in New Mexico and falls in love. Takes place mostly around Los Alamos and Santa Fe. More just a story of adapting to pain and loss. Of growing old enough to learn that most of the adventure hurts somewhere.
Reminded me a lot of the years I lived in Santa Fe, and the scene on the Rez was strikingly similar to a Christmas celebration my lady friend of the time, Amy Nevitt took me to at Jemez Pueblo in the home of friends.
If I didn’t miss New Mexico so much I think I’d have hated it. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. Fairly lousy movie except for the scenery.
Hi readers. Watching Black Rock and finding it intriguing and thought provoking inspired me to watch a movie that seemed to rhyme with it. A movie I’d normally have avoided. The Mooring was right there where a person could watch it stream on Netflix.
The Mooring 2012 R 89 minutes A group of teen girls gathered in the Idaho wilderness for a program to help them lose dependency on technology become victims of a murderous rampage. More Info Starring: Hallie Todd, Thomas Wilson Brown Director: Glenn Withrow
But all it managed was a lot of gratuitous violence, screaming hysterical females, lousy judgement, misplaced confidence, and grounds for paranoia for people who weren’t scared enough already.
Hi readers. When a movie rattles the eye teeth enough to cause a person to think about it longer than a minute afterward, it’s probably rare. If it causes thought for a duration longer than it took to watch it, even rarer. Black Rock, streaming on Netflix, is one such movie and for unanticipated reasons.
Black Rock 2012 R 79 minutes, Three life-long-friend women’s vacation on a remote island turns into a nightmare. Three guys 18 days home from Afghanistan and Dishonorable Discharges are chilling. One of them is the younger brother of a childhood friend of the three. More Info Starring: Katie Aselton, Lake Bell Director: Katie Aselton
So here’s a tiny island with three guys capable of being badasses when provoked, and three 30ish women, one of whom is horny enough to seduce-to-the-edge one of the badasses, then try to interrupt biology with the word, “No!”
Badass doesn’t think no means no, so she kills him with a rock upside the head.
And thoroughly pisses off the other two previously only potential badasses who saw her saying too many yeses and not enough no when the whole thing could have been just a friendly interlude.
So the first potential badass is dead. The girls have been beat around considerably before escaping to the woods. Angry badasses 2 and 3 are stalking them with guns with the stated purpose of murdering them. Shivering huddled together crying the seducer/coitus interrupter weeps, “Oh God! This is all my fault!”
“No,” her friends assure her. “It was just an accident. You didn’t intend to kill him. It wasn’t your fault.”
Well. Um. Lessee now. Reality has an inconvenient way of trying to elbow into life sometimes. Women have rightfully attacked the old “She was asking for it,” male predisposition when rape not involving racial issues was discussed. It generally works in town and something called ‘date rape’ is frequently prosecuted.
But maybe there’s a larger issue here. Maybe females owe it to themselves to recognize at some fundamental level there’s a such thing as angry, angry men who aren’t out looking for trouble, but who don’t need any female genitals rubbed up against them just to give a girl a thrill.
But hell, I liked these guys. Jeeze, they were Dishonorably Discharged! I’ve never known anyone who was Dishonorably Discharged I didn’t like fairly well. Although my step-brother, Bobby Jack Nelson, did have some character flaws to recommend against him over the long haul. I liked him anyway.
If any of you watch this movie I hope you’ll come back and comment on the post. I’d like to hear whether you find the flick as thought provoking as I do.
This parody of WW II movies finds the overly zealous Sgt. Duke Roscoe leading his band of oddballs on a mission to blow up a vital German fuel dump.
Meanwhile, if you agree with me that we’ve been taking a lot of our presidents, particularly Franklin Delano Roosevelt, too seriously, you might enjoy this for a change.
Streaming on Netflix: FDR: American Badass 2012R93 minutes, After contracting polio from a werewolf bite, FDR and a team of historic figures seek victory in World War II by defeating an army of Nazi werewolves. More Info
Hi readers. Here are some fairly watchable movies streaming on Netflix portraying how the people in the troubled land of Israel and the areas it occupies outside its established borders, and the people on both sides, would have you view them:
Omar 2013NR98 minutes With his girlfriend, Nadia, living on the other side of an Israeli-built boundary wall, young Palestinian Omar regularly scales it to visit her. More Info Starring: Adam Bakri, Samer Bisharat Director: Hany Abu-Assad
Tehilim 2007 NR 95 minutes . When Eli Frankel gets into a minor car accident with his sons, he sends the older one to get help. But when the boy returns, his father is gone. More Info Starring:Michael Moshonov, Limor Goldstein Director:Raphaël Nadjari
Curfew 1994 NR 71 minutes . This pointed drama portrays a day in the life of a Palestinian family — a day that quickly changes when the Israeli military imposes a local curfew. More Info Starring:Salim Dau, Na’ila Zayaad
Director:Rashid Masharawi
Inch’Allah2012R101 minutes Political tensions take on personal overtones when a Canadian doctor living in Israel befriends a patient at a refugee camp in Palestine.
The Time That Remains 2011NR109 minutes From Israel’s creation in 1948 through the early 21st century, a Palestinian family experiences triumphs and tragedies over the course of generations. More Info Starring: Ali Suliman, Elia Suleiman Director: Elia Suleiman
5 Broken Cameras 2011NR94 minutes This Oscar-nominated documentary centers on Emad Burnat, a Palestinian farmer trying to make a living amid Israeli occupation. More Info Starring: Emad Burnat Directors: Emad Burnat, Guy Davidi
Probably a person shouldn’t form opinions based on movies. At least not the ‘plots’ and characters of movies of a fictional nature. But the background settings, the societies where the plots move, probably a person could allow opinions to sneak in as a consequence of those.
The background settings and society are more-or-less taken for granted by the movie makers usually. They expect their audiences to already have intimate knowledge of them, to recognize immediately if they’re flawed or don’t depict something akin to reality.
In that sense I’d call these movies thoroughly worthy of the time spent viewing them, as a bonus you might say. A bonus thrown in behind the plotting, the characters, the suspense, the button pushing.
Back before Rodney King started it all and cameras everywhere, combined with YouTube as a venue for rendering it public, we all had an excuse. Almost an obligation. The function of society required we believe in the United States police corruption, aggressive, illegal behavior, planting evidence, blindered pursuit of targets without regard for evidence to the contrary, was rare.. Drug use on duty and unprovoked violence against suspects rare exceptions.
We can still believe that if we wish, but it’s more difficult today. YouTube is out there catching the law enforcement community in the act of being itself. Damning the whole with the broad brush of individuals performing every breach of minimum behavioral standards expected for public employees of any sort. But especially those where public trust is a necessary ingredient.
How can a jury unanimously agree to send a defendant to prison if every word a law enforcement officer utters under oath is suspect? Might as well as not be pure falsehood? If every piece of evidence presented stands an equal possibility of having been manufactured or planted by investigating officers? When juries become aware police are as prone to bald faced lying as they, themselves [jury members] are prone to self-serving falsehoods, convicting anyone of a crime without prima faci evidence is troublesome.
But I’ve digressed. It’s happening everywhere, and while the movie industry used to treat the subject with sinister frowns in Serpico and hundreds of other cop corruption movies, eventually Naked Gun 2 and ilk was inevitable. Airplane made it so.
Naked Gun 2 was a fun piece of work, but the US movie industry was too long-delayed in following it up with replacement of all those solemn, straight-faced cop movies with something nearer reality: farce. But outside the US the movie industry wasn’t shy.
Along comes Torrente. Unless you understand Portuguese you’ll have to read subtitles, but it’s a laugh a minute.
Torrente 3: El Protector 2005NR93 minutes, In order to facilitate a political assassination, a corporation arranges for the target’s security detail to be headed by incompetent Det. Torrente. More Info , Starring: Santiago Segura, José Mota
Evidently there is a whole string of these coming out of Portugal. And with a bit of searching, probably elsewhere.
Nothing much is sacred anymore. Real life bought the ticket out of idealistic delusions and wishful thinking. Thus far it isn’t standing in the way of filling up the prisons with testimony from these Keystone Kops, but that’s just habit and gut feel working. Who the hell needs credible testimony and evidence to convict some tattooed freak or arrogant black kid for whatever someone said he did? Someday that will fade.
74 years old, a resident of Leavenworth, KS, in an apartment located on the VA campus. Partnered with a black shorthaired cat named Mister Midnight. (1943-2020)
Since April, 2020, this blog is maintained by Jeanne Kasten (See "About" page for further information).
https://sofarfromheaven.com/2020/04/21/au-revoir-old-jules-jack-purcell/
I’m sharing it with you because there’s almost no likelihood you’ll believe it. This lunatic asylum I call my life has so many unexpected twists and turns I won’t even try to guess where it’s going. I’d suggest you try to find some laughs here. You won’t find wisdom. Good luck.
So Far From Heaven 