The Tension Mounts – British Series The Fall

Currently Season 3 is on Netflix. Another one of those European TV crime dramas with strong, lead female characters (to which I am partial). So are Europeans more accepting of females taking charge? Makes me wonder. This lead is played by Gillian Anderson, best know to Americans for her portrayal of Scully in The X-Files.

I know she is American-British, but her accent is just plain peculiar. What’s up with that? Is it the character or just a bad accent?

What is striking about her role as Dectective Gibson is her boldly demonstrating her sexuality in clothing – spiked heels, tight pencil skirts, silky low cut blouses. But she does this from a confident, power position. She also uses male officers very much as we’ve seen other detectives exploit female staff. Sex without relationships.

The plot gets very tense, and I get caught up streaming past my bedtime. Have to stay awake just a bit longer!

Series is also refreshing: no nudity, no intercourse scenes. Violent killing of women; wish they would do more killing of men, but since men are the main murderers guess they will continue to act out their fear and hatred of women.

She had a great line in one episode as she attempted to explain the female/male dynamic to a former sexual partner, her current boss who plays the role as an extremely weak individual. ‘When men are asked why they fear women, they say they’re afraid they’ll laugh at them. When women are asked why they fear men, they said we’re afraid they’ll kill us.”

Helmut Schmidt – Reflections

Recently watched a documentary about Herr Schmidt done the year of his 95th birthday. It consisted of reenactments of his past and a present-day interview with him. He lived through remarkable times, was Kanzler during a turbulent era in Germany – the 1970’s. He succeeded Willy Brandt. I admired Brandt.

Striking about the interviews was his detachment. Also his unerring conviction about his decisions. And he had hard decisions to make. There was the start of hostage taking, airplane hijacks. He held fast to a policy of no negotiation. I didn’t realize that many other European countries were buying their citizens from terrorists. Not Schmidt. I remember too that my employer, an American company, took out blanket kidnapping insurance policies on its’ employees. Would have helped pay ransom, if need be. Those were the days!

Schmidt says his memory is going and he needs to look at photos to remind him of events. This documentary worked the same way for me.  I remembered the excitement of living in Europe, the fear of demonstrations and risk of being an American. There was my apprehension at boarding a flight from the U.S. whose final destination was Tel Aviv.

He also is very clear in his view of no afterlife. This is it. I imagine to many, particularly Americans, he comes across cold and unfeeling. He doesn’t get emotional or inflamed with passion. He even made a pact with his wife that were either of them to be taken hostage they agreed to no ransom negotiations.

And he smokes! But lived to 95. Chain smoker.

Streamed this on MhZ, a website offering foreign films, tv shows and documentaries. It is my new favorite. This is what I wished for cable television to offer and they never did.

Helmut Schmidt died in 2015.

They Don’t Make Films Like this Anymore

The Professionals
A largely forgotten action-adventure gem, The Professionals teams Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan and Burt Lancaster with more star wattage than most Westerns have ever marshaled. Hired to retrieve kidnapped Claudia Cardinale from bandito Jack Palance, these pros shoot, rope and ride all over northern Mexico.
Directed by Richard Brooks.
I do enjoy Burt Lancaster on the screen. He just makes me smile.
This action filmed movie actually has action scenes that are not quick edited to give you a headache. The film lets the plot unfold instead of covering the absence of plot with a myriad of elaborate special effects. Yeah, I liked Avatar, it was a simple cowboys vs. Indians with a shitload of special effects. Not a great movie, and surely quickly forgotten. Was the acting good or great – hard to tell with characters that are essentially animated.
In The Professionals it is great to watch seasoned actors who don’t rely on gimmicks. Of course, it helps if you have a good script, a solid plot, good direction, and great scenery. Good true scenery wins over enhanced or computer generated every time.
Nevertheless I was distracted by how Claudia Cardinale’s flimsy robe managed to stay put over her exaggerated thrust out bosom. There’s a Hollywood secret I’m curious about. And this 1966 film suffers just a bit from the studio creations of that era, where Claudia looks rather freshly groomed after days in the desert, but then she is a star.
However I did like the ending to The Hunting Party just a tad more. Same plot of a wealthy man’s wife, Candice Bergen, supposedly kidnapped and he recruits a group to go after her. He, Gene Hackman, finds her with her lover/kidnapper, Oliver Reed. And he shoots both of them dead. He then dies out of exhaustion. No one wins.

Olympic Cahones

Just watched Olympia by Leni Reifenstahl. Leni, the darling of Adolf Hitler. Did she or didn’t she have an affair with him? He gave her carte blanche to film, just as in Triumph des Willens. In brief, she was cinematographer to the Nazis. Her style was revolutionary, for the 1930’s. Now it just needs a lot of editing; way too much extraneous, artsy footage.
There are way too many minutes of footage at the beginning on Greek statues. I got the point after the first 3 statues – why go on.
Interesting to contrast then and now. This was against the backdrop of a Germany strong and rearming to take over Europe. This was to be proof of German superiority. But why all the guys in uniform? There are soldiers marching in with the German team, guys in full uniform.
It is interesting to watch film footage and contrast it with the history we were told. The teams march in, as alway very smart-looking in their uniforms. I note how many teams use the Nazi salute to Herr Hitler: France, Greece and Italy. This was 1936, why would their civilians use the Nazi salute?
At least they didn’t have any of the nonsense of over the top opening festivities. When did that shit start; what a waste of time and money. Has nothing to do with the games, just a lot of country propaganda. I never watch.
Leni does seem to favor Jesse Owens. She likes that black, muscular body. There are hardly any blacks at all; these Olympics are pretty much Europe’s show. Glad the rest of the world gets to participate now, even if many countries sell their citizenship to people who can’t get on their own country’s team.
Owens wasn’t the only black shaming the Aryan race and annoying Hitler. There was Metcalfe, Johnson, Albritton, Thurber and more. Pretty much all on the US team (a couple from Canada). I’d like to know the story of the struggle the US must have had to send so many blacks; sure a lot of people in the US didn’t like it.
In the scenes of the black athletes, they’re smiling chewing happily on their gum. I now realize what an accomplishment it was for Owens; he was black, American in a sea of racist, fascist Europeans. Not too much different from home; at least he couldn’t understand the insults.
And then came the war and these blacks who won medals for their country and faced down claims of Nazi superiority served in a segregated military.
The announcer actually states that in the 800m race “the two blacks against the white race”. And what it with the faulty subtitles! They don’t get the distance translated correctly; a lot of subtitles are just plain wrong on many movies.
Okay, I fast forwarded over much of the track and field, mainly field. Can’t get excited over discus and hammer throwers. Who can.
These athletes just look very thin and frail. No one is muscular, well Owens has some good-looking legs, but otherwise it is flabby arms and ribs showing. These days they are so bulked up to look like Popeye or you could burst them with a pin. It is unnatural. Thought runners needed to be sleek, not imitate Arnold Schwarzenegger.
How many of these fine athletes were to die in war four years later?
Perhaps that is the true meaning of the Olympics. That for a few days we focus on positive human achievement, look away from the greed of wars, the genocide, the pointless slaughter of animal life and our trashing the planet.

Encoffiners?

Fabulous, must see movie – Departures. Netflix had it. Love that Netflix (old Netflix).
The topic is one of my favorite ones – death. But Japanese style. I want to be buried by the Japanese.
So encoffiners are professionals who prepare the body for passing into death and on. Undertakers are a different profession in Japan – and just seem to be body movers. Don’t think they embalm in Japan, as everyone gets cremated, no showing. No need to embalm.
Most Japanese rituals seem overdone, excessive and pointless to me. Except this one. The grace and dignity with which they handle a corpse is a unique type of dance. It is beautiful. It is so respectful and kind to the dead body, the live person that once was. It is truly this way in real life?
Are there Japanese encoffiners in the U.S.?
The film did win an Academy Award in 2008. Good for the Academy – they don’t only award near death actors and the occasional black actor who finally gets a big role and thus feed their need to show the whole how unbiased they are.
And the musical score is Beethoven and Brahms. The cello is a supporting role.

Where are the Funny People?

Tried to watch the movie “Funny People”. I really wanted to try something funny and laugh instead of viewing my usual assortment of depressing movies (even my mother asked me how I can watch depressing stuff like that Afghan movie “Osama”). I kept waiting for the funny bits, then I started fast forwarding, always a bad sign. Then I decided fuck this and just stopped the DVD. Someone tell me what the funny bits were. Maybe I need to watch “In Bruges” again. Now there is a funny movie, even if I did need subtitles to make sure I caught all the lines, like I had to do with “In the Loop”. Definitely didn’t want to miss any delicious lines from this little gem.