Comic Sense MS

Hold onto your stomachs, kiddies. Takashi Miike pushes the limits of quite simply everything. I don’t think I’ve seen a more sadistic or graphic film. But it’s also sleek. Blood splatters against the crystalline backdrops of modern Japan. Absurdity mingles with the everyday. The bright candy colors and the super widescreen photography harken back to Seijun Suzuki’s surreal yakuza thrillers. But Miike takes it a step further. Body parts and organs and limbs are splashed all over the screen in wild fury. Colors pop and explode and the camera zooms in and out of strange places. By bringing a manga to life he’s created in cinematic form the real Japan. Maybe even the real modern world. After all, in a world where real life superheroes stalk the streets of Seattle and serial killings take on more bizarre and gruesome dimensions, Miike can’t be too far from reality, can he? Full of style and thrills, but it lacks a heart. That crucial missing component keeps the film from being a masterpiece. Even Miike’s fore-bearers like Suzuki, Woo, De Palma, and Lynch had hearts. This is the future of pop filmmaking, but what a nihilistic future it is. Idealism is dead.

discoverynews:

nwkarchivist:

50 Years Ago, Newsweek Was Astronaut/Moon Crazy

Classic and classy, Newsweek

(via itsfullofstars)

I think a more appropriate title would be 2 Great 2 Gatsby! The soundtrack suggests this should take place in da hood rather than 1920s Long Island. What’s up with that?

For the section of Almodovar’s fans made up of casual movie goers,Bad Educationis a divisive film. Many of the elements that cemented his cross-cultural appeal are more nuanced here, if not outright non-existent. Almodovar said that the script forBad Educationtook him over ten years to write. This is an intensely personal film, rooted in Almodovar’s own childhood; though Almodovar wasn’t sexually abused, he he knew people who were. In an interview with The New York Times, he described how he frequently clashed with the priests who considered his questions heretical.Bad Educationis a scathing indictment of Francoist Spain wrapped up in a film noir. The main character Enrique is an up and coming director who receives a script from his old school friend Ignacio that describes the abuse he suffered at the hands of Father Manolo. Few films has haunted or terrified me as much. I was reminded of Lynch’sBlue Velvetin terms of sheer horror. Even Almodovar’s candy colors and fantastic sets can barely contain the filth being spewed up from below. He captures the ridgid elegance of the Catholic ceremonies. In the same interview Almodovar said, “I do put in the whole Catholic ceremony. I don’t go to church anymore and I am not a believer, but I really enjoy the rituals of the church. The literary aspect is marvelous. The wording. Whether you believe or not, it is a beautiful ceremony.”Bad Education is a brave film, and we must admire the courage Almodovar displayed in making it. But it is a tough pill to swallow.

For the full interview: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/05/magazine/05ALMODOVAR.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1

(via Algeria: The revolution that never was - People & Power - Al Jazeera English)

The No Smoking Orchestra - Dobrila (by prorok84)

Continuing my budding obsession with South Korean cinema is this wonderful film here. Described by its director Jee-woon Kim as a “kimchi western,” The Good, the Bad, the Weirdlike the country of its origin is a spicy mix of various elements. It’s a western, a war film, a thriller, an absurd comedy, and even a bit of a kung-fu movie. The plot is minimal. Three guys are after a treasure map. There’s the crazy thief The Weird, the psychotic The Bad, and the stoic bounty hunter The Good. On top of that the Imperial Japanese Army and a gang of Manchurian bandits are after the map as well. Set in the vast deserts and crowded cities of 1930s Manchuria the film is a non-stop thrill ride. The action scenes are on-par with John Woo’s work; balletic and bloody, and the chase scene at the end involving horses, cannons, bandits and motorcycles evokes a sort of strange post-modern version of the climax of John Ford’s Stagecoach. This movie is ultimately a popcorn action flick, but I had a big grin on my mouth the entire time. It’s visually stunning, shot in glorious widescrin; the camera is dizzying and glides and zooms over and under everything. And I was kept on the edge of my seat the entire time. The Good, the Bad, the Weird is a wonderful tribute to the late masters.

Memories of Murderopens and ends with scenes of childhood. In the opening sequence a young boy trails after two police detectives on a crime scene while they discover the body of the victim of a serial killer. In the end, one of the detectives, now a businessman returns to that site after decades and speaks to a young girl who had seen a man look into the box a few days earlier. These scenes really establish the tone of this beautiful and haunting work. Unlike most movies about serial killers,Memories of Murderspends very little time dealing with the violence and rather focuses on the human cost of trying to solve such horrific cases. The two lead detectives are Park Doo-man, a rural detective who has lived in the country his whole life, and Seo Tae-Yoon, a forward thinking and Seoul educated lawman. The two naturally clash, but there’s warm humor in their relationship. The film is episodic, and often times shifts focus from the murder to the characters. But how they develop and the paths they take generate suspense. Bong Joon-ho’s direction is elegant and moody. His shots are framed with grace, and his color palate is gentle. He evokes the life of a small town at a cross roads. There is a dichotomy between the old rural way of life and the new, represented by the massive industrial project that overshadows the rice patties. The existential threat of the North hangs in the air, but the real threat is South Korea’s military dictatorship. Almost like a cry in the dark, the men and women of this nation feel abandoned by the rest of the world. Police brutalize democracy protestors and journalists and crack down on opposition. But there is hope on the horizon.Memories of Murderis a fantastic introduction to the burgeoning world of South Korean cinema, one of the most exciting and unique in the world today.

The Nakba

alonmg:

comicsensems:

alonmg:

comicsensems:

alonmg:

That’s pretty much what I meant. But when I say war on terror I also am thinking in terms from an Israeli point of view in their war. The american war on terror is a lot to blame on America and interventionist methods. But the Israeli war on terror has been since day 1 when they declared independence. Keep in mind my blog is not just for Americans, but also at times Israeli’s.

Because Israel declared their independence by forcing throes of innocents out of their homes and building their homes upon the ruins; known as the Nakba. Now I’m certainly not anti-Israel. I believe they’re a wonderful country with a rich culture and history, but they’re certainly not innocent. Of course they have a right to exist, but with that right comes the responsibility to live at peace with their neighbors and treat them with dignity.

For more information: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/05/201251591926951514.html

Somebody needs to check their facts the UN was the one who granted Israel to the jewish people. and recognized the state of Israel. Shortly after the arabs attempted to “drive them into the sea.” Seriously please actually look at the information and videos provided within my own blog

Edit: Nakba means catastrophe. Referring to May 15, when Israel declared independence. 

Yes, but the UN also declared part of the land for a Palestinian state. But that’s really not what I was trying to say. I was just trying to point out that neither side is innocent, and the conditions that exist in the occupied territories have been compared to South Africa’s apartheid. If Israel and Palestine want to come to peace, both sides are going to have to accept what has happened and move on. Not to mention that Israel repeatedly violates international law. Again, so do the Arabs, but Israel faces little reprimand for their actions. Ultimately these people are human beings first and Jews and Arabs second.

Nope never such a thing as a palestinian state. There was British Mandated Palestine. Big difference. The land was partition between the Jews and Arabs and international zone via the UN in 1947. 

THe plan was biased against the jewish people. Look at the map, yes most of the land is the jews. But the land given is mostly called the Negev. inhospitable desert. Also look at Jerusalem. You have to cut through the arab part. So Jews were not able to visit our own holy city of Jerusalem until the 6 day war of 1967. Again read and watch my information!

I watched the video you posted about the West Bank, and I appreciate the different perspective on the situation. What do you propose as a solution to the conflict? At this point, I feel the two-state solution has reached a gridlock and to be honest, will just lead to more division between the Jews and Arabs. I do believe that both sides in the conflict have a right to self-determination, but I think a federated republic would bring about the best results. Bosnia and Herzegovina for example is actually divided up into two autonomous states; the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Republic Srpska. Then there’s a territory that’s under join control of both parties. What about a similar solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict? Separate countries under a federal government with very limited power, with equal citizenship and rights for both parties. That way Israel would be able to retain its Jewish majority, and its settlements, while at the same time the Palestinians would be guaranteed protection of the rights and to a state of their own. It may not be a perfect solution, but with the increasing deadlock in negotiations it may be feasible. Of course there are going to be hardliners on both sides, but then again, aren’t there always?

At the 1985 festival, a middle-aged man threw a shaving cream cake at French film director Jean-Luc Godard before the screening of his film Detective. To add insult to injury, the movie was booed by the audience at the screening.

I won’t lie, I’d love to throw a pie at Jean-Luc Godard.

(via octupusjam)

THE GOOD THE BAD THE WEIRD TRAILER SONG (by snakefangxp)

A federal Israel-Palestine: Ending 100 years of civil war in the Holy Land?

“What if we have been dead wrong in our search for peace in the Holy Land? What if we read what happened in Palestine-Israel in the past 100 or so years with the incorrect lens?

What if we have been misdiagnosing the conflict and continue to do so? What if we saw it mostly as an East-West conflict of civilizations, colonial and anti-colonial, Muslim-Jewish, Arab-Israeli, instead of reading it as a civil war? What if we simply ignored our democratic, human rights values in the conflict of individuals and peoples over Palestine? And what happens if we reverse our reading, and seek a way for people to live together, with equal rights, over that small stretch of land between the Mediterranean and the River Jordan, rather than seeking their separation and respective ethnic cleansing? And we substitute a federal Israel-Palestine for the two-state solution deadlock?

As I was preparing for this article in Beirut, dear friends met around Abbas Khalaf over the legacy of Kamal Jumblatt, the humanist leader assassinated by the Syrian government in 1977 in large part because of his criticism of the “great prison” that Hafez Assad had turned Syria into, and because of his advocacy of a federal state in Israel-Palestine rather than what was then called the Geneva conference, much later reconvened at Madrid.

This is the humanist vision that this article purports to revive. It is as real as it claims to be rational. A wrong diagnosis begets the wrong remedy. We need to get our questions right.

DR Congo: Victim to the Western quest for justice - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

Goma, DR Congo - This has been a triumphant year, so far, for international justice. It began with Invisible Children’sKony2012 campaign, which, rightly or wrongly, popularised the scourge of central African war criminals with a viral video - and appeared to provoke a US military response. In March, the International Criminal Court issued its first verdict with the trial of DRC warlord Thomas Lubanga. This month, western-backed proceedings found Charles Taylor guilty of aiding and abetting war crimes in Sierra Leone.

These resolutions have been praised as milestones, but in the north-east of the DRC, where stability has been fragile - if not absent - since the ethnic and political ruptures of the Rwandan genocide, the quest to deliver justice to ICC-indicted Bosco “The Terminator” Ntaganda is toppling the hard-won former peace. 

Ntaganda was one of the most powerful generals in eastern Congo - but now is a man on the run, leaving an area the size of Greece destabilising in his wake. His original 2006 indictment accused him of recruiting children younger than 15 into active combat, and the ICC has now added new charges relating to alleged crimes, including murder, ethnic persecution, rape and sexual slavery, pillaging and deliberate civilian attacks.

Read more: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/05/20125181465891153.html

The Nakba

alonmg:

comicsensems:

alonmg:

That’s pretty much what I meant. But when I say war on terror I also am thinking in terms from an Israeli point of view in their war. The american war on terror is a lot to blame on America and interventionist methods. But the Israeli war on terror has been since day 1 when they declared independence. Keep in mind my blog is not just for Americans, but also at times Israeli’s.

Because Israel declared their independence by forcing throes of innocents out of their homes and building their homes upon the ruins; known as the Nakba. Now I’m certainly not anti-Israel. I believe they’re a wonderful country with a rich culture and history, but they’re certainly not innocent. Of course they have a right to exist, but with that right comes the responsibility to live at peace with their neighbors and treat them with dignity.

For more information: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/05/201251591926951514.html

Somebody needs to check their facts the UN was the one who granted Israel to the jewish people. and recognized the state of Israel. Shortly after the arabs attempted to “drive them into the sea.” Seriously please actually look at the information and videos provided within my own blog

Edit: Nakba means catastrophe. Referring to May 15, when Israel declared independence. 

Yes, but the UN also declared part of the land for a Palestinian state. But that’s really not what I was trying to say. I was just trying to point out that neither side is innocent, and the conditions that exist in the occupied territories have been compared to South Africa’s apartheid. If Israel and Palestine want to come to peace, both sides are going to have to accept what has happened and move on. Not to mention that Israel repeatedly violates international law. Again, so do the Arabs, but Israel faces little reprimand for their actions. Ultimately these people are human beings first and Jews and Arabs second.