The Renaissance Colors of Inglourious Basterds

Click on the image to see what I mean about the Renaissance colors of Inglourious Bastards.

(some Northern Renaissance examples included in image. Very little blue in this movie - Jewel tones)

More thoughts on Inglourious Basterds

Well the first time I saw the movie - (Did I mention that I saw it again with my son yesterday!).

... I was struck by how exaggerated all the British actors were -- like stereotypes from 1930's, 40's & 50's (Mike Myers has been panned by some, but I think that the affectations were exactly what Tarantino wanted) - much better than the 'know-it-all' (Fassbender) Hickox- Film Critic. [I do remember when some British WWII films of the 1960's seemed to have a cocky "let's let the Yanks have a go - good fun" attitude in the films. ] The Hickox character was insufferable - the actor, Fassbender, probably did it right - I liked him for being so pompous.





Now - why do I have a picture of Ron Taylor - one of my childhood glamor actors up there? Because he was the one playing Churchill! (Now ... feel the irony coming Rod Taylor was opposite Yevette Mimieux in at least two movies; Time Machine and Dark of the Sun). Taylor was the star of my first favorite movie, Fate is the Hunter. He was also leading man in the Birds, and the first 101 Dalmatians --- now he is Churchill. Taylor, the old guy - done good. Tarantino was generous and honorable in casting him.


I have decided that I like this movie so much because it is challenging. (Same reason I love TVs LOST series.).


My next comments will be on the colors - renaissance colors.

*Fate is the Hunter" -Taylor played: Capt Jack Savage - he investigates the mysterious crashing of a passenger flight.... great movie. My new driver's license allowed me to go see it almost every night for a month in the summer of my freshman year in high school. I loved the logical ending to the movie -- let's say it was not "fate" that caused the crash.

BEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME --

Okay so I have not been here since March -- been real busy... and had nothing to say.

But now .. ta da... Inglourious Basterds. Director Terantino is just such a genius.

I am having a hard time not being a "spoiler" but Go See The Movie.... when you do, remember this song "Cat People (putting out fire) - David Bowie" -- I can only compare the experience to a moment in 1985; I stood in the 12th century nave of Notre-Dame de Paris and thought I was the luckiest person in the world -- the light was otherworldly, the space huge (at the same time - comforting like the womb), the color breathtaking, the incense burning, my hand brushed a stone, it was cold and so smooth from others hands - the stones were soaring, my head was spinning ...... beautiful. (I imaged living in a small porrly heated home - birth, death and decay all around me - contrasted with this amazing space).... THEN, just when I thought that macimum beauty had been experienced... an organist started to play - if you can listen to the last few seconds of this organist (loud) and try to imaging what I am saying . For the only time in my life I understood religion and thought about that starstruck Saint Teresa swooning away like she had just seen the Beetles. Tears came to my eyes for the joy of the experience.

Well back to the movie..... Inglourious Bastards. This movie, this director, is right up there in art with Bernini, Michaelangelo, Leonardo, Mozart, John Lennon, Van Gogh, Whistler... It is not just art, it is FINE Art... with a capital FINE.

Truthfully, I have never classified cinema as fine art... but then Grandma Moses is okay- but she is not Matisse (comparison is the tilted perspective). I am going to rethink every movie experience.

I can think of other movies that I would put in the FINE category now... but I have never seen one so perfectly fine like this.

After the show we went for desert - I asked my companions what they thought today's Germans think of this movie - we assumed that pre-war, post-war and post 90's people there had different reactions. I just found this online though

“Many are asking the question: is this allowed? Can someone portray Jews as killers who also have fun with their murderous work?”

And after this revelation, “Pope Quentin” goes on to manifest the “biggest
exorcism of all,” daily Die Welt opined.“He manages finally to send this Hitler
to the devil in a way besides suicide,” the paper said. “Historic accuracy is a
virtue, but fantasy brings liberation.”

[source: Kristen Allen in " The Local Germany's News in English"] For more about this go to German's like new Terantino Film.

This "review" has been 60+ years coming... but here it is - I am now a fanatic.

Been AWOL...

I have been away for a bit .... so to ease myself back in I will share my second favorite commedian and my second favorite Sesame Street character...

Here is the description from YouTube
"Add Ricky Gervais to the set of 'Sesame Street' and you come up with outrageous comedy. Check out outtakes from his interview with Muppet Elmo. The full episode airs this November when 'Street' opens with its 40th anniversary."
please enjoy....






I will be back with some thoughts this week.
Louise

If you did not see this on the Daily Show it is really worth a look

The "talking heads"CNBC" obviously got all the financial new right-The Daily Show has the clips to prove it !

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

CNBC Gives Financial Advice

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

Just some Sunday morning philosophy

1967 -- Dustin Hoffman -- The Graduate My husband and I watched this movie on Friday night. How weird. Last time I saw this I was The Graduate. Dustin Hoffman's annoying elders were my annoying elders. The Establishment (everyone and everything made or born before 1946 or so) - was: old, 'square', prejudiced, pedestrian, xenophobic, stupid, wasteful, mean spirited, (of course - annoying) warmongering, capitalist - and had a bad ear for music - and just did not understand us at all.

You have to remember how different our lives were -- 1966 marked the year that contraceptives became available to all. And a year or so before birth control pills were readily available. I grew up during a time that girls that got pregnant were not accepted in the community and would only be married by the lowest form of man. (A girlfriend of mine was raped and her mother bemoaned the fact that the community knew it because now her daughter was damaged goods - and not a virgin).

So, watching this movie was strange -- I identified with Dustin Hoffman - but intellectually I know I am one of the voices of the annoying elders. And now it seems that the world my parents had was somehow "nicer" than the one we have now.

It seems so NASTY then, you know, Mrs. Robinson and all... kinda dirty and yucky. But if we were all free love and choices then it had to be okay. Now it has gone to the extreme that every couple of years some junior high or high school (female) teacher seduces a student. Dustin Hoffman was just out of college (turned 21 in the movie) -- fully adult, (1967 adults were not 18, they were 21), but the age difference and she was married ----- made this just strange. Now every 50 years (single mostly) woman seems to be a "cougar" and after some young man. And still, they are screaming equality in some way.

Just one other facet of the Graduate ---

The other one is that scene when the friend of the parents says "One word --- plastics" showed me something. That advice was at least a decade late. The friend was seeing the tail end of the bell curve for the growth (big bucks) in plastics. If he wanted to give the kid advice that would have paid off big he should have said -- "printed circuit board" or "video game" or "personal computer" ---- or even "insulation".

Which made me think of taking my grandson aside a few months ago and saying (practically), "one word -- green" -- since he will graduate from high school next year, and would be five years away from a degree (at least) - he would be on the falling edge of this phenomenon "green" just as the 'plastic' advice was!

1970 -- California

Our first child, Paul, was born. We had no medical insurance -- I had to quit my office job (they didn't want a pregnant woman around, so I was asked to quit). Ron had a better-than-average job than  people his age job in Printed Circuitry Design. My prenatal care and delivery were done by a very good OBGYN and I was delivered of my child in a brand new, state-of-the-art, hospital. My obstetrician gave us a bill and the hospital gave us a bill and we made payments on our child (no interest) for years. I don't remember how many years - but I do remember that I thought it was funny that our second child (born 1973) was paid off (we had insurance) before our first. You would never guess in a million years how much it cost of having our first child.... $300 for the OBGYN and $300 for the hospital.

Don't go thinking that reflects the cost of living change --- (it does, some) -- no I think it reflects the cost of malpractice lawsuits more than anything.

Our doctor was our friend and partner in the birth -- somewhere they became the plaintiff.

This leads to my next thought......

In 1975 our youngest child choked on a carrot -- it was inhaled into his lung. He immediately started turning blue. This was a life-changing moment in my life and one that I relive in nightmares still. I told my four-year-old son to go to the neighbor's house, (and until now, never gave him another thought), through the baby into the front seat of the car. I jumped in and started driving. If I had been thinking, there were two hospitals fairly close to our home... but by instinct, I jumped onto the freeway and started for the hospital where my kids had been born. I glanced at my baby and every time he was prone he stopped breathing -- so I pulled him on my lap - facing me - and DROVE -- honking my horn for anyone to just get the hell out of my way. I drove down the shoulder - I cut in and out -- and can remember thinking that if a cop tried to stop me, he would have to hear my explanation when we were at the hospital, but I was not stopping. Time flew by, I pulled into the hospital -- I grabbed my baby -- I ran in and some officious admissions lady started in -- "Do You Have Insurance?" "Name" "We have to fill these forms"---- blah blah -- I was standing there holding a baby that was turning blue!

Suddenly, this amazing man (I am sure I remember he had a halo) - grabbed my baby from me and shouted at the lady -- "Why the f**k do you think we have malpractice insurance?" and ran to the operating room. With me on his heels. Just that quick.

By luck, I was at the hospital where all the other pediatric surgeons were gathered to be taught to use orthoscopic equipment that day! So, my baby (the guinea pig), had the best pediatric surgeons in the Bay Area right there. If we had shown up at either other hospitals they would have either called for one of these or someone would have used the old-fashioned method of cutting him open to remove the carrot. As it was a little camera and a claw went down his throat and into his lungs, grabbed this thing and he was alive! He was admitted to the hospital overnight because of fear of pneumonia - but he was fine.

Today - if I was a young mother, would I hesitate and wonder "do I call the advise nurse?" - "do I have to call an ambulance?" "will I be able to pay for this?" -- "will the cops shoot me if I rush down the road?" --- or even "will I get it trouble for not putting my baby in a car seat?"

Wrongful death.... 1970 to 2009 and beyond.

So, that bell probably can't be unrung. But I can see now how tort reform would affect us all. When I worked at the insurance company prior to my first child's birth I was in the department that handled litigation -- including wrongful death. I was very impressed that people had worked out the value of a life - and the insurance companies could argue that x person, with such and such an education, could have achieved y in his lifetime, so pay z. How simple it was on those actuary charts.

Somewhere in the next two decades through judges went stupid though. Allowing lawyers and juries to decide the worth of people at million of dollars. Don't get me wrong if someone wrongly killed one of my sons, husband or father ---- I would scream that they needed to pay me MILLIONS. And I would hurt like mad to find the lawyer who finds me "justice". But a good judge would put a stop to that and tell the jury justice can not be counted in dollars, -- (well maybe in OJ Simpson's case), that actual damages must be paid and if there is malfeasance then it will be cured criminally -- negligence will get some additional nominal amount for suffering.

So food for thought - the amount paid out for malpractice in 2007 was about $47 million in Washington State alone. Each outrageous claim makes it more likely that some doctors will stop the delivery of babies - some community hospitals can not afford to deliver babies. Tort reform legislation has probably passed its moment -- but something must change.

Let's say we cut the payouts in half by averaging the price we pay for an Iraqi civilian's death by the amount we pay for one of ours. If we get $4 Million on average each and they get $2,500 each -- start by giving no more than $2 Million each here.

The cost of OUR war in Iraq

Gaza Farms Ruined by wars....

Planting the seeds of hatred and war -- instead of strawberries that could create independant futures..

The great escape

Gaza

Most Gazans live in eight refugee camps to which the United Nations delivers health, education, and other humanitarian services – these encampments have been here since 1948. Some of the camps are now suburbs of established Gaza towns, but most are their own camp/towns.

The population density in Gaza is one of the highest on earth. Because of the ‘temporary’ nature of refugee camps – more than 20% do not even have sewage treatment; they have no water treatment, rudimentary electricity.


According to the UN the camp populations in Gaza are Jabaliya (106,691), Rafah (95,187), Shati (78,768), Nuseirat (57,120), Khan Younis (63,219), Bureij (28,770), Maghazi (22,266), Deir al-Balah (19,534). That is 471,655 refugees and descendants of refugees just in the camps.

Gaza City has about 400,000 souls; Rafah and another large city add another 250,000. This all in about 250 square miles -about the size of Tucson Arizona.

There have been restrictions on movement for Palestinians since before 1948 – but the blockade of Gaza has stopped almost all movement of goods and services in and all products out since 2007 – this included humanitarian aid. Fuel shortages and a lack of spare parts have had a heavy impact on sewage treatment, waste collection, water supply, and medical facilities.

There used to be a single track train that ran long wise connecting the cities of the Gaza Strip – but they were damaged years ago and abandoned. France and the Netherlands built a small harbor for Gaza – but it was destroyed and never rebuilt years ago. They have one abandoned airport also. In effect they have been not only restricted to the little Gaza area – but they have been limited how much they can travel within and without. From what can be seen, the only travel that is possible (and not very probable) is on foot.

Electricity, water, sewer treatment, garbage collection are all ‘luxuries’ that citizens of Gaza can rarely count on.

Next – the West Bank – ignored out of existence.

Just take a look at the map and you conclude.....

I know that Gaza has been off the news for a few days, but please look at the satellite maps of the region and see if you see what I see. Really look, zoom in -- Compare and contrast Gaza - Egypt, the refugee camps, and the closest Israeli city, Ashqelon. One place has marinas, parks and community gardens, parks and recreation centers.

A while back Pat Buchanan (no liberal sympathizer) and some others got in trouble for comparing the conditions in Gaza with concentration camps. But the conclusion is an easy one.

I would profer the suggestion that the Israelis should be compared with abused children that grow up to be abusers themselves. The world must stress that it is not acceptable to treat people like the citizens of Gaza are treated daily.... that some of the people in Gaza will act out if they are treated this way... It is unavoidable.


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Donate food to the people of Gaza here