“The Black Swan”

Posted on June 29, 2015 by Paleo Retiree

Paleo Retiree writes:

black

I was amazed how uninspiring I found this 2010 ballet-world-set psychological horror film. Natalie Portman plays a super-perfectionist, frigid (but yearning for release) ballerina who’s given the lead in a new version of “Swan Lake.” The movie is devoted to trying to get you to experience things as Portman’s character does, so you’re always very, very close to her — following her onto the stages and into the rehearsal rooms of Lincoln Center; tracking her as she hurries down the sidewalks and through the corridors of the Upper West Side; inspecting the scrunched-up muscles in her forehead; sharing her shallow breathing; dodging or getting fascinated by mirrors; scrambling fantasies, fears and reality … The script gives her a frustrated, pushy mother (Barbara Hershey), an earthy rival at the dance company (Mila Kunis), and an is-he-being-sexual-or-not? choreographer boss (Vincent Cassel).

Director Darren Aronofsky (“Pi,” “Requiem for a Dream”) has a taste for both high culture and dramatic intensity that I can enjoy, and he’s clearly a smart, thinking guy — “The Black Swan” is full of film and lit references, doubles and strategies. The film delivers some overwrought, fruity, near-camp moments that are transporting and fun in the shamelessly-flamboyant mode; Portman is as lovely as can be; the glimpses of Manhattan’s Upper West Side cultural life are accurate and interesting; Barbara Hershey swings for the fences as the scary mom; and Kunis and Cassel both show off interesting mixes of swagger and vulnerability. Credit where credit is due: the film has more than its share of artistic and entertainment daring, especially in the context of today’s movies.

But “The Black Swan” is a long way from being in the class of “Repulsion,” “Carrie” or “The Red Shoes,” a few of its more obvious inspirations. Props to everyone involved for a lot of commitment, but (for my tastes, anyway) the script is lacking in slyness and wit; the direction is ‘way too pushily “immediate” (half the movie consists of handheld shots over the shoulder of Natalie Portman as she walks anxiously around); and I found Portman’s performance tiresomely one-note. She plays her good-girl character’s gaunt, keyed-up inner anxiety and almost nothing but. A few fleeting moments of relaxation and sensuality that the character experiences — Portman does these moments well — came as a HUGE favor to this particular audience member. All that said, I’m still wondering why I couldn’t object to Catherine Deneuve’s performance in Polanski’s “Repulsion” on the same basis. Like “The Black Swan,” “Repulsion” sets out to convey the subjective experience of a terrified, deteriorating personality, and like Portman, Deneuve was a beautiful but limited actress. Yet I’m happy agreeing with the general film-buff consensus that “Repulsion” is a classic and Deneuve’s performance in it is iconic. Hmmmm … Well, maybe my objections to “The Black Swan” boil down to the film’s up-to-date visual language. Maybe I’m just an out-of-it old fogey who couldn’t find the film’s groove, and maybe “The Black Swan” really deserves to be praised as “Repulsion” for the reality-TV set.

Short version: Nice try, but when the film wasn’t being monotonous it was being annoyingly frantic and strident. Among Aronofsky’s films, “The Black Swan” is more akin to “The Wrestler” (which I also found dreary) than to the super-stylized and exciting (if grueling) “Pi” and “Requiem for a Dream.” My wife had a hard time staying awake thru the movie, and it took us three evenings to finish watching it.

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Linkage

Posted on June 29, 2015 by Blowhard, Esq.

Blowhard, Esq. writes:

olivegardentweet

popehatmoldbugcathedral

cicijamesbillwadman

Posted in Linkathons | 2 Comments

Random Notes on Spengler’s “Decline of the West”

Posted on June 28, 2015 by Sir Barken Hyena

Sir Barken Hyena writes:

happy happy joy joy

Like a snake slowly digesting a fat rabbit, I’ve been working my way through this massive and challenging work for the last 4 or 5 years. While I’m not ready to write the Cliff Notes version, I do feel like I’m getting a grasp on it all. But a concise summary eludes me, partly because Spengler had no intention of erecting a “system”, he was too trailblazing for that. But by highlighting some general points, we can get started.

A little background. Published in 1918, “Decline of the West” was a surprise best seller. With Europe smoldering from the Great War, notions of the end of civilization were on everyone’s mind. Not a work of history, but rather of the philosophy of history, “Decline” begins by rejecting out of hand the notion of ancient, medieval, and modern periods, as we all still learn it today. World history was not a unity, not a slow but unified climb to a higher state, and could not be seen in its true light until this notion was abandoned.

  • Two important terms are Culture and Civilization, capitalized. For Spengler, these are phases of development. Culture is the early growth, and is characterized by deep creativity and spirituality. It is flexible, organic, intuitive, mystical and religious, restless and searching. Civilization is the late fulfilled senescence of the earlier Culture, and so it has opposite qualities. It is rigid, materialistic, rule based, logical, and sterile, the remains of a once living thing, and as such can last for a very long time like bones in the earth or the great hulk of a dead oak in the forest.
  • Viewed properly, we see cultures being born, growing to maturity and finally dissolving in senility in a plant-like pattern of growth. These cultures interact, yes, but are in the end complete worlds of their own that do not admit a true understanding to outsiders. Spengler was the first, and by far the truest multiculturalist; what goes by that name today is actually syncretic universalism, a perfect opposite to Spengler’s notions.
  • Primitive men had no Culture, there was no directional tendency in their societies, but rather a vegetative stasis. Though constantly in flux in its myths and practices, it stays in the same place. This is the background soil out of which Culture emerges.
  • As population rose and agriculture began, political complexity emerged and a priesthood with it that had leisure to contemplate existence. Joseph Campbell, a confirmed Spenglerist, calls this the Age of Wonder, it’s when the old primitive myths lose force and a crisis of belief forces a new conception to emerge. An example from the ancient Middle East: attention to astronomy began to reveal deep patterns of time in the movement of the stars that had been unsuspected by primitive men. This was a great shock, the universe is suddenly seen to be profoundly different than ever thought.
  • Fear of the absolute otherness of the new found reality demanded an answer to show man’s place in this strange universe, in particular, to the vastly expanded sense of time which underscores man’s tiny place in the world and his impending lonely death and oblivion. The response is a new feeling of time and space. It is the flowering of this “seed idea” that creates a new Culture.
  • A Culture lasts about 1,000 years, but the Civilization stage can continue indefinitely. China and India, for example, have been in that stage since 400 B.C. or so. Though Cultures evolve independently, they follow the same phases of growth as individuals of the same species do though the details are particular to each.

Spengler variously lists what he considers to be Cultures but generally they are:

  • Egypt
  • India
  • China
  • Babylonia
  • Classical Antiquity
  • Aztec/MesoAmerica
  • Inca
  • Western Europe (Faustian)
  • Arabia (Magian)
  • Russia

Spengler is not a predictor of collapse or some kind of impending apocalypse. His “decline” is a decline of creative powers into an ossified condition, but it is in the Civilization stage that huge populations arise.

Well, that’s enough to chew on I guess. There’s more, much more trust me. “Decline of the West” is out of print and hard to find; I’ve been reading Kindle versions, of which David Payne’s translation is the best. I think the time is ripe for a revival of this most unusual of philosophers, one who from the remove of a century has uncannily seen so much of what we’ve become today.

Posted in History, Philosophy and Religion | Tagged | 4 Comments

Trendy Slang Du Jour

Posted on June 28, 2015 by Paleo Retiree

Paleo Retiree writes:

Spotted recently at a NYC construction site:

I’m surprised they weren’t able to find room for “artisanal” and “bespoke.”

Posted in Architecture, Humor | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Architecture Du Jour

Posted on June 27, 2015 by Blowhard, Esq.

Blowhard, Esq. writes:

astorplace

A collection of buildings along Lafayette Street in Astor Place, New York City, that I took while on a walking tour. A lot to love about these buildings, but I particularly like their use of color. Why do contempo architects have such an aversion to color?

Click on the image to enlarge.

Posted in Architecture | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

And the Wasps?

Posted on June 27, 2015 by Fabrizio del Wrongo

Fabrizio del Wrongo writes:

a-passage-to-india72He had spoken in the little room near the Courts where the pleaders waited for clients; clients, waiting for pleaders, sat in the dust outside. These had not received a card from Mr. Turton. And there were circles even beyond these — people who wore nothing but a loincloth, people who wore not even that, and spent their lives in knocking two sticks together before a scarlet doll — humanity grading and drifting beyond the educated vision, until no earthly invitation can embrace it.

All invitations must proceed from heaven perhaps; perhaps it is futile for men to initiate their own unity, they do but widen the gulfs between them by the attempt. So at all events thought old Mr. Graysford and young Mr. Sorley, the devoted missionaries who lived out beyond the slaughterhouses, always travelled third on the railways, and never came up to the club. In our Father’s house are many mansions, they taught, and there alone will the incompatible multitudes of mankind be welcomed and soothed. Not one shall be turned away by the servants on that verandah, be he black or white, not one shall be kept standing who approaches with a loving heart. And why should the divine hospitality cease here? Consider, with all reverence, the monkeys. May there not be a mansion for the monkeys also? Old Mr. Graysford said No, but young Mr. Sorley, who was advanced, said Yes; he saw no reason why monkeys should not have their collateral share of bliss, and he had sympathetic discussions about them with his Hindu friends. And the jackals? Jackals were indeed less to Mr. Sorley’s mind, but he admitted that the mercy of God, being infinite, may well embrace all mammals. And the wasps? He became uneasy during the descent to wasps, and was apt to change the conversation. And oranges, cactuses, crystals and mud? and the bacteria inside Mr. Sorley? No, no, this is going too far. We must exclude someone from our gathering, or we shall be left with nothing.

— E.M. Forster

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  • Blowhard, Esq. turns up a dick-y Forster quote.
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Stray Thoughts on Today’s SSM Ruling

Posted on June 26, 2015 by Blowhard, Esq.

Blowhard, Esq. writes:

confederategays

  • Happy for those who are happy with today’s decision, but I’m still waiting for a logical, principled, legal argument as to why the Court’s SSM decisions don’t also permit polygamy.
  • Whoops, hey, that didn’t take long.

gayrightsgunrights

  • It’s hilarious that many of my smart, progressive friends on the one hand think the Constitution permits the federal government to force citizens to buy a private corporate product (i.e. health insurance) and requires all 50 states to recognize same-sex marriage, yet on the other hand think the Constitution does not permit private citizens to own guns. This despite the fact that the Second Amendment contains the phrase “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” while the phrases “right to privacy” and “gay marriage” appear no where at all in the document.

obamaeagle

whitehousegay

  • Astonishing how gay marriage has gone from something that no one wanted or cared about, including progressive gays, to something that all right-thinking must be in favor of. It took all of 20 years, which is remarkably fast for such a sea change in public opinion.

“Traditional marriage is a rotten, oppressive institution. . . . marriage is a contract which smothers both people, denies needs, and places impossible demands on both people. . . . Gay people must stop gauging their self-respect by how well they mimic straight marriages. Gay marriages will have the same problems as straight ones except in burlesque. . . . To accept that happiness comes through finding a groovy spouse and settling down, showing the world that ‘we’re just the same as you’ is avoiding the real issues, and is an expression of self-hatred. . . . We have to define for ourselves a new pluralistic, rolefree social structure for ourselves. It must contain both the freedom and physical space for people to live alone, live together for a while, live together for a long time, either as couples or in larger numbers; and the ability to flow easily from one of these states to another as our needs change. Liberation for gay people is defining for ourselves how and with whom we live, instead of measuring our relationship in comparison to straight ones, with straight values.”

— Carl Wittman, “A Gay Manifesto,” 1970

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Posted in Politics and Economics | Tagged , , | 9 Comments

Naked Lady of the Week: Mistress T

Posted on June 26, 2015 by Blowhard, Esq.

Blowhard, Esq. writes:

mistresstcoverIs this the first professional dominatrix that we’ve featured? A quick check of the archives reveals that to be the case. With her cool voice and haughty-naughty mein, Mistress T is like the madam of a “Eyes Wide Shut” party or the English schoolmistress of your dreams. Well, assuming your dreams include ruined orgasms and/or ballbusting. Speaking of which, I should warn you that there are plenty of videos of her at work on the tube sites but proceed with caution, ’cause man, this chick is into some freaky shit.

More domination and submission after the jump. Happy Friday.

Continue reading →

Posted in Performers, Sex, The Good Life | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Trolling Movie Critics

Posted on June 25, 2015 by Sax von Stroheim

Sax von Stroheim writes:

furiosaandbrides

I thought Mad Max: Fury Road was a well-made action movie, but that it was wildly overpraised by critics and movie geeks. A wise friend said: “Give nerds an opportunity to think their tastes are sophisticated and look out!” I would add: “This is what happens when a bunch of egg-head movie fans (i.e. cinephiles) finally have a movie with a lot of explosions that they can like without feeling ashamed about it afterwards.”

And I think Kevin Courrier’s take in Critics at Large, here, makes a convincing case for the way the marketers of the movie primed critics to see Mad Max as something really special, and not just another crass action movie, like those Fast & Furious things or the junk that (my hero) Michael Bay makes.

(Tangentially: Michael Bay’s movies are hated by movie nerds for political reasons, by which I mean, they’re hated because Michael Bay seems to be a huge asshole. If Michael Bay were a fat geeky beardo who went to Comic Con and confessed his love for Blake’s 7 and old Iron Fist comics he would be a nerd hero and his Transformers movies would be praised as if they heralded the second coming of Joe Dante.)

But I don’t think Courrier goes far enough in pointing out the biggest marketing con job of them all: that the people selling this movie got a bunch of college graduates to write about its “feminist” message. Courrier notes that the movie’s feminism doesn’t have any “dramatic consequence”, but, I would argue, the film’s feminism isn’t merely superficial: it’s non-existent. Rather than a feminist message, the film aggressively expresses a sexist perspective of the world. That is: throughout Mad Max: Fury Road, Dr. George Miller keeps us very aware that there are biological differences between men and women, and the entire story points towards these being meaningful differences; that it’s the biological differences between men and women that shape society and not the other way around, where men and women’s role are shaped primarily by society. From the very beginning Miller shows us a world where the women exist for milk and breeding and the men exist for war and bleeding. The plot is driven by bride-stealing (just like the Iliad‘s) and at no point does the movie undercut the idea that women’s primary power, and primary value, comes from their ability to give birth.

Also, there’s a very blatant attack on the idea of a matriarchal society. When Our Heroes finally reach what they hoped would be a paradise ruled by wise old women instead of gross mean men, they find only a handful of the wise old women struggling to survive. And instead of going off to found some new community of their own, they decide to turn around and go back to try to take over the only viable society in this world: one that had been built and maintained (albeit in a nightmarish form) by men. The movie’s thesis might be: a society run by men might be horrible, but a society run by women would lead to the end of the human race.

Hey — I’m not sure if this is just a coincidence or if George Miller is the Master of All Trolls, because what he’s describing here, allegorically, mirrors the relationship between internet activist “feminists” and a lot of the traditionally dude-centric geek culture, like computer gaming and comic book conventions. Instead of going off to create their own thing, these social justice warriors have tried to use social media bullying to impose their politically correct standards on nerd sub-cultures that were doing fine without them.

As far as I can tell, the film’s “feminist” cred seems to rely entirely on the character of Furiosa, who is, admittedly, a butt-kicking, badass woman. But she’s also an archetypal maimed woman warrior, that is, a woman who’s explicitly taking on a man’s role. More importantly, the current vogue for butt-kicking babes has more to do with appealing to the dudes in the audience than anything else: the last thing a guy wants to go to the movies to see is a girl doing girly stuff, so how about you make the heroine someone who likes to blow shit up and beat the crap out of people?

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Posted in Movies | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments

L’Affaire Jenner: A Conversation

Posted on June 25, 2015 by Eddie Pensier

Eddie Pensier writes:

caitlin-jenner-media-strategy

Transcribed, annotated, anonymized, and edited for spelling from a discussion group elsewhere on the web. The participants include:

AK, shopkeeper, female, 42
CB, researcher, male, 39
MM, retired US Navy, male, 54
CM, copywriter/translator, male, 54
JL, financial planner, male, 44
ML, self-employed, female, 50
AS, insurance adjuster, female, 43
PH, technical writer, male, 57
RV, media consultant, male, 61
PJ, technical writer, male, 36
JA, professor, male, 65

The topic. Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner, the explosion of trans-awareness in general, and the wisdom or not of encouraging children and adolescents to transition genders.

AK: I’ve been wondering exactly what it means when MTF transgenders say, “I’ve always felt like a woman”. It boils down to, I can only speculate, one of three mental paths: Continue reading →

Posted in Media, Personal reflections, Science, Sex, Trends | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments