Maps To The Stars

Maps To The Stars:  Another terrible David Cronenberg film.  Ha.  He hasn't made a good flick in thirty years, yet his *reputation* grows.  After making Rabid, The Brood, Scanners, The Dead Zone and The Fly, Cronenberg ended up taking himself seriously and has since shat out one pretentious art movie after another.  This one isn't as crappy as Cosmopolis, but it's still garbage.  The dumb plot is a tangle of loose threads ripped from previous dark Hollywood fables like Sunset Boulevard, Mulholland Drive, The Player, etc., etc. and sprinkled with some Psychopathia Sexualis For Dummies mumbo-jumbo.  Here's the story:

An aging self-absorbed movie actress desperately tries to land the lead role in a remake of a decades old cult movie that starred her sexually abusive mother.  While wringing her hands at home alone waiting to hear if she gets the part, the aging actress is haunted/taunted by her mother's sexy ghost (mommy died in a house fire long ago).  The aging actress hires a nutty burn-scarred (the scars are barely noticeable for most of the film) personal assistant, who turns out to be recently released from a loony bin and the daughter of the aging actress' ruthless massage therapist (who knew there could be such a thing!) who has problems of his own, like hiding the fact his wife is really his sister, and that his unsurprisingly maladjusted children (the son is a child star who, for some reason, is haunted by the ghost of a Make A Wish Foundation girl he visited in a hospital) seem intent on following mom and dad down the same road. . .or into the grave, whichever comes first.  And for some reason, at one time or another in this rag picker's script, all the characters end up possessed by the surrealist poet Paul Éluard, spouting lines from his poem Liberty.  I imagine this was supposed to be some big bad dark Hollywood satire, but, hey, who really gives a shit about Hollywood, anyway?  The only movies more overdone than movies about *people* trying to *make it* in Hollywood are movies about *people* trying to *make it* in New York.

And I guess it's no shocker that a movie with such an incomprehensible script features laughably bad acting. No doubt the cast were clueless at how to interpret their characters' murky motivations--but let's mock their pathetic performances, anyway.  Aging actress Julianne Moore stars as the aging actress, and revisits her star-making performance from Short Cuts. . .you remember that, right?  When she walked around with her hairy cunt hanging out for two or three minutes of screen time?  That made her an *actress.* She don't show her pussy in this one, but she's naked or half-naked most of the time, including one excruciating scene where she's on the toilet and has to take a shit, fart and wipe her ass in front of her burn-scarred personal assistant.  I guess this blatant lack of bowel movement etiquette is meant to show how insignificant the aging actress regards her personal assistant, but. . .ha. . .Moore can barely wipe her own ass. . .it's the worst toilet bowl performance ever. . .ha ha ha. . .I can't believe I am reviewing an actress' fart!  But that's how shitty this movie is, Julianne Moore's terrible attempt to fake a fart and her half-assed ass wiping are the most interesting moments!  How bad was Julianne Moore's shitting and farting?  Chuck Berry's dick would have went limp if he watched it. . .

Anyways. . .

The has-been John Cusack is the ruthless massage therapist (?!?!), and his big scene consists of him assaulting his daughter (you know, the kid he had after he fucked his sister, and who grew up to be the nutty burn-scarred personal assistant to the aging actress).  Cusack has to really wail on his daughter, he's supposed to be giving her body blows that would cause internal bleeding for a week. But Cusack is that nerd actor from Say Anything and The Sure Thing. . .the cute, harmless white boy who has to put in way too much work to get a piece of ass. . .anyway, Cusack, pushing 50, is still a nerd, and watching him in a silly fake rage throw faggy punches at his incest-bred daughter is almost as laugh-out-loud funny as Julianne Moore's fake shitting.

The nutty burn-scarred personal assistant is played by somebody named Mia Wasikowska (or something pollacky like that). . .she's actually not too bad, but Julianne Moore, who's got to be twice her age, looks better naked, so her career arc will probably follow that of Lili Taylor or Juliette Lewis.   

Oh, yeah, Robert Pattinson is also in this movie.  I didn't bother including his character in the plot synopsis since it's completely irrelevant to whatever the muddled story line is, but he stands around looking completely confused for 10 or 15 minutes of screen time, no doubt as perplexed as the viewer as to what this movie is supposed to be about.  He does have a 30 second sex scene with Julianne Moore, and, after fucking her doggy style, he backs away, looking, surprise!, completely confused as to what that was supposed to be all about.

There is one performer who will probably move on from this zero of a movie and achieve *stardom:* Sarah Gadon, a stunningly beautiful actress who, unlike her co-stars, seemed to know what to do with her character, the sexy ghost mom.  She played the role as a creepy/cool temptress, a nightmare figure you both dread and desire.  Unfortunately, Gadon is on-screen for only about 5 minutes.  That leaves an hour-and-forty-five minutes of meandering mediocrity. . .so there's no point in watching this mess. . .unless you are like me, and find personal satisfaction in picking it apart and publicly accusing it of failure.

Congratulate Me!

Ha ha ha. . .I was right!

So go ahead and congratulate me!

Seymour *Butts* Hersh gives us the true story of the *heroic* SEAL take-down of bin Laden, and it confirms my opinion expressed in my review of the shitty movie Zero Dark Thirty:

Given the lethal-but-laughably mistaken targets of their drone operations, I find it hard to believe one, or even a hundred-and-one, CIA *officers* could find bin Laden. 

Full review here.

Who Will Be Killed First? Pamela Geller Or Abby Martin?

So we know Americans love to congratulate themselves on what great defenders of freedom of speech they are, they tolerate this and that, everybody can say what they want and it's all good. . .unlike the boorish muslims who can't take a fucking joke about their prophet. Why, just a week or so ago, poor Pamela Geller was marked for death by the Islamic State for promoting muhammad cartoons, proof the muslims are humorless louts. Americans, with their long tradition of upholding freedom of expression, would never descend to that level of primitivism, to respond to the speech of another, no matter how contrary to the prevailing cultural tide, with the threat of violence. After all, free speech is one of the cherished hallmarks of *American Exceptionalism,* the hocus-pocus which cloaks American military operations in the guise of freedom.  We love freedom so much, we're willing to kill millions of the others to force it down their throats.  So you'll never see red, white and blue Americans acting like backward, savage muslims, threatening death over the free expression of ideas, no matter how supposedly sacred the subject.

Oops:

Er. . .

rawstory.com: Fans of “American Sniper” Chris Kyle have threatened to rape and kill former RT anchor Abby Martin for criticizing the deceased Navy SEAL and creating a T-shirt they find offensive. . .

Ha ha ha. . .

Read more here and here if you think this is just an idle threat from one or two demented SEAL fanboys, and not, perhaps, representative of a minority of Americans as similarly unenlightened and quantitatively equal to that of the Middle East's Islamic Staters. . . 

The truth is, 21st century Americans love freedom of speech--but in only regard to vulgarity and pornography.  Americans fear free political speech, which is why, for example, only the democrat and republican figure-heads are allowed entry to the presidential debates, and not all the other candidates who have met ballot qualifications.  God forbid sensitive Americans should hear a libertarian or green party candidate tell them their wars have been colossal mistakes. {gasp.} Why, doesn't everybody know America has never done anything wrong?

Listen, Americans love free speech the same as anybody else, pollacks or greaseballs or krauts, whatever, all the free speech anybody wants is to hear only what they want to hear. . .

But American hypocrisy re: free speech isn't what interests me about these Pamela Geller/Abby Martin stories. . .ISN'T IT FUCKING FASCINATING TO COMPARE WHO THE ISLAMIC SAVAGES AND AMERICAN SAVAGES ARE WILLING TO KILL FOR?

The Islamic Staters want to kill for their god's prophet.  However misguided in their identification of god, at least their mistaken cause has the aura of the cosmic and the eternal.

The Americans want to kill for a MOVIE CHARACTER. . .

Can we suppose nothing exposes the shallowness of a culture more than who its followers are willing to kill for?

Will Pamela Geller Die For The (imagi)Nation?

The Islamic State has warned:

The attack by the Islamic State in America is only the beginning of our efforts to establish a wiliyah in the heart of our enemy. Our aim was the khanzeer Pamela Geller and to show her that we don’t care what land she hides in or what sky shields her; we will send all our Lions to achieve her slaughter.

I'd never heard of Pamela Geller until the Islamic State announced they would like to slaughter her. Apparently she was the hostess of the recent *draw a cartoon of Muhammad contest* down in Garland, Texas, which ended with a couple of bungling Islamic Staters getting shot to death before they could even get inside the building. . . 

Not being familiar with Ms. Geller, I can't say for sure why she served as hostess for the cartoon contest, but a quick internet search revealed Geller is not only a hostess, but an authoress, also:

Hmmn, a 3.8 out of 5 stars rating on Amazon.com.  Must be a good book.

Is America really in danger of islamization?  Didn't we just go through mass hysteria over Obama daring to suggest we negotiate with Iran?  And didn't more clearheaded Americans invite the Israelite Netanyahu to take center stage in the Capitol Building to instruct us on how to deal with the threat of islamization? And seeing how unreservedly Netanyahu's tutelage was accepted, it hardly seems America is in any danger of going mohammedan. But then, I never wrote any books on the subject, so maybe Geller knows better. . .

I mean, it seems more likely we'll have intragender marriage than the stoning of homosexuals in America, but again, I never wrote any books on the subject. . .

I mean, I  don't see any signs Wall Street is about to abandon usury. . .

No alcohol, no pork, no Katy Perry at halftime of the Super Bowl, no gambling, no pornography, no cigarettes, no video games, no sexting?  I mean, basically, the islamization of America would mean no sex, drugs and rock'n'roll--and that and war are all there are to America, so I just don't see any chance our great nation turns to Mecca. . .but let me repeat, I never wrote any books on the subject.

Perhaps forced islamization?  No.  What army on earth could convert a populace with such lax morals?  Do you see the Islamic State having the military might to roll into Baltimore and force this woman into putting on some clothes?

So surely a nation of indebted, intoxicated, discouraged workers malnourished with poisoned foods and forced to compete with hordes of immigrants for the diminished employments offered by the 1%ers war economy while trying to raise their hyper-vaccinated automaton offspring schooled in dumbed-down classrooms faces more pressing concerns than a hypothetical towel-heading?  And that's not to mention regional or minority issues: the Fukushima irradiated Pacific Coast, the disenfranchised colored zones, an increasingly identity disordered youth, fracking, drought, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. . .

No, I don't see the threat of islamization as particularly relevant to the well-being of the republic.  It seems only a figment of Pamela Geller's imagination.  

What this figment does seem relevant to, however, is the well-being of Ms. Geller, as the Islamic State has marked her for death.   And what a shame, if this kOOk (assuming she is a kOOk, and not a shameless blowhard peddling islamophobia for filthy lucre) should be transformed into a martyr, and her blood fire the imaginations of her credulous followers, and perhaps inspire more.

Nonetheless, if the 'worst' happens, what lesson should be learned from the death of Pamela Geller?  Let us remember the teaching of Jesus recorded in the thirteenth chapter of the gospel of Luke.  Jesus was asked about those who had died as a result of a violent uprising against the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate:

There were present at that season some that told Him of the Galilaeans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus answering said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilaeans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.

If the Islamic State should behead Pamela Geller and her blood were to run in the street, should we consider her a worse sinner than any other American who supports the *war on terror?*  Nay.

Though in no danger of islamization, I don't doubt America will suffer violent acts from muslims.  As happened before, will happen again: America must reap what she has sown in the middle east.  Therefore, unless America repents of her state violence, she will suffer violence.   And in her individual case, unless Ms. Geller repents of her support of state violence, she shall likewise perish as those three thousand, upon whom the towers in New York fell. . .

The Poor

I live in a $457-a-month one bedroom American council flat.  Subsidized housing.  Hillside Townhouses, it’s called.  The hill it sits beside is the city dump.

The place is not too bad in the winter, when everybody stays inside, with their windows shut.  You can hear their screaming, the screaming of the poor, through the thin walls.  But I can block that out with the portable dvd player and a pair of ten dollar headphones.  So the poor are all tolerable, in the winter.

But in the summer, the poor are unbearable.  The summer, when the screen doors are in and all the windows are open, and the poor congregate in the parking lots.  The noise is maddening. I got a taste of it today, the first really warm day of the spring. 78 degrees. Around here, the north, 78 in the spring is like 92 in the summer. Everybody was outside today. And here was the preview of this summer's coming attractions:

The insane screaming, yelling, arguing, laughter.  So I hate the poor.  I damn the poor.  Even though the rich kick them unmercifully, I still hate them.  Unsympathetic victims.  They cannot accept their defeat with honor.  Instead, they disgrace themselves with alcohol, narcotics, Cheese Puffs and Energy Drinks, recreational clothing.  They refuse to sink into the monotonous rut of quiet desperation. They insist on living helter-skelter.

The people in the flat on the left haven’t spoken to me since last summer, when I caught them in the act.  The act of being poor.  They have a three bedroom.  A man, a woman, four kids.  Six powder kegs in an inferno.  One burning night last summer, everyone sweating, everyone hot and poor, I heard a couple thuds, then a smack, then kids screaming and crying, then a screen door slamming, then a screen door slamming again.

“That’s right, bitch,” I heard the woman from next door shout, “run away like you always do!”

Don’t look out the window, I tell myself, don’t look out the window.

“That’s right, you pussy motherfucker!" she continues.  "And don’t come back this time!”

“Get yo shit ass back in the house and wipe the shit off yo behind,” the man yells back.  “And hang a Goddamn flypaper off yo shit ass!” he adds, for good measure.

I can't help it. I look out the window.  The man is putting a key in the lock of his rusty Camry.  The woman is stomping across the parking lot.  She stops ten feet from the man.

“You come back, I’ll kill you!”

The man laughs as he opens the door and slides behind the wheel.  

“Yo shit ass already done killed me,” he shouts in farewell.

The woman turns around and sees me in the window.

“What you lookin' at, nigger!  Mind your own fuckin' business!”

That pissed me off.  I almost shouted I’m not even black, but, to my credit, I retained my composure.  Anyway, that’s the last time any of my neighbors talked to me.

Once in a great while, that same man will come out and toss a little football with his kids while he smokes a cigarette.  The little football will bounce crazily all over the parking lot, often off my and other people’s car hoods.

Hillside Townhouses, my God!  White trash, Blacks, Arabs, Chinese.  Some of the Arabs are all right.  They cram ten or twelve into a 3 bedroom, put some lace curtain thing over the storm door, and you never see them.  The Chinese make a lot of noise, but I have no idea what they are yin-yanging about.  I got Chinese on the right.  They have a baby, like clockwork, every night at 9:30, starts screaming its head off, doesn’t stop for forty-five minutes.

Skunks cross the street from the city dump, and pick through the garbage around our dumpsters. . .

Kids, kids, kids choking the sidewalk and parking lot with their scraped-up scooters, skateboards and bikes. . .the inevitable daily crash, one of them bleeding and howling off. . .

The little 2 am parking lot parties. . .broken liquor bottles and baby mama swapping. . .

It’s too depressing to try to describe. . .

This is where I will die.  In the kingdom of the poor.  How many trillions of stars God made, and I’m smeared on this little sheet of toilet paper with all these other Hillside Townhouse turds.

But no, I have to be honest.  This story must be told truthfully.  I don’t hate the poor.  How could I not love the poor?  I worked eleven years in the county jail.  Eleven years that destroyed me.  Eleven years that accelerated my ruin.  Eleven years in Intake and Release.  Eleven years booking in and booking out the poor.  Eleven years booking in and booking out the poor, the lame, the halt, the sick in the head.  I love the poor as I love myself.  Hopeless losers.  No chance.  Nobody ever felt sorrier for anybody than I feel for the poor.  And that’s the greatest love of all.  That’s how God feels about us.

I remember one, in particular.  One poor, one sick in the head.  He came in on my forty-fifth birthday.  I was already eyeing the grave.  I hadn’t yet hit rock bottom, but I was falling.  I was falling, waiting to hit and crumple.  Then I would be free of the play-acting of living. All the absurd make-work that is called living could then be put away.  I would be free to act without pretense and wait for death.  That was me, birthday forty-five, on the midnight shift at the jail.

In front of me was a young, bewildered snot-nosed autistic black male. He was trying to make his one free call on the inmate phone, but he could make neither heads nor tails of the (simple) directions.

I had compassion.

“Come over here, guy.  I’ll dial for you on my phone.”

With a stiff gait, the youthful oddball slowly makes his way to my station.

“Who are you trying to call?” I ask.

“Grandma.”

“What’s your grandma’s name?”

“Grandma.”

The snot on the snot-nosed autistic boy is dried.  It looks like he has chalk marks under his nostrils.

I pick up the handset.

“What’s your grandma’s phone number?”

“Nine.”

He’s eighteen years old.  He was brought in for a domestic assault on his mother.

“Uh, what’s the rest of the number?”

“The rest of the number?”

I nod.

“Nine.  Nine. . .nine.  Ninenineninenineninenineninenine.”

“Uh, I don’t think that will work.”

“That won’t work?”

“No.  No, that’s not a good number.”

“That’s not a good number?”

“No.”

He stands there staring blankly at me for several seconds.

Moments like those often bring on self-contemplation. I wondered how I ended up there.  Forty-five years old, working in a jail, processing human refuse, a misfit recycling center, sorting one case of arrested development from the next.

“Why don’t you have a seat there and try to think of a better number.  We can try again a little later.”

“OK.”

The snot-nose stands there, staring, for a few more seconds.  I’m about to tell him again to take a seat when he abruptly turns and lurches away.  He sits hunched, head down in the front row, rocking back and forth.

I watch him for a little bit, thinking what’s this poor bastard ever going to do with himself?  I think over it and think over it, imagining one grim scenario after another, then, just as his dismal future starts to bore me, he bolts out of his chair.

“I WANNA GO HOME!” he shrieks.

He half-runs and half-stumbles to the I2 door.  He tugs furiously on the handle.  I guess he’s trying to escape, but I2 only leads to the sally port, where they bring in the new arrests.  Even if he could somehow manage to open I2, he’d only find himself locked in the garage, like a dog with muddy paws.

Some of the inmates laugh at the spectacle.

“That silly ass nigger ain’t got no pride,” says one, with great scorn.

“Pride ain’t got nuttin to do wit it,” says another, wearily.  “He a retard.  He as dumb as you, nigga.”

This gets the whole room laughing.  One of my co-workers barks for everyone to quiet down.

Two officers drag the autistic kid into a holding cell. 

“Grandma!  GRANDMA!” he shouts as the door slams shut.

I watch him on the monitor.  He zig-zags crazily, like a squirrel in traffic, then sits Indian-style on the concrete floor, rocking back and forth.

He’s poor, so nothing is done for him, unlike the broken children of the rich.  When his people are worn out with his antics, they call the sheriff’s for a twenty-four or thirty-six hour holiday. . .

And there I was, celebrating number forty-five with him.  I clearly remember measuring my life against his at that exact point in time and space.  Marginally, I’m better off, I thought, yet it feels like six of one, a half-dozen of the other.

So, yeah, the poor. . .I love them. Even when I will hate them this long hot summer, I will love them, as I love myself.