Salyut 7

The Soviets started the space race by putting the World’s first satellite, Sputnik into orbit in 1957. The first living creature Laika the dog followed scant months later. The first landing on the moon the unmanned Luna 2 was also a Soviet first. The U.S however, at least as far as the Western world was concerned, always won the Propaganda war, racing to put men on the moon, at any cost, a mere twelve years after Sputnik, but such was the Western media that only Soviet space accidents were known, the death of Vladimir Komarov being front page news in the 1970s when it was belatedly admitted by the soviet government and became public in Australia.

While the world wallowed in the drama of Apollo 13 while it was happening, and was treated to a big -budget film on the subject, nobody heard of Salyut 7– Until now! As a factually accurate big-budget film on the subject arrives on iTunes to educate and wow the pants off audiences worldwide.

“Salyut 7” is a Russian film starring Vladimir Vdovichenkov, Pavel Derevyanko and Aleksandr Samoylenko and directed by Klim Shipenko from a script by Aleksey Chupov Natasha Merkulova Aleksey Samolyotov and Klim Shipenko with English adaptation by Jeffery Hylton.

In 1985 the Soviet space station Salyut 7 is quietly orbiting the Earth, minding it’s own business, unmanned and totally under ground control when it is unexpectedly hit by a cloud of micro meteor and breaks. As a matter of national prestige, a repair mission is assembled and packed off to dock with the spinning-out-of-control station. Real actual excitement happens repeatedly since you (the audience) have no idea how things are going to turn out, at any point, an advantage that “Apollo13” lacked.
Let it be said too that the special effects are easily the best “Earth Orbit” stuff I have ever seen, with state-of the -art CGI rendering everything else(even the great “2001”) very old hat. Throughout this film I kept having flashes of real sorrow that Kubrick never got to play with CGI – This film is that good. In Short, if you’re a fan of space, or of adventure, or of very good solid drama- this film is a real winner.
iTunes movies 19.99 to buy- 7 to rent; as usual buying is a better deal- in this case very much so. You’ll probably watch it multiple times.

[https://youtu.be/nuohk0jJ2Nc]

Russian with English subtitles review

Copyright 2020 Alex Rieneck All Rights Reserved

Salyut 7 Review

#Salyut 7 Review

The Soviets started the space race by putting the World’s first satellite, Sputnik into orbit in 1957. The first living creature Laika the dog followed scant months later. The first landing on the moon the unmanned Luna 2 was also a Soviet first. The U.S however, at least as far as the Western world was concerned, always won the Propaganda war, racing to put men on the moon, at any cost, a mere twelve years after Sputnik, but such was the Western media that only Soviet space accidents were known, the death of Vladimir Komarov being front page news in the 1970s when it was belatedly admitted by the soviet government and became public in Australia.

*While the world wallowed in the drama of Apollo 13 while it was happening, and was treated to a big -budget film on the subject, nobody heard of Salyut 7*- Until now! As a factually accurate big-budget film on the subject arrives on iTunes to educate and wow the pants off audiences worldwide.

“Salyut 7” is a Russian film starring Vladimir Vdovichenkov, Pavel Derevyanko and Aleksandr Samoylenko and directed by Klim Shipenko from a script by Aleksey Chupov Natasha Merkulova Aleksey Samolyotov and Klim Shipenko with English adaptation by Jeffery Hylton.

In 1985 the Soviet space station Salyut 7 is quietly orbiting the Earth, minding it’s own business, unmanned and totally under ground control when it is unexpectedly hit by a cloud of micro meteor and breaks. As a matter of national prestige, a repair mission is assembled and packed off to dock with the spinning-out-of-control station. Real actual excitement happens repeatedly since you (the audience) have no idea how things are going to turn out, at any point, an advantage that “Apollo13” lacked.
Let it be said too that the special effects are easily the best “Earth Orbit” stuff I have ever seen, with state-of the -art CGI rendering everything else(even the great “2001”) very old hat. Throughout this film I kept having flashes of real sorrow that Kubrick never got to play with CGI – This film is that good. In Short, if you’re a fan of space, or of adventure, or of very good solid drama- this film is a real winner.
iTunes movies 19.99 to buy- 7 to rent; as usual buying is a better deal- in this case very much so. You’ll probably watch it multiple times.

*Russian with English subtitles
review Copyright2020*Alex Rieneck All Rights Reserved

vintage Blog.the truth can only exist in the past

Report From Interzone
By Agent

What a week it”s been! Or has it? well, if you follow the normal media, it’s been just about the most pants-shittingly important week in history. But stripped of all the hyperbole and the poetic sentimentalising by journalists far overestimating the extent of their talents; what has actually happened? Well, shorn of all the crap, the story went that the rather odd leader of a peculiar little country miles from anywhere developed an edema that rendered his shoes far too small, and smiled all like, evil when his minions built a knewkular bomb. It was a knewkular bomb bigger than the one dropped on Hiroshima in World War Two (cue grainy black-and-white footage of  America’s one undeniable wartime success). Show maps, cities with superimposed circles of theoretical damage if such a bomb was set of in said city. Finish by calming the peasantry with the announcement that (at present anyway) the bad man had no way of “delivering” such an unwelcome gift.
After a few days announce that the said bad man has his minions were experimenting with rockets (cue shot of rocket whooshing up in some foreign, presumably evil sky). Calm the more hysterical among the viewers by saying that the said rocket has a range capable of reaching only other foreign slant-eyed yellow devils (and not us). Turn heat back up a notch by saying that the bad man undoubtedly regrets this shortcoming and is probably devoting his evil to remedying it by extending the range of his evil rockets; and anyway, he probably can’t put his bombs on his puny rockets anyway (like we have – yay us).
After a short break – announce that the evil man has now been upgraded to nemesis level. He *can* put his bombs on his rockets! and his bombs just got bigger! And biggerer! (Cue more maps and circles for the believers to dutifully pore over). Calm the masses by segueing the news to some theoretically important sporting fixture that keeps the Neanderthals off the street and in the arenas where they belong. After said fixture is over, release more film of rockets, more maps, more circles and an army of experts who know everything about the small far-away country and its lambently evil leader.
Ignore the fact that a good percentage of these experts have apparently never learned to comb their own hair but bombard the dutiful media consumer with so many conflicting opinions that they simultaneously feel “informed” and inclined to spend long periods deep in basement carparks sitting on a box of tins of beans. Then, when all appears beyond saving, announce a super-top-level summit between the American President and the evil head of the secretive nation. Have saturation coverage of every aspect of preparations for the meeting. Try to imbue this momentous event with the same sort of suspense usually reserved for Royal Weddings. Pretend that the President of the U.S.A. does not look like 140 kilos of condemned veal in a shiny suit topped off with a wig fashioned from an orangutang’s pubic hair and somehow profanely imbued with sufficient intelligence to at least sit for the entrance exam for the village idiot’s guild.

Have the paid shills show shock when the condemned veal and the mystery meat shake hands and (peacefully) display their fangs. Announce singing and dancing in the streets instruct the girls of marriageable age that they should don such clothes as are normally reserved for festivals of great rejoicing. Let the bells of the halls of pederasty ring forth with great joy.

That, at least, approximates the public story. But like all big stories, closer examination and clear (ahem) thought can deliver dividends which in turn lead to productive trains of thought of their own, so if you’ll stay with me a little longer consider this; contrary to the opinion of one “expert”, the condemned veal was far from “democratically” elected – in fact that election was subverted in about as many ways as there were individual votes cast (somewhere between five and ten at a guess). Putin definitely saw an advantage in playing geopolitics against 140 kilos of condemned veal as opposed to either of the alternatives; (at least probably believing that his bear sodomising masculinity would be vitiated by arguing with a woman). As for Bernie Sanders, well, there was an awful possibility that he might have lost sometimes.
But of course all of this is just ink in the water, produced by some irritated octopus. Only those who live deep under the largest rocks still truly believe that heads of state in so called democratic societies are anything more than than figureheads of the consortiums that use them as puppets. In Australia the “Liberal” party accuses the Labor party of being a wholly owned puppet of the labour unions while keeping quiet about its own relationship with big business and the predatory banking system. To some extent, it is the same in every country the world over; an uneasy truce exists between those who enjoy telling people what to do, and those who “have” to do as they are told. One camp apparently cannot exist without the other  since an army consisting of no-one but officers is nothing but a gang of shouting fools and an army without officers usually becomes a large party. Both sides always take great pleasure in reminding the other of this.

So-? let’s look a little deeper while staying with the ‘army’ example a little longer. Armies do not exist in a vacuum, they are one aspect of society. In a monarchy, they fight at the whim of the king – though of course the king is subject to the blandishments and blackmails of his closest power-brokers and courtiers – people who most directly affect his mind and opinions. The same of course goes for queens and never let it be said that women in positions of great power aren’t almost as bloody awful as men. Though Catherine the Great and Queen Victoria lacked the overtly genocidal tendencies of Stalin, Mao and Hitler they did their best with expansionism and economic strangulation. Hitler worked hand-in-glove with the big German corporations. The entire Nazi state was Capitalism, in its purest form, run riot. The concentration camps and the SS itself were run as profit-making arms of government, not unlike a successful state owned railway, post office or phone company. The SS would tender for large government contracts, for example the digging of a road tunnel through a mountain from Germany to France. Their tender would win because it was by far the lowest since they would not have to pay (or even feed) their workers. The same went for armaments manufacture. All for the bottom line. If, as Lenin had it, “imperialism is the highest stage of Capitalism, in order to become imperialist a state must first enter a state very like Nazism”. During the recent U.S invasion and occupation of Iraq, the U.S government operated hand-in glove with the “Halliburton” and “Blackwater” corporations which, being private “security” contractors and not soldiers, were not subject to the “rules” of war, the Geneva Convention or any other legal constraint on their activities.  Exactly like the SS they lived up to this status, with enthusiasm.
Nothing changes. The same largely invisible powers that manoeuvred Donald Trump into power by ignoring the popular vote and using the Electoral Colleges to project their puppet into power have done it before – both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush arrived in the Oval Office the same way – by subterfuge Their methods of consolidation of power look to be similar too. It may have slipped the popular memory but George W. Bush was a very unpopular president – until 9-11. Then America was “under attack” – it became so unfashionable as to be almost illegal to criticise the man. Almost overnight the country flowered with an ocean of “I Support our Troops” flags. 9-11 was not only a sea change in geopolitics, it was also a political gift from heaven for the Republican incumbent.

Can I be forgiven for rolling my eyes, when another “long shot” Republican incumbent barely surviving in office is rewarded with another “attack” – one that he can apparently solve single-handedly? Especially when this said incumbent shows every sign of being approximately as intelligent as the average beaver?

The simple truth is that America is not a democracy as per the common pretence. It is a Plutocracy, with figureheads being guided into place at the whim of powerful and very secretive cadres, call them the “Skull and Bones Society” the “Builderburg Group” or the “Illuminati”, but they’re getting sloppy enough to pull the same trick on the same peasants only ten years apart, and its common knowledge what happens when the peasants lose patience with their masters – look at what happened to Gaddafi, though of course he was thrown to the wolves by the same powers I’m talking about here. If you’re in the mood, it can be said that the forces turned on Mussolini at the end of World WarTwo— something that the Stauffenberg bomb that almost killed Hitler was driven bythe same “Top Down” Forces Hitler had feared since the beginning. He had no illusions that he was expendable to his puppet masters; and only almost impossible luck preserved him as long as he lasted. Filthy Creature.

Invisible Man (2020) Review

The invisible Man (2020)
I make no bones about having misgivings at starting to watch this film, the trailer a publicity had made much of its foundations in the “me too” era- an abusive man stalking his ex girfriend with murderous intent- and the ability to turn himself invisible! Being a white male I found I had minimal desire to sit through two hours of accusatory man-bashing- because, of course, such input might react negatively on my delicate male ego, a nd cause disquiet

I was pleasantly surprised- after the grinding slow first hour- anyway. a quick rundown of the plot. -Should be spoiler free. Girl lives with boy in minimalist concrete seaside mausoleum/mansion one night, girl runs out on relationship, hides in a different town with supportive people. Strange things start happening. Girl feels that she is being stalked, but no-one is there! What can be going on? To be truthful, what is going on is the feeling that you are being forced to sit through a whodunnit called. “The Butler did It”- There is suspense but no the suspense of waiting for discover but the kind where the audience(me) is wishing that the director would stop pissing around and get to the point. After all, the film is called “the invisible man” the only real available suspense is waiting for the bastard to become visible, and wondering whether the wait is going to be worth it.

I’m happy to report that at least in my case, the wait was worth it. Once Elizabeth Moss actually starts acting and the climax gets underway the film contains more than a few nasty moments- possibly too many as a matter of fact; I can remember saying out loud; “How much longer can this shit go on- and sitting through the final twenty minutes with something of a chip on my shoulder, because, rest assured; ”The Invisible Man” is shit but as far it goes it is good shit, delivering sensible invisibility science, thrills, blood and the odd nasty shock all in time with “ominous music” loud noises and screaming. And what American film has ever ended without someone getting shot? I can’t think of one since “Dumbo”(unless you count peanuts)

Verdict: Its pretty good shit, but art it ain’t
3/5
Copyright (C) Alex Rieneck 2020 All Rights Reserved

Invisible Man (2020) review

The invisible Man (2020)
I make no bones about having misgivings at starting to watch this film, the trailer a publicityhad made much of its foundations in the “me too” era- an abusive man stalking his ex girfriend with murderous intent- and the ability to turn himself invisible! Being a white male I found I had minimal desire to sit through two hours of accusatory man-bashing- because, of course, such input might react negatively on my delicate male ego.

I was pleasantly surprised- after the grinding slow first hour- anyway. a quick rundown of the plot. -Should be spoiler free. Girl lives with boy in minimalist concrete seaside mausoleum/mansion one night, girl runs out on relationship, hides in a different town with supportive people. Strange things start happening. Girl feels that she is being stalked, but no-one is there! What can be going on? To be truthful, what is going on is the feeling that you are being forced to sit through a whodunnit called. “The Butler did It”- There is suspense but no the suspense of waiting for discover but the kind where the audience(me) is wishing that the director would stop pissing around and get to the point. After all, the film is called “the invisible man” the only real available suspense is waiting for the bastard to become visible, and wondering whether the wait is going to be worth it.

I’m happy to report that at least in my case, the wait was worth it. Once Kate Moss actually starts acting and the climax got underway the film contains more than a few nasty moments- possibly too many as a matter of fact; I can remember saying out loud; “How much longer can this shit go on- and sitting through the final twenty minutes with something of a chip on my shoulder, because, rest assured; ”The Invisible Man” is shit but as far it goes it is good shit, delivering sensible science, thrill, blood and the odd nasty shock all in time with “ominous music” loud noises and screaming. And what American film has ever ended without someone getting shot? I can’t think of one since “Dumbo”(unless you count peanuts)

Verdict: Its pretty good shit, but art it ain’t
3.5/5

(C) Copyright 2020 Alex Rieneck All Rights Reserved.

goldilocks and the three strikes: A Rude Fairytale Rated Adults Only

A Rude Fairy tale

One day in the early Autumn, Goldilocks left the little house where she lived with her Aunt and Uncle and went out for a walk on her own in the woods. Goldilocks got her name from her beautiful golden blonde shimmery hair, it was the first thing about her that people noticed and they always commented on it, to the point wherein had become something of an obsession with her. She would fiddle with it, winding it around her fingers while gazing into the mirror above her dresser. Occasionally a little ditty would appear in her mind. This had of course created in her the belief that she was a gifted poetess, even though she had only once ever written down one of her poems before it vanished into the ether. Anyway on the morning of this lovely early Autumn day she decided that she would take a juicy red apple for lunch and her notebook to write down poems when they occurred to her, as she was sure they would, and she’d go off into the woods over the back fence and she’d walk and let the rhythm of her feet on the stately woodland paths do the rest. As far as some things went, Goldilocks was a very sensible girl.

So Goldilocks walked alone through the woods which were only just starting to turn brown for the Autumn and as the breeze caressed her hair, a song started to take shape in her head. It was still far too early to consider writing it down because it was still so inchoate that it didn’t exactly consist of words, just yet anyway, simply the music that words ride along on top of like a rowboat on the gentle swell out from the shore, but Goldilocks was very happy and quite – abstracted, when she followed a turn in the path around a thick patch of shrubbery and came across a little house, as deep in the woods as she had ever been.

The house was little and built from the kind of rounded stones that made Goldilocks think there must be a river or stream nearby. It had one storey and another, smaller one stuck up high under the steeply angled roof. The roof was made of wooden shingles, the chimney showed no sign of smoke and was made of the same kind of stones as the walls. Two delightful bay windows looked out on the pretty flower garden that was separated from the rest of the forest by a rickety looking picket fence made of unfinished wood. To the side of the flimsy looking front gate stood a letter box with an angled roof and a slot for letters. The slot was empty and on the otherwise blank front of the box there was a single paw-print in black paint and the word “Bears” also in black paint. She noticed that the writing was Wrong. In the childish capitals, the letter”S” was the wrong way around. Goldilocks clicked her tongue and pushed the gate open. When she got to the little front door, she rang the bell, even though she had no idea of what she was going to say if anyone answered it. The bell seemed to ring far away even though it was such a tiny little house. She needn’t have worried because no-one came to the door to answer the bell and her knocking went unheeded too. When she pushed at the door and discovered that it wasn’t even latched, let alone bolted, she pushed the door all the way open and walked right in. She was that kind of girl.

The house seemed to be empty and the hallway certainly was. The place was very neat and smelled very clean but under the smell of freshly vacuumed carpet and the faint smell of bleach that Goldilocks guessed must come from the bathroom, or the laundry, there was another smell faint, but still primal, raw and undeniable. Suddenly Goldilocks was much less sure of herself and there was a falter in her voice when she next called “hello?”
Nothing happened, no-one answered her call. And the house continued to give every appearance of being empty, so it wasn’t long before Goldilock’s natural optimism resurfaced, about the time that she saw the reflection of her hair in the dark parts of a glass-covered picture of an important looking bear. Before much more time had passed, she was slowly waltzing around the sitting room of the house, gently stroking the furniture that she passed with the tips of her fingers because aside from anything else, as spying, sticky-beak poetesses went, she was very tactile.

Mr Bear wasn’t happy to see her. He stood, almost completely filling the open door to the hallway and Goldilocks almost waltzed full length into his furry chest!
Mr Bear gave a deep low grumble from somewhere inside all the fur and bear. It was a grumble, not a growl, but Goldilocks could tell that a creature who could grumble like that could easily produce a very impressive growl. It was an instinctual understanding. So she smiled apologetically, took one step back and curtsied, using her pretty frock to its best advantage. Perhaps unsurprisingly her placatory gesture failed rather spectacularly, since bears are very territorial and far less impressed by apologies than they are by territorial encroachments, especially the sort that has inquisitive, cheeky girls pulling the cutlery out of drawers in the sideboard, touching it and then putting it back, hopefully in the right place. Mr Bear gave vent to his feelings. He didn’t growl, he came forth with a full throated roar, and he jumped on Goldilocks! Goldilocks screamed, sure she was going to be torn to pieces, and tried to fall in a dead faint onto the floor, to lie in a puddle of her own pee, but Mr Bear snatched her out of mid-air, bent her over the thick oak dining table, threw her pretty frock up over her back, forced down her pretty frilly panties, and grabbed two big handfuls of her golden hair and fucked her vigorously, until her screams of terror changed and became far too politically incorrect to be set down here.

Before too long, Mr Bear tired of exacting his revenge on Goldilocks and drew his big penis out of her vagina with a loud schlepping noise that was matched by Goldilocks’ moan, that to the unbiased ear, seemed to be pictched somewhere in the narrow territory between relief and disappointment. Mr Bear picked Goldilocks up as if she weighed no more than a blank postcard, carried her across the room and dropped her on top of Mrs Bear who was lying on her back on the floor in front of the fireplace wearing nothing but her fur. Goldilocks’ face landed directly between Mrs Bear’s legs, with her mouth and nose becoming buried in her most secret place. Goldilocks gasped as Mrs Bear’s cold snout buried itself in her vagina which was still scorching hot from Mr Bear’s frenetic attentions. When Mrs Bear started licking hard and fast at her wet honeypot, she screamed with joy directly into Mrs Bear’s clitoris and started to return the favour, with dedication.

Goldilocks enjoyed herself very much but after awhile, perhaps jaded by too much of a good thing in too short a space of time, started thinking that despite her present activity being a great deal of fun, that something was missing, and her eyes rolled up to where she could see baby bear standing in the doorway watching g\Goldilocks and his mother on the floor. His eyes were bulging out of his head in a way that would have comical if it had not been so disconcerting. He was masturbating, very fast and with great motivation.

Of course “baby” bear was not really a baby, more of a teenager. But since bears lifespans are typically shorter than human ones, a stage of mid-late curling or teenager hood can draw the nickname “Baby” in the same way a college freshman can, when addressed by a gum chewing teenybopper calls her beau “baby” while ruffling his hair in between the pops of bubblegum bubbles.

Goldilocks pounced forward like a praying Mantis in her preying in less time than it takes to write, and even in less time than it takes to read. Goldilocks was sucking on Baby Bear’s penis with a mouth that was still redolent with his mother’s precious fluids. In a time commensurate with Baby Bear’s age and lack of experience in such matters, he ejaculated directly down Goldilocks’ throat and urgently arranged himself prone on the floor to catch his breath. In no time at all, he was sleeping and soon after that he was snoring.

“Well, if that isn’t just typical!” Said Goldilocks thought butshe had no idea if it was or not, and she stood up, wiped her lips with a napkin from the pile on the dining table, straightened her clothes with her hands, opened the front door and went out, where she was immediately arrested by the Bear Police, and charged with aggravated burglary, indecent assault, and acts contributing to the moral delinquency of a minor, all exacerbated by offending the judge with a palpable lack of contrition. She was sentenced of prison where continuing minor infringements of the rules saw her living, somewhat happily until the end of her days.

Behemoth the Sea mMonster (!959)- review

Behemoth the sea Monster(A.K.A) The Giant Behemoth. (1959) -Amazon Prime.

There is a lot of “classics” on Amazon, which is to say the place is a veritable treasure trove of old crap. I recently discovered this, and having always wanted to see the long-lost British classic; “Gorgo”- decided to watch this instead. I was far from disappointed.

The thing is old films, science fiction and horror in particular, frequently don’t age well and are funny. If you encounter such you have not lost out by the easy laughs and odd cheap shot at the dialogue. For example if you get a chance to see either “ The Purple Monster Strikes” (1945) or “The Giant Spider Invasion” (1975), leap at it; ‘Bad’ does not come worse and there are laughs aplenty for the sardonically inclined. On the other hand mere age does not betoken ‘bad’ and “Nosferatu” (1922) might well leave scars that last years, and the “Cabinet of Doctor Caligari” (1920) is still a very creepy experience.

So I figured with “Behemoth the Sea Monster”, I’d either get a piece of vintage classic or laughably undrinkable vinegar. Either way it’d be interesting and either way it’d keep me away from possible sources of the plague. Such are the times we live in.

In any event the outcome was somewhere in the middle. At the very beginning after a Cornish fisherman beaches his boat and addresses his beautiful blonde daughter in the impossibly cultured tones of a BBC Radio announcer, the viewer is rendered somehow devoid of cutting remarks, especially since considering that the dialogue, if clunky, is actually very well written and acted. This film may be dated, but it was a quality production at the time of release. Through the film the science (aside from the actual behemoth itself), is rock solid and forms an interesting foundation to the film -especially when you consider that this film was made post Nagaski at the height of M.A.D. and even the average viewer would have been awash in a tidal wave of information about Atomic energy, and would have smelled bad science a mile off. The film does its level best on that front and is, if less funny, worthy of some respect. That said the Behemoth itself is predominantly jerky stop-motion animation and really pretty bad, but is worth remembering that this was undoubtedly one of the films that inspired the immortal Ray Harryhausen to think, “Hell I can do better than that” – and for that, if little else, we owe “Behemoth the Sea Monster” a debt of great gratitude. Pretty good but far from great.

(c) Alex Rieneck, May 2020

Joker

“Joker”

“Joker” is definitely a blockbuster cast in true Wagnerian style with a bombastic music soundtrack mostly provided by a single huge a-rthymic drum doing its best to keep you awake and aware that this was (by God) Important! As far I was concerned, however I, iconoclast that I am, found the first hour to be mostly turgid melodramatic tripe; where each plot point was belaboured to the point of death and, to be on the safe side, repeated louder for the dimwitted.
If he first three-quarters of the film drag, their point is simple; the vicissitudes of life drive a comparatively normal chap round the bend and turning him into a dangerous out-and-out-nutter. Common stuff, it happens every day, in fact the world’s looney bins are crammed to popping with such people and it is of course tragic that our hero is pushed well beyond the point of no return by a culture that is itself largely sociopathic, having fed on its own toxicity to the point where the tortured victims have turned on each other in a dystopian hell-on-earth.
There is no question of it. Americans know how badly buggered up their own steociety is – and in a state of purposefully induced ignorance think that the whole world is inthe same sta and in a spirit of sharing they set about the spreading of these cheery damn melodramas that always end with a dash of the old ultraviolent and lashings of their obsession with guns. In this though “Joker” is different. While to be sure thereis violence aplenty , “Joker” shows its true identity lateras an even blacker re-make of Martin Scorsese’s 1982 classic “The King of Comedy” – a major reference that I would guess only a tiny percentage of “Joker”’s target demographic would notice, or care about. But for older more cinematically educated viewers it is, as in jokes go, a mammoth in the room that everyone seems to be ignoring. The harder one looks, the easier it becomes to see that “Joker” is simply a remake of that earlier film, perhaps better, perhaps not, suffice to say the world has changed since 1982, and the “Joker” is a surprisingly decent product for 2019. Far from perfect, but surprisingly suspenseful, with a very respectable script, camera work and technicals showing Joachim Phoenix’s over-the-top character and bravura performance to their very best advantage. And if you feel this review seems negative most of the way through, and finishes positive, that is exactly how I felt about “Joker” -for much of its run time I felt I was watching bombastic overblown shit; Then, abruptly, it switched gears on me, & I decided I liked it

Recommended.

Downhill Review

“Downhill” Review.

It was the best thing available that day. I know it wasn’t Sonic the fucking Hedgehog (which was a bad game on a rubbish system) and consequently had no “nostalgia appeal” for me, and it didn’t have Vin Diesel in it- added to that it didn’t have “reboot” in the title ands not based on an”extended DC universe” or a product of Marvel Studios” – Yes it did have Will Ferrell in it but he had to be bearable at some point in his long career, the trailer looked funny and It did have Julia- Louise-Dreyfus, who I’ve always had a lot of time for. Finally finally, Miranda Otto. I decided to chance it.

I got rather more, (and less) than I’d expected. The thing is “Downhill” both is, (and simultaneously is most definitely NOT) a good film. It is really goddam interesting. Most films start life as books or short stories. Some start as original scripts. Some films simply start as an idea, some films patently start with even less than that “Downhill” on the other hand, is “based on” a film called “Force Majure” made in 2014 I by Ruben Ostlund – and, in seeing “Downhill” one gets the unmistakeable feeling that one is seeing both films at the same time with “downhill” laid over the top of “Force Majure” in a not-transparent enough sheet between the original film and the viewer. Throughout “Downhill” I continually found myself mildly amazed that the characters were all speaking English and that I wasn’t chasing subtitles. The ideas behind the words were European and not American, and to be honest the actors frequently seemed to be out of their depth in this regard, but as far as I could see it seemed to be something like a shot-for-shot copy of the film it was based on, though I will admit to not having seen “Force Majure” (yet). I simply had the feeling that I was seeing a different film the one I was watching, with different actors- just frankly not as good, in exactly the same way that the end of “Star Wars” just isn’t as good as the end of The original “Dam-busters” [https://youtu.be/xmypLqkW3Jc]

It gets stranger than that though; in “Downhill” there is a line that does not allude to anything – one of the locals says to the wife that it is the local custom to go to the sauna naked, since nudity is not considered “naughty” “OHO” I thought, that is a setup for a gag if ever I have heard one- I spent the rest of the film waiting for it and was surprised by the end credits because it hadn’t eventuated.
Then, lo and behold the joke appears- next day-in the [trailer for”Force Majure]”the father having some sort of a sexual identity crisis in a steamy environment full of boisterous and presumably naked, men – and I am left reflecting that the last credit for “Downhill” was “A Buena Vista Production”

Nice try, but no cigar.

The Silver Lining


The plague. There hasn’t been such a worldwide global phenomena as this since the Black Death. Or perhaps syphilis, or the Spanish Flu epidemic after World War One. But of course all of them were a while ago and have faded from popular memory, leaving Covid-19 as the new grand champion. But for all the palaver, the expert opinions ad nauseam and the the deranged Presidential tweets, I think there’s more to be said and some important questions to be asked – even if there’s no way they’re likely to ever be answered. Be aware though, I think the disease Covid-19 is real, sometimes fatal and a naturally occurring virus. I don’t think it is the product of a germ warfare laboratory (it’s not lethal enough), or part of a vast conspiracy (the obvious conspirators show no signs of sufficient intelligence). While it must be acknowledged that the virus has lowered oil prices to unprecedented levels (today, crude oil prices actually moved into negative figures with the holders of crude actually [*paying] to have the stuff taken away!). Perhaps co-incidentally the winner here is China who is the world’s leading producer of renewable energy products from Solar panels to wind turbines. This is probably icing on the cake to any conspiracy theory type who is already squinting suspiciously at China simply on the basis of the virus’ origin and the fact that the Chinese are well, Chinese.

At the beginning of this article I said there were several important questions that remained unanswered. In no particular order;

The virus first appeared in several locations, Wuhan China, (where the Chinese attempted to keep it secret as long as possible), the United States and Iran. It then appeared in various cruise ships – how are these locations linked? Are they random? Did various Chinese stop in to the Wuhan market for a quick meal of bat curry before deciding on a whim to go on an invigorating ocean cruise? (presumably to test their increased sexual vigour from their bat-curry) or a road trip to Iran for some reason? The Chinese blamed “American soldiers” for releasing the virus in Wuhan (claim rendered dubious by their secretive initial attitude to the outbreak). Trump very quickly stopped flights from China (after it was already rather too late).

So we have a highly dynamic situation, the flux known as the 21st century. At one moment, we have Chinese “wet marketers” industriously chopping up bats for tea and infecting market-goers one-way or the other, by blood spray or bat curry, in droves. The market-goers probably still cheering their bat curry, suddenly remember urgent business in the United States, or in Iran, or that they’re late back on their cruise ship – though the nearest seaport to Wuhan is Shanghai – at 600 miles distance, a little far for a day excursion. But seemingly within days multiple cruise ships were infected and travelling in every possible direction.


It must be said that a cruise ship is the perfect location for a virus. Thousands of people packed into a confined space breathing piped air in small cabins. Over the last few decades there have been more than a handful of ships suffused by airborne viruses -usually of the gastro intestinal variety. The usual outcome being the cruise line attempting to keep it all quiet and offering their weakened veterans another cruise of the same value by way of compensation. As far as I am concerned, I am a writer of fiction by trade and I’ve thought for years that cruise ships make for a really excellent terrorist target. True germ warfare is a bit beyond the budget and technical achievements of most terrorists but the Aum Supreme Truth managed to make Sarin Gas, spread it (shambolically) in the Tokyo subway back in 1995 – my guess is that a similar amount of gas in a cruise ship’s air conditioning at night – the casualty rate would have been far higher – which would have made that fat pervert Shoko Asahara happy – if he hadn’t been hung. Too sad.

So, rhetorical questions: How did the virus end up on multiple cruise ships in multiple places? Was it some kind of evil plot, or as simple as someone coughing a lot and not covering their mouth in the Shanghai cruise terminal (assuming of course that there is such a place). By the same logic it doesn’t require infected people travelling directly from Wuhan to the U.S by plane (though I’m sure there were some) all it takes is a few big infected sneezes in the right airport terminal.

At this point I should probably say “Drat; I’ve dispelled my own conspiracy suspicions”
and follow that realisation up with one of my favourite sayings – a variation on Occam’s razor;

”Never attribute to malice that which is more easily explained by simple stupidity.”

Or, I suspect in this case, simple bad luck. A conspiracy theorist would say that after the first few cases showewd up in Wuhan, the Communist Party kept it quiet just long enough to export a few infected people by plane, to the U.S.A by way of sharing the damage to their respective economies – but I think a more likely explanation, is that the Chinese, like any other large bureaucracy, always err towards caution, secrecy and maintaining the status quo. While they were doing this normal travel between Wuhan and the U.S and Europe did the rest. I think that the massive outbreaks in Italy and Spain are do to their attractiveness as tourist destinations; Madrid has the Prado and Rome is well, Rome. London too, had a particularly nasty outbreak; I might even guess that some tourist ran up and touched the door of Downing street, before scuttling away, giggling – thereby infecting Boris Johnson.

The astronomical death toll in New York is, I surmise the disease running rampant through the homeless community. I’m led to this conclusion by the way the N.S.W. State Government suddenly decided to start housing the homeless in Hotel rooms, in a act of kindness so totally removed from their normal penny-pinching sociopathy as to cause serious doubts as to their sanity and party credentials. But less homeless people freezing in the streets at night, as far as I am concerned, this is the silver lining in the Corona virus cloud.