Jabberwocky (1977)

Taking Lewis Carroll's poem as an inspiration, Terry Gilliam's first non-Monty Python film sets the ground for his future films.  The hero, Dennis Cooper (Monty Python alum Michael Palin), has dreams of marrying the shrewish Griselda.  His plans go awry when his father disinherits him; Dennis is forced to find a place for himself in the capitol city where King Bruno the Questionable reigns.  Through a series of mishaps and dumb luck, Dennis finds himself questing with a knight named Red Herring to slay the monster that terrorizes the kingdom.

Like his later films, there are outlandish outfits, capricious killings for petty causes, crumbling edifices, claustrophobic settings, bizarre customs, counterproductive commands from leadership, almost universal incompetence, and a hero who is mostly out of his depth.  Though he is the hero, Dennis is hard to like.  His infatuation for Griselda is pathetic rather than comical.  That he is so clueless to the fact that she has no interest in him is sad rather than funny.  The merchant class are portrayed as villains who want the Jabberwock to continue its rampages since the price for their goods is inflated and they have grown immensely wealthy.  In search of a champion, King Bruno holds a joust - to the death! - in which the last survivor will set out to slay the beast.  Why not send a host of knights?

Though it feels like a Terry Gilliam film (e.g., Brazil, Time Bandits, 12 Monkeys), it is missing a likeable character to follow.  There is plenty of crazy, but very little charming.  Dennis Cooper is an oaf who fails his way into a princess bride and half a kingdom, and the result is bland and disappointing, whereas competent and likeable Sam Lowry fumbles into a dystopian bureaucracy that lobotomizes him, and it is brilliant!

Watch Brazil instead, which also has Michael Palin in a much better role.

Pumpkin Ahoy!

Odd story of the day: Duane Hansen of Nebraska paddled 38 miles down the Missouri River in a hollowed-out pumpkin.  The resulting 'boat' was christened Big Bertha.  Hansen crushed the previous pumpkin distance record of 25.5 miles, set in 2018.  Doubtless, there is an aspiring pumpkin-naut who is even now growing a great orange gourd with dreams of paddling 40 miles or more.

The Last Soviet

"Gentlemen, comrades, do not be concerned about all you hear about Glasnost and Perestroika and democracy in the coming years. They are primarily for outward consumption. There will be no significant internal changes in the Soviet Union, other than for cosmetic purposes. Our purpose is to disarm the Americans and let them fall asleep."

Mikhail Gorbachev

November 1987

Mikhail Gorbachev died today, and the Western media is celebrating him as the man who ended the Cold War.  What about Reagan?  No, he was the man who might have nuked the world and only Gorbachev saved us.  How is it that the leader of a totalitarian state has long been hailed as a peacemaker while his democratically elected opponents - Reagan & Thatcher - are painted as dangerous extremists?  The fact is that Gorbachev had the misfortune of coming to power during the final decline of the Soviet system.  He lost the Cold War, but the Democrat and Labour opponents of Reagan and Thatcher weren't about to give them credit.  No, the hagiographies were composed for the loser.  For years, Reagan's refrain was 'We win, you lose,' to the Soviets.  The US economy dwarfed the Soviet economy, and an arms race was like Usain Bolt racing a 10-year-old.  Efforts to keep pace could only result in bankruptcy for the USSR.  Then there was Chernobyl.  That disaster changed the dialogue.  Even Gorbachev decried the shoddy workmanship in the Soviet Union, admitting failings that prior leaders spent decades denying.  While the Soviet people view Gorbachev negatively, he has been quite popular in the West.  By presiding over the destruction of the nation he led, he received a Nobel Prize (1990).  The man who wanted to save Soviet communism, and failed, was lionized.  In retrospect, that was a fair trade.  Even Reagan would agree.

“There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don't care who gets the credit.”

Ronald Reagan

"The role of Ronald Reagan had been deliberately diminished; the role of the Europeans, who, with the exception of Helmet Kohl, were often keen to undermine America when it mattered, had been sanitized; and the role of Mr. Gorbachev, who had failed spectacularly in his declared objective of saving communism and the Soviet Union, had been absurdly misunderstood."

Margaret Thatcher

College Debt for Everyone

Despite questions about whether he has the authority to do so, President Biden has announced a plan to forgive $10,000 worth of student loan debt for those earning under $125,000 a year.  In the case of Pell Grants, that amount doubles to $20,000 forgiven.  Though those who see their debts decrease will benefit, what are the costs?  The money is owed to the government, and it just chooses not to collect.  True, however, it turns a loan into a subsidy.  All those people who did not go to college are now having their tax dollars pay the bills of those who did.  Moreover, those who go to college - on average - earn much more than those who do not.  Sounds like a wealth transfer from the lower end of the income scale to the higher end.  Now everyone has college debt.

Adults took out loans that they agreed to repay.  That many of them pursued fields that would not result in high paying positions after they graduated does not change that.  Perhaps a law should be passed that required colleges to provide projected income based on earned degree before the student starts accumulating debt.  The university already has the money and doesn't much care what happens to the student who earned a bachelor's in underwater basketweaving.  Make the university responsible for debts that their graduates cannot repay.

Unrepresentative Liz Cheney

Liz Cheney (R - Wyoming) lost her primary yesterday and will be leaving Congress at the end of her term.  This comes as no surprise.  Wyoming is a very Republican state.  In 2016, the year she was elected to the House of Representatives, Donald Trump garnered 68% of the votes.  Hillary Clinton received 22% of the votes.  Liz Cheney won her seat with 62% while her Democrat opponent had 30%.

In 2018, Cheney won re-election with 64% vs. 30%, a modest increase in her support.

In 2020, she had her best showing yet, 69% vs. 25%.  However, Donald Trump had 70% support from Wyoming.  As a percentage of voters, this was the strongest support for Trump in the nation.  West Virginia was second at 69%, which might explain Joe Manchin's maverick status in the Senate.

Considering the voting of the citizens she represents, did joining the January 6th Hearings to attack Trump and those who support him look like a good idea?  Was she representing her state by providing 'bipartisan' membership on this one-sided committee?  Yesterday, her constituents gave her their opinion.  She was trounced, 66% to 29%.

In her concession speech, she likened herself to Abraham Lincoln.  Lincoln lost elections to the House and the Senate but was eventually elected president.  Wishful thinking.  Like it or not, Donald Trump was the most popular president among the Republican electorate since Reagan.  Her elective political career is over.  Her best opportunity to stay in politics is to become a pundit (e.g., Joe Scarborough) or get someone to appoint her to the bureaucracy.  She has torpedoed her chances of appointment by a Republican in the near term, so her best bet is punditry.

Nope (2022)

The movie opens with a blood-covered chimpanzee on the set of a 90s TV show, Gordy's Home.  Clearly, the chimp has gone berserk.  The point of view is from someone hiding under a table.  The chimp turns, notices, and starts to approach...

On the Haywood Ranch, OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) gets up before the dawn to feed and exercise the horses.  His father (Keith David) talks about how a movie sequel will save the ranch from financial woes.  Haywood Ranch provides horses for movies.  And then the power fails, and strange things fall from the sky, peppering the landscape like tiny meteors.  Months later, the ranch is not doing well and OJ has taken to selling horses to a local Western theme park called Jupiter's Claim.  Ricky "Jupe" Park (Steven Yuen) is the owner, a former child star who hid under a table when Gordy the chimpanzee went berserk.  In addition to buying horses, he has also made an offer to buy the Haywood Ranch.  The ranch has continued to suffer power outages that even effect battery-powered items like cars and cell phones.  OJ has spotted something soaring in the clouds and hears strange shrieking as it travels.  Emerald (Keke Palmer), his sister, insists they install cameras to get a picture of it, thinking it will be the solution to their financial woes.

As anyone who has seen the trailer would know, there is a UFO stalking the Haywood Ranch.  However, this isn't your standard alien invasion-type movie.  Nope, it is something different.  Entertaining and suspenseful, it is a fine entry in Peele's movie catalog.  Better than Us, but not as good as Get Out.  Kaluuya and Palmer are terrific in their contrast, one serious, subdued, and introverted and the other manic, chatty, and extroverted.  Yuen gets a lot of backstory that is interesting but generally beside the point.  I didn't puzzle out the meaning during the film but had to have it explained via IMDb Trivia and YouTube reviews.  Antlers Holst (Michael Wincott), a cinematographer, is recruited to somehow film the UFO.  He brings a crank-powered camera to avoid the power failure issue.  However, his actions are unexpected and not explained afterwards.  He wanted to take the impossible shot and one supposes that he may have.

Good popcorn fun!

Salman Rushdie

In 1988, Salman Rushdie's novel, The Satanic Verses, was published.  The following year, the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa for Rushdie's death.  Rushdie spent many years in hiding after the fatwa and there have been assassination plots and attempts.  A Japanese translator of the novel was murdered and other translators have been attacked.  On Friday, Rushdie was stabbed multiple times by a 24-year-old Muslim assailant.

Why is The Satanic Verses so controversial?  It is not primarily about Islam though it does relate the source of the title.  Prophet Mohammad had spoken of a trio of Meccan goddesses as worthy.  Of course, this undermined prior readings and were soon withdrawn with the claim that Satan had tricked Muhammad into offering them.  Thus, they are known as the Satanic Verses.  To claim that Allah was only one of many gods was an unforgivable sin.  David Wood offers an explanation as to why the Satanic Verses are a threat to Islamic theology.

All too often, Islam practices a permanent form of censorship.  Theo Van Gogh, Charlie Hebdo, Samuel Paty, and many others have suffered permanent censorship.