The war on women is real and it is being waged on many fronts.
The Invisible War is a documentary exposing the systemic coverup of the rape of U.S. military women by U.S. service members.
There is something very, very wrong with our military. I suspect it is related to being “all volunteer” when it is actually a military maintained by an economic draft that feeds off of the ever increasingly institutionalized socio-economic inequality in the United States.
We have never been a society of equals. We have always had an underclass that has not been allowed to have self-determination, be allowed to vote, have equal access to resources, and so on. Slaves, original peoples, women, immigrants, and so on have made up the underclasses. Only landed men originally had a say in the colonies. It has been less than 100 years that women have had the vote. Our country changes. How? Either by allowing change to happen or by attempting to influence the change that happens.
I suggest you watch this trailer:
What kind of a society allows and, by refusing to address it, sanctions rape? We create society. We can change it. Your tax dollars support this. Please do not ignore this atrocity. There is a Facebook Group, check that out to find out more.
And you definitely NEED to sign on to the call for action and investigation by House Member Congressman Michael Turner.
To find out a little bit more you might watch Retired Colonel Ann Wright’s talk from a couple years ago about how individuals totalling one-third of women in the military are raped and about some of the culture of abuse within the military. She is someone whom I have met many times and for whom I have very much respect. She never makes a situation seem less complex than it is, but neither does she give up on attempting to change what she knows of that is not right. Her book, Dissent: Voices of Conscience, is a damn good, but disturbing read if you don’t know the back stories of what really goes on in the ruling of our nation. Her talk does cover some of the things you can do to get involved in ending this horrific practice, but please do also click the sign on link above for Turner’s call for immediate action.. You cannot do too much.
Note: Updated 26 June 2012 with the Congressman Turner info! And for those of you in Tucson, Director KIRBY DICK will participate in The Loft’s post-film Q&A’s at the 7:00 p.m. shows on Friday, July 20th and Saturday, July 21st!
Prometheus as Prequel has Problems
Prometheus
I have been fascinated with H. R. Giger’s organic, metallic biomechanica art since the first Alien movie introduced me to his surreal interpretations of the dark interiors of the human soul. Prometheus was worth the ticket price just to see Giger-derived designs developed so beautifully.
At the conceptual level the prequel to the alien story is true to the mythos of the original theme of human destruction arising from within humanity, literally bursting forth from us. The concepts of origin, creation, birth, spirit or soul, and the lack of this essence are at the core of this new film as they were in the earlier films.
But this one fell short with ill developed, multiple plot lines and some rather trite devices. Motivation and character development also were rather hit and miss. The problems were at the script level not with the actors. The actors did a great job with flawed material.
Gaping holes in the motivation of “The Engineers” left huge holes in the audience’s understanding of plot. Actions without meaning are empty. The genetic engineers of humanity were completely opaque to interpretation. Having one main character venture off to get answers to questions as to why the engineers did what they did at the very end of the film is an empty act.
That said, some of the snippets of plot within the film were interesting bits. The trite bit of one of the characters being infertile was just that, trite. It was unnecessary to the plot. The “caesarean” scene, while necessary to the plot seemed to be unnecessarily open to meta-interpretation. There seemed to be quite a few plot elements that were supposed to be feminist or of interest to women. Apparently the producers forgot that the thing we loved about
Ripley was that she was human in that the role was written as though the character was a man but was cast as a woman. We liked that. Too many plot elements were simply thrown in to stand alone with no real reason for them to occur. Sex, seemingly evil actions by the robot, and the lack of tangible reason for “The Corporation” to back the expedition were just some of elements that did not hang together.
The project obviously had stops and starts and the entire production did not successfully integrate and smooth out the discontinuities in creation and writing.
Still, Giger or Alien fans will probably get enough out of the film to enjoy it even if they are a bit underwhelmed.
Rum Diary Review
My husband and I saw the Rum Diary this past weekend. The critics do not like it, but I do. The movie is based on the first and only Hunter S. Thompson novel, written in the early 1960s, though not published until 1998.
The movie offers a thinly veiled autobiographical peek into the early Thompson’s psyche. To any person seeking to understand a bit more about the not yet gonzo journalist while he was still finding his footing as a writer the film will be intriguing. Of course we will never know for sure what aspects of the novel and now film were and were not based on actual experiences of Thompson, but the feel is right at many levels. I have not spent tons of time in Puerto Rico but I spent a month there, and scenes were reminiscent of things I experienced there living on a regular old street in a beach town and on a nearby island and bombing range, Culebra, where I vacationed for a few days while in the area. The bombing range features prominently in the plot although it is never specifically named in the film.
For later born Baby Boomers, of whom I am one, Hunter S. Thompson was an iconic figure as we came of age. And even though the timeline in this novel takes place before some of us were even born, the life and work of Thompson such as Fear and Loathing: on the Campaign Trail 1972 and his regular articles in Rolling Stone during the 1970s framed many of our views on political events and on popular culture.
Late Boomer Johnny Depp (b. June 9, 1963) isn’t alone in his belief in the importance of Hunter S. Thompson as a writer and cultural icon to those of us who polishing our world views at the height of Thompson’s influence. The proto-gonzo, parts of the male anatomy to the wall, journalist in this film rails against the same nemesis that was enemy to counter culture when Late Boomer political psyches were forming and enemy to the 99% today: greedy and heartless capitalists (not all capitalists fit this description) and complacent media that care more for advertisers and bottom lines than the need to report the truth.
This is not a feel good movie. There is no happy ending. There are cock fights. The pace of the plot mirrors the stifling heavy tropical atmosphere. The film is sooooo Thompson with its short term belief and passion and its long term pessimism. See it. Not a great film but a necessary reminder about a life that shaped a generation.
Rum Diary Review
My husband and I saw the Rum Diary this past weekend. The critics do not like it, but I do. The movie is based on the first and only Hunter S. Thompson novel, written in the early 1960s, though not published until 1998.
The movie offers a thinly veiled autobiographical peek into the early Thompson’s psyche. To any person seeking to understand a bit more about the not yet gonzo journalist while he was still finding his footing as a writer the film will be intriguing. Of course we will never know for sure what aspects of the novel and now film were and were not based on actual experiences of Thompson, but the feel is right at many levels. I have not spent tons of time in Puerto Rico but I spent a month there, and scenes were reminiscent of things I experienced there living on a regular old street in a beach town and on a nearby island and bombing range, Culebra, where I vacationed for a few days while in the area. The bombing range features prominently in the plot although it is never named in the film.
For later born Baby Boomers, of whom I am one, Hunter S. Thompson was an iconic figure as we came of age. And even though the timeline in this novel takes place before some of us were even born, the life and work of Thompson such as Fear and Loathing: on the Campaign Trail 1972 and his regular articles in Rolling Stone during the 1970s framed many of our views on political events and on popular culture.
Late Boomer Johnny Depp (b. June 9, 1963) isn’t alone in his belief in the importance of Hunter S. Thompson as a writer and cultural icon to those of us who polishing our world views at the height of Thompson’s influence. The proto-gonzo, parts of the male anatomy to the wall, journalist in this film rails against the same nemesis that was enemy to counter culture when Late Boomer political psyches were forming and enemy to the 99% today: greedy and heartless capitalists (not all capitalists fit this description) and complacent media that care more for advertisers and bottom lines than the need to report the truth.
This is not a feel good movie. There is no happy ending. There are cock fights. The pace of the plot mirrors the stifling heavy tropical atmosphere. The film is sooooo Thompson with its short term belief and passion and its long term pessimism. See it. Not a great film but a necessary reminder about a life that shaped a generation.