Excellent director Kathryn Bigelow is no feminist

I do hope Katheryn Bigelow wins Oscars for her outstanding film The Hurt Locker. It was perhaps the best film I saw last year.

It is heartening to see also that this talented film maker is no feminist either – she has no time for conspiracies that women are being kept out of film making, and has no interest in belittling men (indeed, she celebrates masculinity in her films). “I don’t look at these things in terms of gender lines”, she says. “It must be odd to hear me say that, but I just don’t.”

Quite right too. Talent will out, whether it is male or female.

Bigelow is also gracious with her ex-husband James Cameron. Most striking of all is that this very capable director manages to make action packed, gripping and thought provoking films while not only disassociating herself from feminism, but also retaining her femininity (just look at the photo). Perhaps that’s no coincidence. Credit to Katheryn Bigelow and good luck to her at the Oscars!

p.s. Especially for the liberals out there: the film presents the inside point of view of American, yes, American bomb squad technicians risking their lives disarming bombs to save the lives of people in Iraq. You’ll love it…

Utilitarianism in 24

If nothing else, Fox Television’s 24 is an excellent example of ethical dilemmas and of Utilitarianism in action. It shows both Rule and Act Utilitarianism.

The character Jack Bauer is at most times an uncompromising Act Utilitarian. He cares nothing  for deontology and assesses each of his acts according to the greatest well-being for the greatest number, treating those acts in isolation. He is prepared to break any number of rules or regulations to satisfy this principle.

The government is at most times Rule Utilitarian in the face of terrorism, as governments must be. That is to say, they look at what precedent would set were they to crumble in the face of blackmail (to appease, as our government in the UK does) and they accordingly reject this option, even if people will die. They realise that, in the long run, such appeasement would lead to even more misery.

To say these matters are complicated is an understatement, but I generally agree with Utilitarianism as opposed to Deontology. That is to say, the outcome of an act is the most important thing. As for the principle of numbers, however, this may be called into question unless we are to assume that the life of every individual is indeed of equal value.

You had me at hello

This moving and well-known scene from Jerry Maguire is one my favourites in all cinema.

I love irony of the location – a feminists’ meeting – and it’s great to see pure sincerity and old-fashioned romance between a man and a woman trumping that mindset.

Spot the difference

Is it only me, or is it obvious to everyone how Stephen Jones, gifted melody maker and quirky lyricist of Babybird fame, and Kiefer Sutherland, good actor but repeated drunk driver of 24 fame (and several good films including Flatliners beforehand) are virtually identical?

Disregarding Sutherland’s exploits off-screen and considering his no-nonsense persona Jack Bauer instead, it seems heroic characters sometimes come looking the same!

North & South: A call to romance

The following is the ending of the BBC Bafta award winning drama North & South, based on the novel by Elizabeth Gaskell. It’s a “spoiler” in that it shows you how the story ends. It’s an “improver” in that it will remind you of a time when women were ladies and men were gentlemen, and this touching, understated, and well acted scene would surely melt the heart of even the most hardened and misguided feminist or the most loutish yob. The music, by Martin Phipps, is also beautiful and adds much to the atmosphere, so I have embedded it at high quality…

Very often on this site I have written of the need for people to re-examine their values. It’s sad to see city women reject decent men in favour of idiots during their twenties and then wonder why they are “on the shelf” in their thirties. They should instead, of course, reject the corrupted values of junk magazines and programmes such as Sex and the City (and most other programmes on the TV for that matter), which do not have their happiness, rather only their own profits, at heart.

Many men are little better: I see the most disgraceful brash, vulgar behaviour on some occasions when I go out (the only only trouble is, of course, these same men are often the ones chosen by the women while decent men are sidelined). One can hardly stand at a bar for 10 seconds these days, for example, before a mouthful of offensive language is unloaded nearby without the slightest care. And if you were to complain to staff, who do you think would be the one asked to leave? Objection to public profanity in this decadent society would merely be considered quaint. So now I avoid pubs at weekends. Men need to grow up and understand that real fulfillment cannot be found from drunkeness, idle sex and abandon, but only from an acceptance of responsibility and a justified sense of integrity.

There needs to be a widespread return to sensitivity and dignity in city society, because it seems to fast be evaporating before our eyes, with people only ever behaving properly because they feel they “have to”, or “might get caught” – and this elimination is being celebrated. It looks a little like the fall of the Roman Empire. People need to understand that genuine consideration for others, not the pursuit of wealth, is the source of happiness. This needs to happen generally and needs to filter into personal relationships too. There needs to be a return to romance – which is an explicit demonstration of sensitivity. Like Tina Turner said:

“There’s not enough romance in this world. Too many people thinking only of themselves. You’ve got to give love for its return.”

I, however, will not be available. I’m taken – by the kind of lady I thought had been conditioned out of society all together, the kind I have wanted to find all my life. With her grace and integrity she is an antidote to the vulgarity of the society I see around me here in inner city London, and is the kind all men would desire to have and all women would aspire to be, if they only knew what was good for them. I feel rather as if I’m flying away in a helicopter from a war zone, as in the film Platoon – I feel concerned for what is left behind, but very happy to be out.

Gary Oldman

A couple of videos showing the versatility of actor Gary Oldman!

Who Dares Wins

This classic old film illustrates what will invariably happen (and what did indeed happen in the Iranian embassy siege of 1980) when terrorists are stupid enough to invite the Special Air Service (SAS) into their lives.

The SAS are not interested in taking prisoners. They are effectively an execution squad. Part of the reason the members dress as they do is to instill fear and alarm into their enemy: you do not want to be faced with a man dressed head-to-toe in black, wearing a gas mask and carrying a submachine gun, the product of 15 years’ professional training by the British Army in how to kill, who is going to shoot you on sight.

The film shows how things can go wrong in raids (when the curtains catch fire) and it shows how weak-minded leftist liberals are often the source of the problem and not the solution, as they idealistically simplify complex issues. It is not a complete fantasy, being as it was based on the Iranian embassy incident and Lewis Collins served in the Territorial Army and applied to the SAS (he was turned down because of his high profile).

During the Iranian embassy incident, by the way, it is said that one SAS member, on realising that one of the terrorists had escaped along with the hostages, identified the man and began to drag him back inside the building. We need hardly guess what would have happened there, but he stopped (much to the chagrin, no doubt, of Mrs Thatcher) after being warned the world’s TV cameras were watching.

Watch, enjoy, and be thankful we in the civilised world have such brave men doing a job few of us could do – a last uncompromising line of defence to protect us in a world which is now far more dangerous, and more full of insanity, than when this film was made. (And if you are a religious nut – watch, learn, and think twice: when these guys arrive you won’t need your explosive belt.)

2001: A Space Odyssey

This is one of the most famous sequences in cinematic history, with an inspired choice of music.

Blade Runner

Blade Runner is a classic science fiction film with numerous deep philosophical themes relating to free will, artificial intelligence and ethics. It is so stylishly directed and produced it revived film noir and invented the “cyberpunk” genre. In this excerpt, from the opening of the film, replicant Leon Kowalski undergoes a test which was actually proposed by genius code-breaking mathematician Alan Turing in 1950 (“The Turing Test“). If a machine’s replies are indistinguishable from those of a human being, Turing proposed, then we should grant that machine the same sentient status as a human being…

Advertising Lies

Sitting in the cinema waiting to watch The Bourne Ultimatum this evening (action-packed thriller – if highly contrived – starring the likable Matt Damon) I was again subjected to an onslaught of ludicrous advertising, the claims of which made the subsequent film seem relatively realistic.

First there was British Airways showing lots of smiling happy people on the ground then arbitrarily linking this to themselves, saying “upgrade to British Airways”. There was no perceivable connection between two.

This was nothing, however, compared with the next treat: this was Christian brainwashing organisation The Alpha Course, who had the ignorant cheek to devalue our lives by portraying human beings as products on conveyor belts, then asking “Is there more to life than this?”. The answer to the question is 1) “More than likely no, nothing at all more” and 2) – as Richard Dawkins has said – “How much more do you want?!“. Christians are so unbelievably greedy. The world is a wonderful, fascinating place and they should be happy with one life. It is disgraceful that they devalue it and always want more. They should concentrate on understanding this life by closing their bibles, permanently, and opening some science books well before concerning themselves with any other lives. There is enough here to occupy them forever, if they would only care to open their eyes. Also they should stop preying on the weak and the vulnerable.

Indeed the only decent advert before the film began was one for the Disability Agenda, which showed a troubling portrayal of the way many disabled people are bullied by those around them. So let’s be clear about that issue as well: in the case of someone bullying somebody less fortunate than themselves, I think we all know who the disabled one really is – very seriously disabled at that.

Some very romantic quotations

I’m male. I’m straight. I’m rational. But these would surely move anybody.

“I have crossed oceans of time to find you.”
Gary Oldman (Count Dracula) – Dracula

“I’ll only say this once. I’ve… I’ve never said it before. This kind of certainty comes but just once in a lifetime.”
Clint Eastwood (Robert Kincaid) – The Bridges of Madison County

“Shut up… just shut up. You had me at hello. You had me at hello.”
Renée Zellweger (Dorothy) – Jerry Maguire

“You survive. You stay alive, no matter what occurs. I will find you. No matter how long it takes, no matter how far. I will find you.”
Daniel Day-Lewis (Hawkeye) – The Last of the Mohicans

The Grey Zone

This evening I watched The Grey Zone, a film that I had wanted to watch for some time but which inexplicably was not released in the United Kingdom despite starring several famous actors including Steve Buscemi and Harvey Keitel, and being about a topic of universal interest.

It tells the story of the rebellion of the twelfth and penultimate sonderkommando unit in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in 1944. The film is very well acted, directed and produced, with good sound engineering too, and is shocking in its documentary-like portrayal of the physical, psychological and moral hell of the camp. It is a harrowing watch and is in many respects on a par with Schindler’s List despite its much lower budget. Says one of the characters:

“How can you know what you’d do to stay alive, until you’re really asked? I know this now. For most of us, the answer… is anything.”

The film (and the Holocaust) showed, like the Stanford Prison Experiment and Lord of the Flies, how disturbingly easy it can be for human beings to start regarding other human beings as subhuman – of course without any justification whatsoever.

Bean is Back

It was funny watching Rowan Atkinson being interviewed recently about this new Mr Bean film. He’s a very clever man and the film is silly and innane. He was essentially saying “I did it for the money” without saying it!