"Supreme art is a traditional statement of certain heroic and religious truth, passed on from age to age, modified by individual genius, but never abandoned." William Butler Yeats
For those looking for the latest information on The Lazarus Effect (film with Olivia Wilde), please go to my updated post here with the second trailer included.. The Woman In Black 2: Angel Of Death was released this week--like, two months early--and being so thrown off guard, I went and saw that today.
This poster not only summarizes the film perfectly, but all horror films. Essentially, we are the enemy, the ghost, the specter, the evil in a horror film and ascending staircases--as in this poster--or descending into the cellar is the way we find the ghost and find our truest, deepest selves--but also our highest, most heroic selves. Every single scene and image in the film is packed with symbols and imagery that needs unpacking, so this is going to be a lot of fun. If you go, be on the look out for "quotes" from The Conjuring and Annabelle. You do not need to have seen the first film in order to see this one, however, I do reccommend the first film highly; I saw it and had to go back and see it again, I thought it was so good, and wrote two different posts on it (Naming the Harlot and Queen Victoria, Monkeys and the Catholic Church). There was a different team working on film #2, and it's decidedly anti-socialist.
You know that my standard of "entertainment" relies solely on the degree of brain play involved with watching the film: given that, this was a sophisticated screenplay, well-acted and intimate little story that I will be thinking about for weeks. I am working on the post, which will be full of spoilers, so if you haven't seen it, or don't want to know what happens prior to seeing it, then don't read the post until after you've gotten to the cinema. One of the trailers attached to TWIB2 was this one with Olivia Wilde, The Lazarus Effect, opening February 27:
As always, it's not about originality or new story lines, that we are interested in, rather PATTERNS. RESURRECTION has been one of the dominant themes of the last two years (Captain America being resurrected from the ice, James Bond saying his hobby is "Resurrection," in Skyfall, the themes of resurrection in both Iron Man 3 [with Tony giving Pepper the big bunny, Easter symbol] and in Star Trek: Into Darkness with Kirk dying then coming back to life, and the rabbit at the start of the show in that as well; there is always the "resurrection of Charles Xavier in X-Men Days Of Future Past and probably others I am forgetting). It doesn't matter if this is like Flatliners, what matters is that this is the chosen vocabulary these artists are using to describe the cultural events happening today; so, all we have to ask is, what is it students and young people have "resurrected" today that is evil?........
Even though the trailer is on the big screen, it's not on YouTube, or any where else on the internet. This film looks good. And I mean good. Olivia Wilde (above) is part of a student research team who has developed the Lazarus serum which--trial tested on animals--allows them to bring them back from the dead. So they do these experiments with a dog and let the dog die, then try to bring him back to life. They successfully bring the dog back to life, but the dog isn't a normal dog and has way too much brain wave action. They are doing another experiment and Wilde's character gets electrocuted and dies; her husband, a member of the team, decides to use the serum to bring her back. As you can see from the picture above, it's not the same woman who died. As soon as the trailer makes its way on line, I will post it.
Two films have just been released on video that I am interested in seeing: Stonehearst Asylumand As Above Below, the story of the archaeologists who go under the Paris streets to search the catacombs and find the gates of hell. I'm normally not at all into scary movies, however, this one peeked my interest (it's out at Redbox, by the way). Originally called Eliza Graves, Stoneheart Asylum is the film where the patients take over and imprison the original hospital staff, based upon the Edgar Allan Poe story, The System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Feather. Ouija is also out now. Speaking of Michael Caine, he's in Now You See Me 2, but he has stated that it will be his last film, as he's ready to retire. That's quite a career, Alfie.
It has been confirmed that James Wan, director of The Conjuring and Fast and Furious 7, is doing The Conjuring 2. It also appears, due to a casting call being put out, that The Amazing Spider Man 3, with Andrew Garfield in the lead, is happening. After the Sony hacks, and evidence from leaked emails about a deal to have Spider Man (played by a different actor) appear in a Captain America film with a 60/40 profit sharing between Marvel and Sony, the deal wasn't signed. Garfield reportedly angered the upper-management at Sony after reportedly blaming them for the lowest box office haul of any Spider Man film. Marvel has announced that, on January 12, there will be a new trailer for The Avengers 2.
A trailer that isn't making news is Batman vs Superman: Dawn Of Justice. It was rumored to be attached to The Hobbit 3, and wasn't (in fact, The Hobbit 3 had some pretty dismal trailers). In all actuality, this was probably a smart move. BvS doesn't happen for another 16 months, and the early Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer "disaster" was probably a lesson Zach Snyder took seriously, given that everyone was talking about the lightsaber, rather than the film. So, time to get to work, thank you for your patience!
Eat Your Art Out,
The Fine Art Diner
The first official image of the film has been released; what can we deduce? It's Brooklyn Bridge. We know a bridge, like a hallway in a building, denotes a passage, almost like a birth canal. For example, in The Conjuring 2, when Lorraine Warren is sitting reading her Bible, and her daughter calls her and Valak-as-a-nun stands glaring at her at the end of the hallway, Lorraine has to walk down that hall to get to Valak and the message he has for Lorraine, and this moment in the film is a passage because now Lorraine knows she can't just "retire" from this spiritual battle the way she hoped to, the Holy Spirit (there is a picture of the Spirit as a Dove behind where Valak stands in this scene) is calling Lorraine to a greater spirituality through the battle she will have with Valak. We can expect something similar in this scene with John Wick. There is another example of this (and I am not going on just to go on ad infinidum even though I acknowledge I do that): Spectre. When Bond and Madeline Swann are at Blofeld's (Christoph Waltz) headquarters in the dessert, they walk down a long hallway and at the end, Blofeld turns to Bond and says, "So, James, why did you come?" and Bond responds, "I came here to kill you." At the end of the film, however, he doesn't kill Blofeld, because of what happens; the scene with the hallway marks an important passage for us, the viewers, because we are supposed to see a before and after for Bond to understand why he makes the decisions he does. Okay, so the point: I think there is every reason to assume John Wick Chapter 2 will be referencing Spectre because, in the teaser below, we know Wick is in Rome and the Vivaldi music in the background is eerily familiar to Nisi Dominus playing at the chateau of Lucia Sciarra (Belluci) when the assassins have come to kill her, which also happens to be in Rome like the John Wick Chapter 2 story. I could be wrong, but it's likely, at least at this point.
He wears a white shirt; why? White symbolizes either a soul that is alive, because it has faith, purity, innocence, or the soul is dead because it has no faith, purity or innocence (a corpse turns white in decomposition). The dirt on the shirt may symbolize the "dirt of sin" which Wick has accumulated up to this point in the film--remember, it's being filmed in the Holy See, so yes, religion will play a role--or the dirt of battle he has waged to fortify his faith (and it doesn't have to just be faith in God, it can be faith in life, too; remember, his wife has died and he needs a reason to live). His black pants symbolize his standing, because we stand on our legs, so our legs symbolize standing with others, our reputation. Black always means death, but it either means good death because we are dead to things of this world and alive to things of the next world (the virtues) or we are dead to the things of the next world (the virtues) and alive to the temptations and affairs of this world (sin and vice). So, John Wick is a dead man walking, but is he is a "good dead man" or is he a "bad dead man?" What about the dog? Dogs usually symbolize loyalty in general, so this might be a reference to his loyalty to his friend with whom he made the oath. Pit bulls in particular are known fighters, and the odds Wick fought against to stay alive at the end of the first film makes the pet an intimate choice for the character.
I did go see Deepwater Horizon with Mark Wahlberg and it was excellent. Excellent. From the pure entertainment and quality of the acting, stunts, effects and narrative, it was an excellent film. It also has fabulous applications of theory, especially--hooray!!!--erasure. I just haven't finished it yet. So, here is a teaser for the trailer to be released Saturday for John Wick Chapter 2, which finds our hero being bound to an oath he made to help a fellow assassin take out someone or other in Rome:
With the first poster they released, and the emphasis on the tailoring in this teaser, again, they intentionally want to remind us of The Kingsmen Secret Service; why? We won't know until we get more details, but we are all ready ahead in catching the references. In the freeze frame of the teaser above, we see what looks Wick pointing a gun and a nasty cut across his nose; why? Because the nose is the most prominent feature of our face, and the face is the place of our individual identities, the nose symbolizes our character, so when a character has their nose broken or cut or damaged in some way, it's a reflection on their character; this isn't to say that Wick's character and integrity has suffered--maybe it has--but it likely means that someone has tried to defame his character and make him look bad to others. Numerous trailers have dropped this week, but I am trying to get a real post up; we'll see what I am able to come up with. If you can, get in to see Deepwater Horizon, it was great.
Eat Your Art Out,
The Fine Art Diner
It's not that I am bragging, there is absolutely no point in that at all; it's that I want you to have a solidified reason to trust me when I make some claims that might seem a bit far out to you, or really far-out, as the case may be. "There is only one path to peace: your extinction," Ultron tells the Avengers in the extended trailer for The Avengers: Age Of Ultron, released yesterday, so the question is, who are the Avengers? White, heterosexual men, (Thor, Tony Stark, Hawkeye, Captain America, the Hulk; they are the leaders, Don Cheadle's Iron Patriot and Nick Fury are secondary characters, while Black Widow is a leading character, but hasn't had her own film, not yet) just as I have been telling you, the Left has to take down the power-holders in American society to continue waging their revolution, and that is the white, heterosexual male.
The first question to ask is, who is it, dear reader, who promises peace, but contends that violent war has to happen first? Who is it that appeals to the "younger generation," like Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch? Who is it that wants to make white men extinct? Socialism. Socialism always starts with a violent revolution and the killing off of the wealthiest members of society, the strongest members and those who will fight the hardest to protect it. Ultron, then, with this newest footage in the trailer, can be established as an Obama figure because, what is he bragging about right now? There are no strings on him keeping him from declaring amnesty, either in the form of the Constitution or Congress; he can do whatever he wants, he claims. So, what does the rest of the trailer show us?
Universal Studios has verified that they are remaking The Wolf Man, a rather daring move since the 2010 version starring Benecio del Toro only scored $60 million internationally. To head this off, the studio has hired three different writers who will each work on the script for the individual film as well as the film in which all the monsters will be coming together. The Mummy is slated for 2016 release, which means The Wolf Man is probably looking at a 2017 date.
Each hero appears to be facing more than what they can overcome, to the point that they themselves are overcome; why? That's the only way we get better and when our weapons won't work anymore, we can only rely upon what is inside of us. Ulton's army is similar to what we have all ready seen in the sentinels in X-Men Days Of Future Past. Captain America's shield being destroyed is rather like the bubble being destroyed in Oz the Great and Powerful, and the destruction of Asgard in Thor: the Dark World, when that which we thought couldn't be destroyed, has been. Why is this a recurring theme? Americans didn't think the Constitution could be destroyed, but it's in the process of being completely eradicated by an evil twit in the White House.
The Conjuring 2: The Enfield Poltergeist has changed its release date from October 2015 to June 2016. The Conjuring director James Wan, who has also done Fast and Furious 7, has signed on to return, but here are some of the problems. The trailer for F & F 7 received 100 million hits in 48 hours, making it hugely successful for Wan; Justin Lin, however, is the one who has directed four of the seven films and seems to be in talks to come back and film three consecutive F & F films to close out the franchise; this is possible since he had signed on to do a Jeremy Renner based Bourne film, that has since been stolen by the very desperate Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass duo who are both out of work and without success. Wan seems to have Hollywood at his feet, so it's possible he's wanting to do another big-money-maker, and put off a smaller production, The Conjuring 2, but everyone still seems to be in talks.
One last detail: at 1:44, we see ships in dirt; why? Obviously, all the water has gone and the ships are left dry. This might be a reference to the "ship of state," and the American government, or it could be an analogy with Oblivion (Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman): if you will recall, in that film the Tet was using up all the earth's water for it's own life. Why would The Avengers 2 want to quote X-Men DOFP and Oblivion? As you know, when a film does something that makes you think of another film, that is always intentional; it's not a lack of creativity/originality, it's the establishment of a dialogue, and the film wants you to think of that other film and link the two films together because both the films are saying the same thing. Which leads us to the next trailer: the first teaser for Divergent: Insurgent has been released:
The first image of this massive destruction she sees at the start of the trailer summons several films to mind: X-Men: DOFP, Star Trek Into Darkness, Mockingjay (and I am sure I am forgetting another one). Again, Insurgent wants us to link these films all together in our mind. Undoubtedly, this is a dream sequence--Divergent was full of them--all dreams are fulfillments of a wish, so what is Tris wishing for? To be able to save her mom. As you know, mothers symbolize the "motherland" because our country gave "birth" to us and a large part of our identity. Tris wanting to save "the motherland" is like so many Americans who went to the polls November 11 and voted the Democrats out of power to make the Congress look the way it did at the end of World War II, the first time we defeated the socialists.
Christoph Waltz has been signed to play the villain in Bond 24. Production will begin in December and appears to be taking place in various countries in Northern Africa (Morocco and Algiers, among other countries). It's scheduled to be released next October in the UK, and in November in the US, so they need to hurry up and get this made. Because I am really excited. And I will literally post every, single thing that comes out about it.
What is the other element we notice besides the destruction, the mom wearing blue (depression/ wisdom) and some incredible acrobatics that Tris achieves to save her mom? Fire. The land is still being "consumed" even as it has all ready been destroyed. Additionally, Tris now has short hair, which was quite long in Divergent. We might say that, in the exhibition of her physical powers, Tris doesn't ponder things the way she used to (since hair symbolizes our thoughts and what kind of thoughts we have) and so now, she goes with more of a gut feeling, she doesn't have to spend as "long" (her long hair) thinking about something, she just knows. Now, this trailer for Mockingjay, which isn't really a trailer, is fascinating in how they did this:
Why start out with the invention of the camera? It's because of a camera that we are watching the trailer (the information was recorded by a camera, like the camera Beetee looks in to send his message to Peeta). "Virtually unchanged for 30 years until one man," what does this sentence mean? Progress. Progress can come to the entire world through one individual. Now, it's tempting to look at this car commercial and say it's an anti-capitalist trailer because they are interrupting it, however, this car commercial is utterly different from the other Capitol Broadcasts we have seen; this commercial could be on your TV right now (and the comments below this trailer on YouTube verify that because everyone commented on how they tried "skipping it" and couldn't and then Beetee came on; not to mention it ends with MazdaUSA.com and, in The Hunger Games, the USA no longer exists, it's just Panem). Here we have, then, that the progress in the car industry is tied to the "resistance" in District 13 and to one of their own (Peeta) who has been taken and hijacked by the Capitol. The very creativity of this ad demonstrates how narrow and non-progressive (and I mean "Progressive" in its political sense as well [yes, Progressive Insurance company is owned by a progressive liberal, why do you think they named it that?]) the Capitol is. Which leads us to a closing comment,...
Mr. Jai Courtney is in talks to join Warner Brothers Suicide Squad with Tom Hardy and Will Smith. The DC comic based film is about four criminals who are given a second chance by doing a black ops mission they are not expected to survive. The film could potentially feature Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor and might eventually hook up with Dawn Of Justice films.
TICKETS GO ON SALE FOR THE HOBBIT TOMORROW! Better get yours asap! My theater is having a marathon of the three films starting Monday, instead of the Dec 15 release date nation wide, so, for $45, you get to see all three films (including the new one) in 3D IMAX in one setting. Check to see if your theater is doing something similar.
Eat Your Art Out,
The Fine Art Diner
Still, there is no villain, there is no conflict they are willing to own up to.
As we have been discussing, the villain Stenz is played by a white male, and it's white people they want to see the film, so they are not going to risk alienating their biggest base of movie-goers until after they have bought their ticket. "Help is not coming,"" I wonder if they told the hostages at Benghazi that. I wonder if anyone told the film makers that no one is getting to tour the White House anymore because of the Obama-enforced sequester? That's going to make the film look back because, when people see the passes, they are immediately going to think of that, oh, wait, if you are Muslim, you do get a tour of the White House, so it will be interesting to see if Channing Tatum's character is Muslim or the film was made at a time when Americans had access to the White House unlike now.
An interesting nugget of info has become available on the summer release for The Conjuring. It's not so much a horror story, as I am understanding it right now, rather, a biography on the investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (and Lorraine is still alive). The UK trailer for The Conjuring:
There are a couple of things in this new one we should note. First, when they are driving, it appears there is a rosary hanging on their rear view mirror; this is not uncommon among Catholics and the interview/consultation with the priest at 1:04 (Ed, in real life--I don't know if this will be part of the film or not--was a demonologist, who studied demons and their powers). They are doing the initial interview with the Perron family--the owners of the house--in the kitchen (if I was meeting someone for the first time in my home, I would probably "entertain them" in the living room, just to say) so the kitchen is perhaps a indication of the appetites being at work ("The truth will consume you" the title card says; additionally, we see Lorraine falling into the basement which indicates the primal appetites) or--because the kitchen is the traditional "place" of the woman (women traditionally do the cooking in the home), it might indicate the role of women in the narrative (Lorraine is in a non-traditional role as a medium, for example).
This scene is loaded. First, anytime there is a mirror, window or glass in general, it invokes the active principle of meditating or self-reflection to achieve self-awareness. The little girl tells Lorraine in the trailer to look in the mirror and when the music is done, she will see "her" standing behind her; the music ends and Lorraine looks behind her and there's nothing, ugh! "She" is standing in front of Lorraine! Generally, I think we can say that "behind" Lorraine would be indicative of the past (that which is behind us) but "her" standing in front of Lorraine might refer to that which is in the future, still to come or encounter. Lorraine's shirt with all the ruffles is out of place, even for the 1970s: it's almost Elizabethan in it's high neck (experts in costumes might want to aide me on this) but it's a strange shirt and even a strange color. In this light, it looks blue but it might be lavender; what does blue communicate to us? It is both the color of wisdom and the color of suffering, and we know from another trailer that Ed (her husband) says she loses a bit of herself every time she does an investigation, so that self-loss would refer to the suffering (perhaps being communicated to us by the blue shirt) but also the wisdom she has gained by doing this because she can tell the family what no one else can tell them.
November 1, 1971: the date the first interview is being done places us, once again, in the 1970s; what will be really important is when the deaths happened (or the event, time frame in which the spirits haunting the house) occurred, because the film will be making the connection that (just for an example) if they want to blame events during the Civil War for what happened in the 1970s--like with Civil Rights--what happened to create the ghosts haunting and threatening the family back then has created the situation in which we are living today; further, they aren't real.y talking about the 1970s, they are talking about us as the family (symbolic of America) being haunted by something and that something which is very "hateful."
On the far left is the poster for Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas; please note the curling of the cliff highlighted by the moon in the center of the poster and how that is similar to the shadow cast on Lorraine's face as she looks in the mirror in the image above (this is just a comparison). The second image on the left is the tree of the dead from Tim Burton's The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow; please note the similarity to the tree in The Conjuring poster beside it: the barrenness of the branches and the unnatural leaning of the two as if there was a great weight causing it to grow in a crooked manner. Also at the bottom of The Conjuring poster is in the bottom, right-hand corner, there is a shadow of a person wearing a gown in the dead leaves (it's difficult to see). With the "colonial style farm house in the background, and the fog over the property, the clouds hanging in the sky get a bit lost, but there are thunder clouds in the sky indicating a storm (a symbolic storm, of course). Now, the last poster for The Conjuring on the far right is an image we have just seen in Oblivion when--just like Carolyn Perron in the poster above--Malcolm Beech (Morgan Freeman) is in the dark and lights a match so Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) can see, then he blows it out. Why is the recurring lighted-match theme important? The subtitle of the new Hunger Games films is Catching Fire, and while the recurring image of a lighted match might not have anything to do with it, it's something to keep on the back burner.
"Look what she made me do," I have no idea to what that refers, but it at least suggests that will power was over-ridden, which is an inter-personal crime: free will is a gift from God every person has; when we force someone to do something, we negate their humanity as the children of God by negating that free will (animals, for example, do not have free will, but instincts controlled and compelled by their appetites, but we have the power to over-ride our appetites).
It would appear, by the unfinished walls, the wooden shelves and the randomly stacked chairs beside Ed, that they are in the basement. Ed has a Cross around his neck and the book in his hand may be a prayer book containing exorcism prayers but what is most interesting is that his shirt is untucked and hanging out below his sweater vest. I don't know a whole lot about the styles of the 1970s, but that seems to suggest that Ed is coming apart. Looking at Lorraine, her hair is down (whereas it was up earlier) and we know hair symbolizes the thoughts, so when Lorraine's first at the Perron home, her hair is up because she is disciplining her thoughts and being objective about what she is hearing and seeing; in this scene, her hair being down, communicates that--like her hair--Lorraine has let go of her thoughts and she is thinking wild things, she can't keep the cool, objective demeanor up anymore; it's possible the same ideas apply to how Ed's shirt is being worn.
Short but imperative.
In the newest Man Of Steel spot for TV, the discussion is on choice, "society" deciding instead of the individual; why would this come up? In American society, don't we get to decide for ourselves what we want to be and do (it doesn't always work out, but we have freedom to decide and pursue our dreams)? In socialist societies, you don't decide, the government decides based on your skills, talents and intelligence. This is a point of conflict with the trailer above for White House Down, it makes it sound like whatever job you want, regardless of how unqualified you are, you get to do that; that's why this statement is important, it re-establishes the idea of standards to live up to, not standards to be brought down to the level where everyone can reach them:
Oh, this looks bad!
Remember, please, that the word "perverse" literally means "upside down," so when, for example, a person participates in child pornography, we say they are a pervert because a child who is innocent is being used for base sexual pleasure (innocence has been turned upside-down to sexual pleasure). What happens in the clip below? The USS Enterprise is turned upside-down so this is something to focus on in the upcoming film: what has been perverted to cause this?
Oh, this looks funny! Kirk complains about Uhura's boyfriend Spock. Not knowing what part of the film's narrative this takes place in (before or after his being trapped in the volcano) does, however, provide us with a insight into Spock's character development at this point in the franchise:
I am finishing up the notes on what to be looking for in Iron Man 3 right now, and will get those posted before going to see it this afternoon!
Eat Your Art Out,
The Fine Art Diner
It took nearly 20 years to get this film made: two interesting tid-bits, it was actually shot in chronological order (to save money and accommodate conflicting schedules, films are usually shot in expedient arrangement rather than in the order the scenes will appear to the audience; A Beautiful Mind with Russell Crowe is an example of a chronologically produced film), and it required only 38 days of shooting on a mere $13,000,000 budget (which it will probably easily make this weekend, even if it is a bomb). The same husband-wife team who were the paranormal researchers for the Amityville horror which spawned the films are the same researchers here but there appears to be tremendous confusion: it's the same researchers, the Warrens, but different cases (there are some thinking this is supposed to be another Amityville case but Harrisville actually happened prior to Amityville) which leads us to two more interesting facts. First, the sequel is all ready being developed: it hasn't hit theaters yet, but another Connecticut "investigation" is mentioned in The Conjuring and will most likely be the basis of the sequel, the new franchise deciding to stick with the Warrens rather than a location or killer as horror films have done in the past. Secondly, director James Wan will be/is doing Fast and Furious 7 based upon his work on this film which will likely keep him from directing the sequel. When it comes to judging whether or not a film is scary, I confess: I am a terrible judge. In The Woman In Black, I thought I was going to run out of the theater screaming my head off but no one else seemed to have thought it was scary in the least. According to other reviewers, this is solid horror, not gore, but it is genuinely scary and the acting is top-notch, even from the numerous children in the film. TheConjuring is actually opening Thursday night at my theater, so I will be going to the 8 showing and tweeting my reactions. What about this poster above (please click on the image to open in a window to get a better view)? What information can we possibly glean about the film which is from an actual scene in the film. The larger figure in the chair is a girl holding a doll and the object in her left hand appears to be a yellow hair brush. Whereas the doll has straight, well-combed hair, the "girl" holding the doll has frizzy hair. What do we know about hair as a symbol? How a character wears their hair reveals how their thinking patterns are working, how balanced their mental stability is, if they are having difficulty conforming or they are trying really hard to conform. The hair brush, the doll's hair and the hair of the tantalize a theory that (assuming the girl whose back is to us is dead and the/part of the haunting presence in the farm house) the dead girl was mentally unstable in life; either she was normal and the hairbrush (symbolic of trying to conform thoughts the way a brush conforms our hair to a particular style) was an abusive instrument related to how she became unstable (think, for example, of the role coat hangers play in the film Mummy, Dearest about Joan Crawford) or how she failed to become stable. What about the doll? The doll is probably the girl's object of transference, that is, the girl probably role-played with the doll, to some degree or another, and either the doll was the "good girl" the real girl failed to become (or was striving to become) or, if the girl had an abusive parent and was good but wasn't good enough or should have done something she didn't, the doll might take on the role of the abuser (think of Norman Bates and his mother in Psycho); so, the role of the doll--and how the girl interacts with the doll--will be imperative to understanding the sub-text of the film. What else? The girl sits in a rocking chair, and there is probably solid proof why there is a saying, "Off her rocker," and the back-and-forth motion of rocking chairs indicate "mental instability" because the chair itself isn't stable (as in The Women In Black). The job of the horror film is to take the innocent and pervert it--like the eggs cooking on the counter-top in Ghostbusters--and invest the ordinary with the extra-ordinary, which is why the picture above is all ready so creepy: it's a little girl with her doll and a hairbrush; what's not innocent and ordinary is the girl sitting with her back to us; as the viewers, half are probably ready to walk up to her and see what she's doing, and the other half ready to run away for their lives, so her back being to us puts us, the viewers, in a state of undecidability: we don't know what's wrong with this scene, but because of the girl's hair, the exaggerated features of the doll's face, and the doll fulfilling the role the little girl should be fulfilling (the girl should be looking at us the way the doll looks at us) we see a unnatural role reversal between the two and that tells our instinct something is wrong here; this is the hallmark of "good horror": when a juxtaposition of un-like elements--ordinary though they may be--are brought together in an unnatural way and our own emotions, the deep, dark, inarticulated part of our own being, is therefore brought into play whether we want it to or not, and the releasing of that part of our self is what causes the rush of fear and horror and that rush is exactly why horror--as a genre--is so necessary to us as a culture and to certain individuals. That part of our self needs to be released, at least occasionally, but because it is so dark, we generally don't like to release it except in a controlled environment like a film. The last element: it appears the wall was white but the black "stuff" that has overtaken it. In the late 1960s, Deconstruction started taking root in politics, arguing that society is based on binary oppositions of which one is favored and the other is demonized: white/black, rich/poor, man/woman, adult/child, pretty/ugly, good/evil, etc. Deconstructionists argued that it was better to be white than black, rich rather than poor, a man rather than a woman, pretty rather than ugly; the poor, ugly and evil were necessary to society to format the "other," but the "other" (the less-desirable in the binary opposition) would always have to be at the bottom or on the margins of society and political power. The white wall being overtaken by the "black stuff" coming down (similar to what we saw in The Apparition) might be an indicator of strong binary oppositions the film will be constructing in order to make a statement, for example, the film seems to be pre-dominantly filled with women (like Mama with Jessica Chastain) and that's somewhat typical of horror films: "woman" is the great mysterious other, the unknowable, so it's easiest for her to communicate with Mystery because it's so much a part of her all ready. These are just some ideas to get our minds working of what to be looking for when we see it this weekend.
As you can tell by glancing to your right, part of my Blog is still broken. I can finally write in the blog again, so those technical difficulties have been overcome, however, the archive feature, the most popular blogs, search & translate, etc., are MIA. I am trying to get it fixed but haven't the slightest idea what is wrong. Now, this weekend, FOUR important films are opening: The Conjuring, Red 2, Turbo and RIPD; why are all of them opening this weekend instead of spreading them out to next week? Wolverine with Hugh Jackman opens next weekend and I guess that is going to be too big of competition,...? Anyway, I am going to see The Conjuring Thursday night at 8 and will break my neck to get that post up but, regardless of box office winners, the film I am most interested about is RED 2; why?
"The best never rest," and that is actually quite a statement for two reasons. First, as members of the audience, our attention is being directed to "The Best," not the mediocre or the second-best, not the run-of-the-mill, but THE BEST, the best to the point of being committed to an asylum. As those who saw RED know, RED stands for Retired: Extremely Dangerous but retirement hasn't been so easy for Frank (Bruce Willis) and we can reference another Willis film for our second reasons: A Good Day To Die Hard. What does John McClane keep saying? "I'm on vacation!" Well, no he's not, he's there to save his son Jack, but if we take McClane to be a symbol of American capitalism and--more specifically--American bravado which he fully typifies in the film (the kind we see in Iron Man's Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) General MacArthur's (Tommy Lee Jones) in Emperor and Expendables 2), then American "swagger" being on vacation does make sense because that is exactly what has happened, since 2008, America-as-a-superpower has been on "permanent vacation" (consider that absolutely no retaliation or defense was offered for the Americans in Benghazi; would any previous American president have tolerated that? No.). So, given this idea of "retirement," and Frank coming "out" of retirement to solve some lingering Cold War problems, it begs the question: should Frank Moses have retired to begin with? How you answer that says a lot about how you view today's international politics and America's role in the world.
I got really picky about a detail from Oblivion (Tom Cruise), towards the end of the film, when Jack discovers that his real wife is Julia, a woman of Russian descent, not Victoria of British descent.; why does this matter? Great Britain is the long-standing ally of America, but the increasing socialism in the country has put America at risk for becoming socialist ourselves, whereas Russia has committed itself to capitalism and should, therefore, be our new, steadfast ally. That's what Oblivion seemed to be saying. In RED 2, Victoria (Helen Mirren) is also British and a long-time ally of Frank Moses who is suddenly turning on him to fulfill a contract:
Who is it that Frank turns to when the British (Victoria/Helen Mirren) has turned against him? The Russians, played by Catherine Zeta-Jones and Ivan (Brian Cox, who returns from RED and was the love of Victoria that she spared from her assassin's bullet; so how that relationship does/does not develop is of interest). I don't think it would be possible for anyone to love the British more than I do, and I know I have a large readership in the UK for whom I am deeply grateful for all their support and loyalty, but this question of the direction the UK is going and whether or not it's the right direction for the US to go, is an important one and a question this action-film fully takes up.
But there's always more,...
In the trailer above, one of the lines spoken by Marvin (John Malkovich) is, "They're coming" and we have, of course, all ready heard that line in World War Z, when Gerry (Brad Pitt) says to his wife of the United Nations convoy to get them, "They're coming." Whereas World War Z sees the UN coming as salvation, whoever "they" are in RED 2 is trouble (the international police agency Interpol, which we also just saw in Now You See Me?), and the repeating of the line in two films being released so close together is hardly coincidence, rather, a feeling that is cropping up and we should pay attention. Why, in the trailer, does Marvin have such a hard time saying, that Russian word? Because he can's quite bring himself to the reality of working with the Russians and the plan they have concocted, that's why Marvin is able to say, "What happens in the Kremlin, stays in the Kremlin," because whatever Marvin does with the Russians is going to remain in Russia, he's not "taking it home with him."
At the start of this trailer is the CostCo store (which we have seen in both The Apparition and Neighborhood Watch) and Sarah (Parker) says, "Look at all this bulk," as a display comes toppling on some man; we also know, from an earlier trailer, that their cart has a,... "loose wheel," and Frank Moses wears dentures (because he's buying Polident). These things wouldn't say anything to most film viewers, but to and me, such details speak volumes: we know that the teeth symbolize the appetites, so dentures symbolize,... uh,... well, it follows that dentures would symbolize,... fake appetites? This is a possibility (but I will probably have to adjust this) because they are in a CostCo: has the appearance of conveniences, like bulk buying, created an appetite for bulk buying that wouldn't exist if the convenience weren't there?
"He's fast. They're furious," a direct reference to the highly successful car racing franchise Fast and Furious; why is that important? When a film references another film, they want to expand their immediate world to include references outside their immediate context (we will also see this in Planes which is very similar). Most of us probably didn't know there was a world of "street racing" until we were introduced to it in F & F; likewise, many of us probably didn't know anyone staged snail racing until we saw it in the trailer for Turbo. Why is this important? I think this will probably be a pro-capitalist film (but I am wrong about as often as I am right) but what appears to be demonstrated is that there is a group of people who have an interest (those watching real Nascar style racing and those watching the snail racing) and those who have a talent or skill set, regardless of how narrow that set might be (and we see this with Yancey and Raleigh in Pacific Rim, they weren't the top of their class, but they could fight and their talents were used to fight the monsters), and in a capitalist economy, that skill set can be put to good use if there is a "taste" for what you do (which might easily relate to Frank Moses' dentures and his "false appetites" in RED 2). Recall, if you will, a "minor" detail in Dredd: Dredd and the rookie get outside the apartment complex and they find themselves on a skateboarding ramp; why? Those kids aren't just messing around, skateboarding is a multi-million dollar industry, and if those kids practice and get good, they can get sponsors and make a future for themselves doing what they love and what they are good at instead of what they have to do to pay bills; isn't that at least part of the American Dream, to fulfill your potential? That American Dream is what has been under attack, by Hollywood and the Obama Administration: whether or not it really exists or is just a myth. In Turbo, at least by the trailers, we appear to be seeing the American Dream working for an impossible candidate: a snail becoming fast, a slug racing. It appears that Turbo wants to tell us, if we can dream it, no matter how impossible, we can make it come true, and isn't that the kid of encouragement we all need for our dreams? There is another reason for attention to Turbo: Rush. In September, the Ron Howard directed Formula One car race film starring Chris Hemsworth comes out and that could very well be a anti-American dream and anti-competition film (like TheHunger Games and Catching Fire coming out in November), so films that support competition might be in short supply in just a few months.
Now, Edward Bailey (Hopkins) has been locked up for 32 years; so, using the calculator feature on my cell phone, that means Bailey was locked up in the asylum for the criminally insane in 1981; what other films have referenced 1981 lately (Ronald Regan's presidency began in 1981)? The Amazing Burt Wonderstone and Wreck-It Ralph, as well as Red Dawn and Evil Dead; what other films have taken us to Russia lately? The Chernobyl Diaries, A Good Day ToDie Hard and Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. We can't quite say for sure, but it might be that the ardent capitalism imposed on the US economy by Reagan was a dominant anti-socialist weapon (that the US became so economically and structurally strong, there was no possible way for socialism to compete and survive in international politics [and it soon fell in the Soviet Bloc]) that not only led to the inevitable defeat of socialism, but kept the world from a nuclear war,... it remains to be seen in the film, but these are some of the reasons I am so intrigued by what RED 2 presents.
What I have said heretofore of the film (that it will probably be anti-capitalist) is probably what I will say after I have seen it; however, there is something I wasn't expecting: "Defending our world one soul at a time." Socialists don't believe in a soul, they don't believe in an afterlife because the State government takes the place of God. To me, the "dead-os" walking around like normal people would be socialists--because socialism died with the Soviet Union--and they refuse to accept the judgment of history. A part of the plot is that tunnel you see in the poster is supposed to be a one-way street: when someone dies, they go up in it and don't come back. There is a Jericho artifact, however, that allows the tunnel to be opened from the other end so the earth becomes flooded with the dead. Now, for a socialist, they probably consider capitalism in America to be dead, and those weird monsters are people like myself who are "dead" to the revolution taking place and need to be sent through the tunnel; but someone could (by impeaching Obama for any plethora of reasons) turn the tide back and re-start capitalism back in America, which for a socialist would be devastating. At this point, that's all I know about the film, so it will, as usual, be up to the fine details to alert us as to which way the film goes, what it values and which political direction it wants the country to take. Just because there are references to Jericho and the soul does not mean it supports Christianity, but might actually be a "decoy" to get Judeo-Christians to believe the film supports religious beliefs and get people to unconsciously accept what is happening to the country as part of our religious expectation of government.
Here is a little featurette, I don't often pose, but I thought it contained interesting material. Why is 3:07 am the "Devil's Hour?" Because 3:00pm is the Hour of Mercy, the hour when Christ died upon the Cross, so the inversion of that Hour of Mercy is the Hour of Damnation. It's almost like at Candlemass, the feast of Christ being Presented at the Temple and the Church blesses candles because of the Light Christ brought into the world, that satanists have their high black mass, their,... "unholiest" day to try and bring as much darkness into the world as possible to counter Christ's light:
Again, seeing this Thursday at 8pm, tweeting my response and breaking my neck to get the post up asap. Sorry for all the technical problems on the blog as of late, I have contacted Google and hope all will be well soon!
Eat Your Art Out,
The Fine Art Diner
Do you remember a film called Margin Call? Tuld (Jeremy Irons) said, upon hearing of the financial collapse of his business, that "The music has stopped," whereas, in The Iron Lady with Meryl Strep, the music is always starting to signify the good days of prosperity having returned. In The Conjuring, when the music stops in the music box, Rory, a little boy, appears behind you; why? "Behind," always symbolizes the past, where we have come from (like Gerry Lanes's [Brad Pitt] rearview car mirror being broken off just before the zombies attack Philadelphia in World War Z) and Rory is a little dead boy, a victim of a satanic witch sacrifice inspired by the dark entity ruling the Perron home. When the "music stops"--when economic prosperity has stopped--we will look back at what went wrong and see the "dead child," the child who was sacrificed is the future that was sacrificed because, according to the film, capitalism is a dead end because it's ruled by the devil. This is quite easy to prove because the film wants us to know what it's saying. Second point: please notice the stylized "swirl" on Lorraine's face from the mirror within the music box: it invokes Tim Burton, Hollywood's die-hard socialist, meaning that Lorraine is "marked" by socialism, unlike the "marks" of possession by the witch Bathsheba on Carolyn Perron. Third point: the music box is designed like a circus big-top, and where else have we seen a circus? Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted, a decidedly pro-capitalist film. The Conjuring spills over with a wonderful abundance of "movie references," but it's not so wonderful what it does with them, and we will fully discuss this in the upcoming post. AFTER, not before, I get The Conjuring up, I will go see RED 2.
The acting is impeccable. The directing is impeccable. The cinematography and pacing is impeccable; it's a great, classic horror film. It's also definitely pro-socialist, coating it in a dangerous layer of Christianity (specifically Roman Catholicism, so--my fellow Catholics--we must be wary of this) and there is no possible way to get around it; I tried. I was going to throw out socialism/capitalism, and just do a straight psychoanalysis since we haven't done one of those in awhile, but it's impossible without looking at the role material objects and capital play in the film and, that makes it by far the most anti-capitalist and disturbing film yet made, really. This is not a movie for kids. There is no nudity in the film, but it's too scary (there were about ten 6-8 year-olds in the audience and I couldn't believe parents would bring their kids to see a film like this, so don't take your kids, go see Turbo, Despicable Me 2 or Monsters University, instead). It's tempting to read this as pro-Christian, however, even with the very last quote we see from the real Ed Warren at the end, a terrible act is committed in the film to alert us that this isn't in any way a Catholic film. Eat Your Art Out, The Fine Art Diner
Legalizing Ted and weed are similar circumstances, because people who think weed is harmless also believe in make-believe things like teddy bears that come to life. Just as Ted isn't a real animal, he symbolizes our animal instinct for a state of existence that isn't real and which usually goes by the description of "utopia." There is a scene, about halfway through the film, where John (Wahlberg), Ted and their lawyer Sam (Amanda Seyfried) have crashed into a field of a particular strand of marijuana being grown and as they look at it, the theme for Jurassic Park wells up in the background and they re-enact the scene where the scientists see the dinosaurs for the first time (again, they are staring at weed). What's the purpose of this scene? In Jurassic Park, the scientists had done something important and constructive with their lives, as opposed to this threesome who do nothing but smoke their brains out on weed; comparing the weed to the dinosaurs, however, is a stroke of genius, because we know the dinosaurs get out of control and end of destroying everyone in involved (especially Samuel L Jackson's character, who Seyfried's Sam is linked to). They find a guitar and a cowboy hat in the barn, and wonder who they and the weed belongs to and it's Willie Nelson's, who is a supporter of this. The argument the film makers seem to be making is, just because someone makes good music, doens't mean they would make good public legislators (please see the end of the post with the song Mean Ol' Moon). In another scene, The Breakfast Club is referenced; why? The kids in detention actually learned something, about themselves and each other; is that happening in Ted 2 with these potheads? No, they insist they know what reality is, but how can someone who is high all the time know what reality is? Another important reference, besides Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Transformers IV (which was decidedly anti-socialist), is to Star Trek Into Darkness, when the USS Enterprise crashes into John as he saves Ted from being crushed, and--one of the black gay characters is dressed as a Klignon, who have traditionally been associated with socialism throughout the series many runs. John trying to save Ted from the USS Enterprise crashing into him is like trying to save Ted from the reality of America crashing into him: the Enterprise represents all that is enduring and strong about American culture, and a make-believe bear only concerned with getting smash-faced and sex can't stand up to the examples of excellence that Americans have always held dear in our culture.
The central conflict of Ted 2 is whether or not Ted, a teddy bear that has come to life in the first film, is human, and so can marry, vote, drive and adopt a child, or if he is property. The arguments the film posits has to why Ted has emotions is because he feels so deeply, and if someone(thing) can feel love, then, surely, they are human. This is apparently how the film ends, unless you stay and watch the end credit scene that completely destroys the entire premise and arguments of the film. What is the end credits scene, and why is it so important?
The film makes it wildly apparent how liberals disregard the law, until they need the law on their side. For example, John and Ted are regular drug users; when the law states that Ted is not human, they decide the government isn't following the law and so they are going to sue the government for "Ted's civil rights." When the three of them meet civil rights lawyer Patrick Meighan (Morgan Freeman) and John tells him what a positive influence Ted has had on his life, Patrick says, like when you two were both arrested for marijuana possession? Everyone should have equal access to the law, but everyone should also follow the law, and the makers of Ted 2 aptly demonstrate how it is often those very people who break the law without a second thought that are always clamoring about their legal rights and trying to sue someone.
Towards the start of the film, Ted works at his grocery check-out lane at Bay Colony Grocery Store and Liam Neeson comes up to him with a box of the kids' cereal Trix, and Neeson asks Ted, are these just for kids? Am I going to be followed? Can I enjoy these too? And Ted answers that Neeson can take them home, no one is going to follow him or stop him from enjoying them; the scene is very over-played and seems to go on for a long time. The whole "punch line" of this scene (and it's not particularly funny) is the advertising slogan, "Trix are for kids!"
This is the scene where Ted and John go to Tom Brady's bedroom for a sample. I don't know about you, but dressed like this, Ted reminds me of Paddington Bear, the lovable bear that I enjoyed so much when I was a kid. If Ted hadn't been dressed like this, there is no way I would have linked the obnoxious, druggie, alcoholic, over-sexed bear with a childhood toy. This is important, because several films (The Woman In Black 2, The Conjuring, Annabelle, Wreck-It Ralph, Ouija, Poltergeist, Ant-Man (with the choo-choo train) and even Hotel Transylvania) fight over whether toys are important for kids or not. Because children generally don't have any property, socialists always target their indoctrination attempts at the younger generations because, in a socialist revolution, they don't have property to lose like their parents do who have worked hard all their lives. Even though Ted is technically a toy, he's still teaching us things, so toys are worthy possessions for kids to have because they do instruct kids (in the case of Ted 2, the audience members who are drawn to this kind of humor). We will be seeing this argument in more films to come. Now, let's talk about another issue the film brings up, and I do apologize because this is really offensive. Anytime any in the film does a Google search, instead of what they searched for, Google asks, "Did you mean black cock?" Why? The propaganda coming out of the White House, and the first black president, is being forced into everyone's every day routine and every facet of our lives, no matter what it is that we are doing.
Because the conflict is, "Is personhood just for people? Can animals and toys be granted personhood, too?" At the very end of the film, after the catering credits, we see Leeson enter the store again, with the unopened box of Trix, and he's been severely beaten, with bruises and blood all over him; he puts the box of Trix on the checkout table and walks out; TRIX ARE JUST FOR KIDS. Personhood is just for people and civil rights have become so watered down, they mean absolutely nothing for anyone. But, it's even worse than that,...
This is a really important moment in the film, and one that is repeated throughout. In this situation, Ted has gotten on John's computer, and it is filled with porn; filled with porn. Later, when John asks Ted why he didn't just ask John for a sperm sample for his kid, Ted tells him because he thought John had wasted all his sperm on porn; this is the case with Flash Gordon who can't donate any because his count is so low. Likewise, Tami-Lynn, Ted's "wife," can't even receive an artificial insemination because she had done drugs for so many years, she destroyed her reproductive organs. This is an example of one of the "good" lessons the film teaches: people who engage in self-sabotaging behavior, like drugs and porn, end up in a cycle of nature's birth control because they have proven themselves too stupid to be worthy of being reproduced, so nature makes them incapable of bearing children. It's also a warning to those who engage in this kind of behavior of what they are doing to themselves and potentially setting themselves up for in the future. On a similar note, when Sam argues before the jury why they should recognize Ted as a person, she argues that when one type of life is devalued (in this case, that of a teddy bear's) then where is the line going to be drawn when it comes to all forms of life and all life being devalued? For conservatives, even as she's making this argument, we automatically think of the liberals' position on abortion, and how the Left devalues the life of the unborn child in the womb, and the film makers want us to think of this. When Ted and John are at the sperm donation center, Ted tosses John a container holding a donor's sperm and John drops it on the floor, the sperm going everywhere and John anxiously comments, "That's someone's kid right there!" on the floor. The film makers are recognizing life even before conception takes place and, again, attacking the liberals' hypocrisy on "valuing life" even though they uphold abortion.
It's not just that people who have killed all their brain cells smoking weed automatically assume that, because Ted is alive, he deserves whatever he wants (the "entitlement" culture), these are people who have abused--through drugs and porn--their own personhood and so have no realistic conception of what "being a human being" is about because they have demoted themselves to the level of animals, rather than raising themselves up to be the best people they can be. The film isn't just about the abuse to civil liberties--perfectly timed as it were, to be released on the same weekend that the Supreme Court has announced so-called "gay marriage" is legal--it's about the abuse of arguments used to defend civil liberties and the abuse that has been endured by employers, which leads us to Steven Spielberg's Lincoln.
This is the actual headline in the film. If you click on the image and notice the date, it's Wednesday, August 26, 2015, so the events in the film haven't happened yet; why August 26? The 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote went into effect; what does this have to do with Ted being declared "property?" Two things. First, There are "real civil rights" that belong to every human being, and then there are civil rights that are so ludicrous, the people arguing for them, like "gay marriage," make themselves look ridiculous as they prostitute their knowledge and destroy the Constitution so they can have their way. A teddy bear not being human is the perfect metaphor of the Obama administration's ideas of "civil rights," because it waters down everyone else's genuine civil rights. Secondly, on this date in 1970, the second-wave feminism begins in an effort for sexual equality. Now, the film makes it clear that being "property" is a bad thing, and yet, Tami-Lynn is furious that she can't be Ted's wife, and Ted that he can't be her husband. Feminists have argued (and Sandra Fluke does still today) that they aren't anyone's "property," she claims she doesn't even belong to her brother. This is what love is though, "belonging" to someone, being their's and intimately theirs. Ted doesn't want to be property, but he wants to belong to Tami Lynn, and he wants a child that will belong to him. What's the difference? Slavery is certainly an issue, but Ted being enslaved isn't an issue in the film, so the film makers are making an important point about the definition of "property" and how we all long to belong to someone and if that doesn't make you their property, what is it? During Ted's bachelor party, Ted, John and a group of guys are watching two grizzly bears have sex (I guess this is bear porn) and they are making lewd comments, especially about the female grizzly, and John says, "That's someone's daughter!" We generally don't think of animals as being the children of other particular animals, but John has made the point that, even though she is a female grizzly, she has a papa bear and a mama bear, and by engaging in extreme intercourse with this other grizzly (remember, this is a bachelor party) she's disrespecting herself and her parents, and when we disrespect our parents and loved ones, we are also disrespecting ourselves and vice versa, because that is the nature of "belonging" to someone, which is, in a very real sense, being their "property."
If Ted isn't a person, the film lets its characters "reason," but only in the very lightest sense of the word, then he's property, and not a person, and who wants to be property? (Please see the caption above). The reason this "property" argument is so strong with liberals is because they think anyone who has a job is the "property" of that employer. Now, I have a job that I hate and wish I didn't have to do it; that I remain in this job, however, is my personal decision because, right now, I would rather endure than not have a job; that's my exercise of free will. Liberals, however, deny that anyone has free will; I am a victim, they would argue, because I am a slave to money but if the government were there to take care of me, I could do anything I want (unless, of course, you have read history and know what that really means). This property argument is the real socialist bent of the film, because the 14th Amendment and the Emancipation Proclamation is quoted, just as in Speilberg's Lincoln, which was such a re-writing of history, Ben Affleck might have co-authored the script (please see Lincoln and the Masquerade Of History for more).
This is at the start of the film, and the impressive song and dance number just after Ted gets "married" by Flash Gordon to Tami Lynn. The scene isn't just an homage to famed choreographer Busby Berkely, it's also a political statement, just like the similar Berkely homage in The Kingsman the Secret Service: utopia is nice in art, but it doesn't exist in reality, and reality is reality, nothing else. We cut from this beautiful dance number to "One year later," and see Ted and Tami Lynn fighting about money and responsibility, all ready on the verge of divorcing. In other words, films depicting socialist utopias, like, say, Tomorrowland, can do so, because all the problems remain in the script, but the script doesn't reflect what really happens and so it's never going to be any more practical than a talking teddy bear or a big musical number.
So, in conclusion, Ted 2, has offensive as it is, seemingly strikes a liberal note, but only to show the audience, who otherwise wouldn't care about such issues, how devastating this cycle of entitlement has become, not only to the individuals who think they are benefiting from it (such as Bruce Jenner), but society as a whole. While I don't necessarily recommend seeing the film, it does utilize sophisticated devices that can keep you interested and which send a clear signal about the damaging self-sabotage America is committing today in the name of "justice," but you have to stay for the very end, because, without that end of the credits scene, the film goes liberal.
Eat Your Art Out,
The Fine Art Diner
P.S.-- There is a beautiful song in the film, Mean Ol' Moon, lyrics written by Seth McFarlane and sung--in the film--by Amanda Seyfreid, and on the soundtrack by Norah Jones; the pothead blaming the moon for the troubles she has had in love is the same as Tami Lynn and Ted blaming the government for Ted not being a "person." It's done well.
Here is a calendar with the release dates (as of now) for the rest of the year's films; there are still films not yet releasing information that will be coming out later in the summer (end of August-September) so this isn't a complete list, but definitely the most important films are here. Any titles you don't recognize? Just click on the link and it will take you to the entry for that title at Internet Movie Database and you can read up on plot details, see who is starring and discover trivia!
Once again, 7500 seems to be on the shelf with no definite release date; there are many more films than this being released this year, however, info is not available as of yet.
