Movie Review: The Moon and Sixpence

Check out Ricky Raw's original review and post here.

    "The Moon and Sixpence" had a lot of the blunt and unsubtle parallels with "Darling", although I feel that the latter movie was a hell of a lot better. Darling seemed to pull off its bluntness with a free flowing ease due to brilliant editing and directing, The Moon and Sixpence seemed a bit choppy and its transitions weren't very smooth. As if it wasn't dumbed down enough it also literally displays on screen read-out-loud text of what we just saw. I see too many problems with this movie which literally watches a like a rough draft. The Dutch artist was way too much of a pathetic caricature, the scenes in Tahiti were pointlessly goofy, our main hero somehow immediately transforms from a boring buffoon with no social skills into a cold and aloof bad ass as soon as he sprouts a beard but to name a few. I suspect I would understand the movie a lot better if I looked into the original novel as well as the biography of Paul Gaugin it might fill in the gaps for me because the movie paints an incomplete picture. A quick Wikipedia search shows that Gaugin spent some time with Dutch painter Van Gogh in France, and during this time Van Gogh infamously cut his ear off. Clearly this shows that the dynamics of their relationship and their characters were quite a bit different than Strickland and the Dutch artist in the film.

   In his review, Ricky claims Strickland's character was a good depiction of clinical narcissism. I think however that Strickland came off as more of a selfish asshole than a true narcissist. I think he is more antisocial than narcissistic. He seems to be too much in his own world to expect much of other people. He lacks the enviousness, doesn't expect to be known for his brilliance and definitely isn't obsessed with admiration. I think the movie tries to portray him as a quasi-autistic genius, kind of like the movie "Amadeus" portrays Mozart.  But unfortunately the movie is too simplistic to be a character study of a tortured genius, so it lightly touches upon Strickland's inner turmoil but doesn't really develop the theme very much. The scenes where we find out he has leprosy and forces his wife to burn his paintings allude to it but don't develop the theme much.

   I also think there are quite a few modern day indies that portray the alpha/beta attraction dynamic just as well as the old movies without succumbing to politically correct pressures. A particularly good one comes to mind called "The Vicious Kind" with J.K. Simmons.

Old School Loveline

I'm revisiting all of the old shows, made possible by Giovanni at lovelinetapes.com. He is doing such an amazing job that he is the only one that didn't get a cease and desist letter from westwood one entertainment. The site has over 2,000 old shows with Adam Carolla.

Adam Carolla was so surprised that "people would listen to an old show from 2001". This is the one and only time I don't buy into Adam Carollas common sense/judgement. Listening back now, the show is so sharp, fast paced, jam packed full of brilliant advice, wise commentary.

March of The Living

So my Jewish Canadian Unlce (twice removed), came by to Poland with his 17 year old Daughter. "March of the Living" is yet another one of these Jewish cultural Narcissistic programs in disguise, one of these why does everyone want to kill us when we are so amazing type fiascos. The basic premise is a group of insanely upbeat North American snotty and boorish teenage boys and their Jewish princess counterparts  come to check out the "Polish death camps". They have an insanely busy schedule because they need to see every last death camp on Polish soil. They cry their eyes out for a whopping five minutes at each camp and that is when the majority of pictures are taken so that their loved ones back home that shelled out a couple grand for the trip see how important and nostalgic it is. After coming to the horrible filthy Eastern decrepid shithole that is Poland (Shocking that its not entirely the drunken industrial wasteland they imagined it to be, with Polar Bears scouring the streets), they finally take off for the sunny happy shiny beacon of hope that is Israel. As if Poland didn't already have enough negative stigma associated with it that the program literally makes it a point to label Poland as the "past" and Israel as the "future" of the Jewish Nation.

I was able to get a sneak peek of the part of the trip when I attended the Havdallah (ending of Shabbat) celebration in the main auditorium of Warsaw University. Me, my grandma, and 500 brats from all over the Jewish Anglosphere.  It was a miracle that I was even able to attend considering how hermetically sealed off from Polish society the atendees were. No one was allowed to go anywhere on their own, cell phones were banned, everyone had a wristband and no one was even allowed  Of course they try to make the trip somewhat politically correct in that bullshit insincere condescending and patronizing North American fashion. On the day before they left I got a sneak peak at the content behind the trip as I was allowed in with my Uncle and cousin 500 brats from the Jewish Anglo saxon World at  Warsaw University. They showed a video of a Polish woman that hid Jews during the war and focused on how

Which brings me to my last point, who in the fuck do these Canadians think they are? I thought Canada focused a tad bit more on education, culture and well roundedness than America and prided itself as being closer to Europe both politically and culturally than its giant southern neighbor. After all, I simply naively thought that learning mandatory French and having such a large percentage of francophones in the country gave at least the very privilaged and well educated Jewish kids some perspective...I couldn't be further from the truth!

One teenage chick remarked with all the frustration she could muster, while walking by Polish people on the street, "Why aren't these people speaking ENGLISH". "I can't understand ANY of the people! They speak such a weird language!" Apparently a couple of people speaking Polish in Poland would be cool,  she would reluctantly be willing to accept that it happens on occasion. Six or seven would be pushing it. But this? This was an outrage!

It was comical to see this large group of North American rednecks walking by on the most beautiful street in Warsaw, with gorgeous, feminine and extremely well dressed Polish women peppering every corner, contrasted with these hicks, all wearing their pathetically tacky loose jeans and hideous blue jackets made just for the trip.

A couple of snipppets of the brilliant and well thought out commentary some of the members chose to utter:

*"Oh my god, everyone is smoking here, ewwww", Smoking? No fucking way, in front of bars on the main bar street in town?  I saw the exact same thing on Bloor street in Toronto.

*"Everyone here smells like alcohol" for fucks sake, you idiots, see above. Is it too much to ask of Canadian schools to teach students to put two and two together?

* "Oh my god that guy almost ran us over", uh no he didn't, this is Europe. Drivers will stop inches from your face but will not run you over. Only the US and Canada have such Pussy drivers that wait for every single last pedestrian to reluctantly walk by while insincerely grinning with their bleached teeth and waving you by.

*In response to a couple of drunken Soccer hooligans across the street that were yelling obscenities about a rival soccer team to no one in particular "Oh my god, what are they saying, is that about us? are they antisemitic?" I don't even know where to begin with this one. First of all you brainwashed cunt, a very small minority of Poles are antisemitic, and an even smaller minority care to actually yell about it on the street. Second of all, the world doesn't revolve around you. What the fuck do a group of hooligans care about some overblown group of tourists all wearing big stupid blue jackets? And third of all, how in the fuck do they even know your Jewish even if they cared? Think they're sitting up in that window getting smashed on Vodka with a finely tuned "Jew-Dar", and just happened to notice your black curly hair from fifty feet away? Did the guides at Aushwitz not explain this was fifty years ago?