Torture and The Spirit

Disappointment

Well he wasn’t unlike the GOP seem to imagine our beloved lord – just a politician who is in a critical place at a critical time in American History (part of the GOP’s problems is they don’t quite understand what the stakes are here – but we have to leave that evergreen topic to move one) and who will make good choices and bad choices.

Well I think, hell I know, this is a bad choice - not to release a second group of pictures from the prison in Iraq – for reasons that don’t quite make real sense – the stated motive is not to inflame anti-Americanism – but the whole trouble is that the people being kept in dark are Americans – the Iraqis know damn well the prisoners were tortured and killed – it’s like when the bombing in Cambodia was covered up – it wasn’t the Cambodians who were being kept in the dark – they knew they were being bombed “here come the bombs” goes one classic Doonesbury punch line about the ‘secret’ bombings’.

There are several reasons the photos are being sat on – none of them good – mostly the involve at best not embarrassing the high ups in the military or at worst coving up the higher ups complicity in the torture and killing.

So I am disappointed – we’re still in a save the corporation mode thinking about this – which isn’t going to work – too many people with no real vested interest in the survival of the beltway culture (which is per my opinion these days corrupt to the core) that these photos are going to come out (legally or otherwise) and there will be hell to pay – more so for the attempt to cover it up by Obama.

This has been a sickening episode in our nation’s history – and the only real way to deal with it is to lance the goddamn boil and have done with it. This corrupt arguing over ‘in some cases torture works” is simply pathological – take that track and locking up citizens who’s politics you don’t agree with because some of them might be dangerous at another time – and torture is the weapon autocrats who desire confessions not justice – water boarding –(the not torture per the apologists) was used by Pol Pot in Cambodia and the Spanish Inquisition and the Witch Hunters to extract among other things – confessions about riding naked on a broom to a witches Sabbath. That came in real handy I’ll bet.

Disappointing on another level was I finally saw Frank Miller’s The Spirit last night. And god what a turkey it was.

I knew I was in trouble when about 20 minutes into the film I didn’t know what the hell was going on and I didn’t care.

The Spirit is a series of highly regarded comics done by one of the early master of the form Will Eisner – in his hands the Spirit often had little to do but observe the story unfold which you can’t do in a movie but still –

Miller just took the idea of a man in mask and put him in black – and by the by what the hell was so wrong with the dark blue from the comic? And then made him some kind of weird batman/wolverine/daredevil remix borrowing heavily from his own work – like his young love how went bad after her father was killed and becomes the femme Fatal bad one – (Electra rip off); the spirit’s dad was a boxer (check daredevil) the pensive narration about the city below him (Batman and well about a 1,000 noir films so he gets a pass on that). One of the actors even says the Femme Fatal has an Electra complex which is really the director rubbing your nose in it while screaming “I have no ideas left! None! I’m ripping myself off!”

And the Sin city style cinematography pretty much obliterated any detail except the red tie.

The comic scenes with the clones were painfully unfunny as only flat comedy scenes can be.

And lastly this is the first time I’ve seen Samuel Jackson mail a role in – I know he’s probably done that other times but this was the first time I’ve seen him. And there is a moment when he shows up dressed in a Nazi uniform is a good for the bad taste scene of the year. Miller WTF?

It was very depressing and disappointing

The ladies all looked good – Eva Mendes is continuing in her trend of playing the ethnic girlfriend (see Ghost Rider) which isn’t going to give her a lot of roles in the future.

In face the only guy that is okay is the one who played the Spirit – he had his mask on all all the time so nobody will recognize him.

Well enough – and anyway the Green Hornet film looks it’ll worse. Seth Morgan oh come on.

Peace, Love, Disappointments