We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Batman: the Dark Knight Rises No long review.
Just whose fault the peril Gotham (not New York – honest) was. Indeed the peril of Western civilization.
Many people – but three billionaires spring to mind
One obsessed with money – no honour, good sense undermined by greed (leading to consequences he did NOT want). Jamie Dimon and so many others who supported for Obama for corporate welfare?
One with utterly perverted idealism – the George Soros figure. Secretly financing and organizing the Occupy Movement (and worse).
And the good billionaire – who has given up on the world, hiding with his bad memories in his house (thus leaving the world to the evil).
Greed.
Collectivism.
Despair.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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So when is the THIRD instalment of Atlas Shrugged due for release?
I should point out that the Batman (oh no I have given away who Bruce Wayne is) does overcome his despair.
By the way – a good film.
Interesting in that someone can be an agent at the heart of your resistance (betraying everything) – and resistance can still work.
Something that people familar with the history of Western intelligence will be aware of.
Of course the Cong will find out everything – just fight on.
You can get win.
Even without the Batman.
Although, yes, he helps.
As does Catwoman turning into Ann Coulter.
The important thing is that some homicidal maniac didn’t sneak into the show and start … wait, did you just say Catwoman is really Ann Coulter?
I’ll be in my bunk.
When you are up against the Occupy Movement and a real homicidal maniac (maniacs) with a nuclear weapon – having a wild women on your side is not a bad thing.
Especially one who has no problem shooting someone who wants a fist fight.
If someone can kill you with their fists – then shoot them.
Someone who wants pretty jewels (and so on) is not the same as someone who wants to destroy the world.
I guess my main conclusion is that outside the will of God, there is no hope.
No matter how seemingly well intentioned one may be.
Within His will there is perfect hope, peace and happiness.
Ultimately there is complete hope or complete despair depending on whether one’s life is surrendered to Jesus or not.
And as we draw ever further into the final, approaching confrontation, that radical separation will become ever more apparent.
What do we need religion for, when Batman will save us?!!
So, who is the third, good billionaire? (Warren also belongs in the greed category)
I appreciate I’m ploughing a lonely furrow on this one, but that Batman was absolute tripe. Had I not been hemmed into a cinema row, I’d have gone home and watched something else.
There was practically no script: just set piece after set piece of impressive graphics, just about held together by plot devices which might as well have been produced by a piece of software. With the exception of the chief baddie, the characters were so one dimensional and the dialogue so clunky I really couldn’t care who lived or died. And that good cop was so bad, I almost thought it was a parody. Huge chunks of the film were left unexplained, or an idea started but not developed, before the audience is shunted onto the next CGI scene. For instance, how does Batman go from being a cripple at the start of the movie to a ninja by the end? Painkillers? Look, an explosion! Time and space mean nothing in the film, and even Michael Caine must realize his performance was one he hopes will be forgotten.
A few days later I watched the Humphrey Bogart version of The Maltese Falcon (a remake by the way, much better than the original). Admittedly they are working with brilliant source material, but even so the film is so brilliantly scripted and paced. Just the dialogue alone, and it’s delivery, make it so. To me, the real art of film making is to deliver a scene which makes you want to rewind it and see it again immediately, and clever dialogue works much better than impressive graphics for me in this regard. Now I do like films as spectacles, as Titanic was, but I prefer films with at least some plot, script, character development, and proper pacing. You can find these in spades in the HBO TV series, but they appear to be almost absent from films. The last film I saw with decent dialogue was Charlie Wilson’s War. There are still good films being made, but the ones which seem to have everybody drooling at the mouth seem to be lacking the basics which make a good film. Being shunted from scene to scene with sensory overload and partronisingly obvious plot devices isn’t much fun IMO.
Tim Newman, Titanic was certainly a spectacle, but it took Best Oscar over a film which arguably counts as a modern day Maltese Falcon, and that’s L.A. Confidential(Link).
Yeah, LA Confidential was superb, should have nailed Best Film easily. But I suspected that, having won a hat load of technical Oscars and not coming anywhere near winning a best actor or actress gong, the award panel thought Cameron should get best film to reflect the effort put in. It was a bit like Scorcese winning his Oscar for The Departed, which was nowhere near his best and was almost an apology for past oversights (Dances with Wolves over Goodfellas, for example).
Saxon – the good billionaire is Bruce Wayne.
Actually most of the Board are good people (that is obvious), but they bad information and bad advice (including bad advice from Bruce Wayne himself).
No help but from God.
Whether it is Mr Gordon or anyone else – those who do God’s work (saving the innocent) do so by their own actions.
Just waiting for God to act is not doing God’s work. But then this is well known.
Repentance also matters.
Seeing a destroyed home (and a shattered family) and deciding that the rich do NOT deserve this.
And seeing a man shattered (the betrayed Batman) and deciding that this is not good.
That is what I meant by Catwoman turning into Ann Coulter – a move in position.
L.A. Confidential or Titanic?
To me – L.A. Confidential is indeed the better film.
And do not forget A Night To Remember.
I do not agree Tim.
Although, yes, one can poke holes with ease.
For example a man in Bruce Wayne’s physical condition would be physically unable to do what he ends up doing – unless by grace of God.
And fistfights come too much – even in positions which are clearly naturally military firefights in nature.
Also, yes, the chief bad guy (when we eventually find out who the chief bad guy really is) does put the other baddies in the shade.
But they do have interesting things to say – but there is the modern Hollywood vice.
Hollywood hates people speaking “like a play” (the old way of speaking in films).
That may be “theatrical” (of course it is theatrical), but it does mean one can hear what someone is saying.
They turned Manhattan into communist Russia, complete with frigid winter, and showed that this was a bad thing.
+1 Important.
Simon – agreed.
There are still good films being made, but the ones which seem to have everybody drooling at the mouth seem to be lacking the basics which make a good film. Being shunted from scene to scene with sensory overload and partronisingly obvious plot devices isn’t much fun IMO.
The Hobbit may be more gently paced Beverlee.
If I am spared I will go and see The Hobbit in December.
Spare us from the tedium of Tolkein, I’d take Howard over that any day.
Well George – there is always “Taken 2”, which may be more to your taste.
The lead actor in that comes from down the road from where I am typing this (as I am presently between Antrim and Ballymenia).
Back in Kettering (if all goes to plan) tonight.
Paul, I think the question was who is the real-life equivalent of the good billionaire (Wayne). Personally, I can’t think of one either.
I can think of some.
Jon Huntsman (senior).
And Charles and David Koch.
No doubt there are others.
Well, what I meant was no one in the league of Soros or Buffet – but I could be wrong.
Paul, you say:
God doesn’t need anybody to do anything. What He would like and requires is that we give our lives to His gentle will and authority.
Milton:
WHEN I consider how my light is spent
E’re half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide,
Lodg’d with me useless, though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, least he returning chide,
Doth God exact day-labour, light deny’d,
I fondly ask; But patience to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts, who best
Bear his milde yoak, they serve him best, his State
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’re Land and Ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and waite.
Some are suited for stand and wait, and some are suited for action.
Wordsworth:
“Milton! Thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: alter, sword and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! Raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.”
Bane abolishes government, which is a more Libertarian/Conservative position. He creates a society with no regulation and laws designed to serve Bane and Bane alone.
Bane is not interested in any ideology, his aim is to avenge Ras al Ghul by breaking Batman and smashing Gotham to pieces.
Selina Kyle is an anti-heroine and that rare thing in a Hollywood movie, a strong female character who is not a bimbo or extension of a male character. Hathaway’s Catwoman is by far the most faithful depiction, far superior to Burton’s woeful misogynist fantasy.
Worth noting, too, that Bruce Wayne, unlike Gotham’s corrupt elite, actually gives a toss about the orphans, for example. Wayne is the only person aiding them.
TDKR illustrates the difference between Generation X and the Baby Boomers; the former accepts ageing and the need to move on, the latter live in denial of reality and want to go on and on forever, clinging onto the mantle like deranged chimps.
–T.S. Eliot [punctuation added.]
Apparently I have not yet mastered the art of posting in html. “Teach us to sit still” is a separate line, of course.
That’s what I get for not Previewing. :>(
Medicant is his usual Troll self – thinking Bane (who talks of The People against the rich – constantly) is a conservative or libertarian.
As if supported private property rights and the nonaggression principle.
Alisa – as wealthy as Warren B.?
No – I can not think of someone that wealthy.