May December
Natalie Portman is an interesting figure in the world of cinema. And the movie May December is a meta-analysis of Natalie's psychological journey through Hollywood. It is not a surprise that her first movie Leon: The Professional caused some levels of controversy. It was mainly an action film, so there was not that much controversy. But the dramatic elements of the film were questioned a lot by American audiences. Even Natalie Portman herself, being half-American described Leon as "cringe". And it seems like the growing obsession with all kind of sexual misconducts in Hollywood together with growing feelings of cringe from Leon made her into needing a movie like May December to evaluate everything and understand the phenomenon better.
The Ultimate Paradox Of Freedom
Is it freedom to be rebellious? Or is it just an uncontrollable reaction? There is this concept called Reverse Psychology which suggests that sometimes to obtain a wanted result from somebody it's better to push that somebody in the opposite direction. But reverse psychology doesn't work always. Only when the person feels like his or her freedom is at stake. For example when a parent doesn't allow a teenager to engage in a particular activity. The parent might not be an inherently evil person. He might not desire to exercise any kind of power. He maybe just really wants to protect the teenager. But the teenager feels like his or her freedom is being betrayed and taken away. So they rebel. Is it freedom to be rebellious, though? Or is it just an uncontrollable reaction? Is there freedom at all? Or is it just a big paradox?
Stallman Report The Irony Of Conservative Leftists
Theories of conspiracy were proposed to explain the baffling re-surfacing of previously debunked criticisms of a man. A man who is by opinions of many is on the same side as those criticizing. But perhaps either those criticizing, either don't know about the man's true motive, or lost their true motive themselves, or, which isn't too far fetched of an idea, never had the motive that they claim to have had in the first place. The man is Richard Stallman. The criticism is of the man's apparent lack of conformity to the norms of sexuality. The norms which were significantly challenged, and subsequently re-established by those criticizing him. By those who had lack of conformity in the first place. By those who's lack of conformity was strong enough to establish a new conformity. A new conformity which Stallman deems not enough. A new conformity which Stallman isn't conforming to.
Is Agenda Bad For Discussion
The studio was full of people and the host was mentally preparing for the cameras to go live. The cameras started rolling which filled the room with tension. And the producers behind the cameras started counting the count-down. The host touched his tie in a nervous manner, to make sure that it sits nicely. The countdown went - "5 - 4 - 3 - ..." - from that point on, the producers counted only with their fingers, to avoid accidentally being heard counting on the broadcast itself. They showed 2, then 1 and then pointed to the host, which meant that it's the time to start.
My Girl
Between the 1970s to the 1990s there was a very interesting period in Hollywood. Directors like Steven Spielberg came from relative nobodies to super-stars. Which inspired a lot of directors to take upon the formula of sentimental adventure and try doing something else with it. My Girl looks like a movie clearly inspired by Spielberg, but not quite Spielbergian, in a sense that it doesn't deal with extraordinary circumstances, but rather deals with a family and friendship dynamics.
Beau Is Afraid
There is a sub-genre of Horror films categorized by surrealism. It could range between totally insane films like anything directed by David Lynch all the way to something like Mandy by Panos Cosmatos, where it is kind of surreal, but also doesn't actually ask from the audience too much in terms of figuring out what is going on. "Beau Is Afraid" is more toward the David Lynch category of surreal horror.
Bones And All
It is very hard to describe the style of Luca Guadagnino, the director of Bones And All. His films are very good. But it seems like he is not interested in plot, which is weird, considering that the movies are good. He is famous for his erotic dramas, films centered around a sexual tension between people, like his perhaps most acclaimed movie Call Me By Your Name, in which all the substance comes from very subtle things. A character looks a certain way on another character. Or perhaps holds onto another character's hand for way too long. And you have to piece together all these little clues to even start feeling some kind of presence of a plot. Because if you don't pay attention it all looks like people just casually hanging out. And then suddenly a payoff happens, which would make sense only if you paid attention to the little clues.
The Spark
The Spark is great in all the things that graphical artists value. It looks jaw-dropping. But it fails for me in the story-telling aspect of it. What is the story of The Spark? A character falls down a hole and finds there a clue. And because of how utterly bored he is, he decides to follow that clue until reaching a place where he finds grass. A thing that he was programmed to find. Yes, it is not as straight forward as him just walking there by himself and finding the grass. There are obstacles along the way, but non of them make any impact.
Paternalistic Laws Make Very Little Sense
There are 3 types of laws: Freedom laws; Power laws and Paternalism laws. Freedom laws are those laws we actually like. Free Speech and things like that are all freedom laws. Some freedom laws are less obvious than others. But if the law makes your freedom stronger, it is a freedom law. Power laws are similar. Some people confuse power laws with freedom laws. Power laws are those that give people power. Most obvious examples are laws about censorship. Or laws that state that you can't criticize the government, some countries have that. Those give power to the government over the people. Power laws are any laws that give anybody power. Taking away somebodies else freedom in the process. But then there are paternalism laws.
Coercion
Sometimes a program might give you impossible choices were it is impossible to say no to something terrible. This kind of Coercion is a malicious functionality.
The Nightmare Of Paying Online
Cryptocurrency should have been the savior of the world from over-reaching control of governments and banks. But while on paper it could have worked. The reality is way worse. There was a store next to where I live that until a few years ago advertised that they can be paid with Bitcoin. The notice is now removed, probably due to the bursting of the crypto bubble, which lead to a rapid decrease of value of many cryptocurrencies.
Is Tolerance The Right Word
I do not know how to put it into words, therefor I'm trying to write this article, but it seems like the question of tolerance / intolerance is the wrong kind of question. And it seems like this poor choice of a word to describe a correct concept lead us into the divide that we are experiencing today.
There Might Be Delay In My Activity
For the LibrePlanet 2024 I was preparing very hard to make a very good presentation. This meant that I had to be absent from my job. After the presentation I volunteered to help editing the conference to insure that the recording of my presentation was published in the best possible way. Which was, in my opinion a right thing to do, since they didn't have a good recording of the slides, due to technical stuff. And I was able to spot this mistake and recreate the slides for the recorded part of the presentation. I did that not only for my own presentation. But for the entire "Neptune room". Which had 10 presentations.
3 Things Keeping Us From True Freedom
Freedom is something we all fight for. Some succeed more than others. But there is no fully Free society yet in the world. By fully Free I don't mean a total anarchy. This would not be fully Free since it would be possible for people to have power over other people. Which is not freedom already. It's a different form of control. But fully Free means that every person would have the most freedom that person can have without it becoming power. This is very far from the situation right now.
No Respect For Those Who Give Up
When I was about 16 years old I went into my friend's house and saw a guitar. Without even having any money I asked him "How much for the guitar?". And bought it immediately. I had to return him chunks of money for the next year or so. A bit later, an old lady living in the same building as my mom, who was once a musician, decided that I worth be given a small electronic piano. Obviously I was quite excited to learn to make music and so I decided to record a bunch of songs. Which ended up being my first album ( 2015 ) "No Respect For Those Who Give Up".
Barbie
I was not sure if I wanted to see Barbie. I certainly didn't want to see it together with Oppenheimer. But the funny thing is, I still didn't review Oppenheimer, while here I am reviewing Barbie. I think I have the same reason here as with Nope as of why I avoided it. You know Nope was directed by a black man. And it was one of its main selling points. Barbie is directed by a woman. And everybody is talking about it. And it feels forced to watch a movie for that kind of reason. So I avoided Barbie until now. But since I had a Ryan Gosling marathon, I though that I might as well get into this film. And oh my god. I have thoughts!
Invidious