Very well, I'll say it: Terry Gilliam's Brazil is simply my favorite movie of all time. I'll often say things like "Brazil is in my top five favorite films", just to give myself a little wiggle room, because I also adore Gilliam's 12 Monkeys. And a number of other cinematic masterpieces by a number of other brilliant, visionary men and women. Okay, so maybe there are more than five on my list of favorite movies--let's say ten.
Still: Brazil. Good Lord, what an amazing and crystalline metaphor it is, from start to finish; what a chillingly prescient story; what a visually stunning, emotionally affective, and politically damning work of art.
Every time I watch this film, I come away with more to think about. Have you ever seen an actual terrorist?
I absolutely love the scene in the above clip, as it gives face and form (with no small amount of dark humor) to my hope for the coming months and years: that we can join together--and tackle and overcome in ways that are truly fitting and just--the monster that is any society so riven with fear and controlled by bureaucracy, its very fibers and ducts and veins and brains threaten to deliver it to its own doom.
So perhaps I am a dreamer. But I'm not, as Lennon said, the only one.
Never give in, never give in, never give in. Me, I'm not giving in to this fascistic shit, and I'm not going down without a fight. Are you? Didn't think so.
Long may we fight, and dream, together.
No wonder we get along so well!
ReplyDeleteAlso one of my all-time favorite movies.
I'm not going down without a fight, either. Unlike so many of the United Sheeple of America (especially those who, ahem, bark the loudest about how tough they are and how they would like to deck this or that person, when in reality they don't have an ounce of the courage of their professed convictions).
One of my top five films, too.
ReplyDeleteObama Crowned Himself on New Year's Eve
ReplyDeleteBy David Swanson
http://warisacrime.org/node/60412
. . . President Obama waited until New Year's Eve to take an action that I suspect he wanted his willfully deluded followers to have a good excuse not to notice . . .
. . . This is Bush-Cheneyspeak for "I will not comply with the following sections of this law despite signing it into law."
. . . While locked away forever without a trial you'll be able to take comfort that yours is a non-military imprisonment.
. . . we have not seen the major resistance we could have, and without any doubt would have, seen if only Obama were a Republican.
I am trying to explain this to Bob Cesca right now and am giving up. He is on Twitter, and is quite dismissive of people like me, saying we're caught up in logical fallacies.
ReplyDeleteLegal language is extremely weaselly by definition. Legalese put together by politicians takes weaselly to a whole new level.
People need to push aside the obfuscations and look at the pure, clean truth here: the bill's language codifies behavior that has been going on for a while, thanks to language in the 2001 AUMF bill. NDAA 2012 just reaffirms it. O's signing statement says he doesn't like the indefinite detention bits, but signed the bill anyway because it's needed to keep America safe during a time of war. Which is always. He further says he won't use indefinite MILITARY detention with US citizens--leaving open non-military (i.e. CIA, FBI, various US police agencies etc.) detention completely acceptable.
Cesca says YOU'RE caught up in logical fallacies?? Are you fucking kidding me??
ReplyDeleteThese people out-Orwell Orwell.
We all know the bald truth: if this shit were happening under Bush -- or any Republican -- the so-called liberals would be screaming bloody murder. But because it's happening under Obama, it's okay.
The stench of hypocrisy is so profound, I barely have a sense of smell left.
Remember when liberals used to love to use that little acronym, IOKIYAR? Well, as some of us suspected even back then, IOKIYAD applied equally well. We're seeing that in spades now.
But don't expect the bots to notice.
No, we won't give in to the fantastic shit. I always thought Brazil brilliant.
ReplyDeleteBrazil is my favorite too.
ReplyDeleteThe scene where the storm troopers capture Buttle is prescient.