29.12.07

[Film] We own the Night et al

Saw 'We own the night' a film about a confrontation between fearless, hard-as-nails russian gangsters and the hapless NY police.

There is a scene where daddy police commissioner is killed protecting his grown up sonny jim badboy turned testifier. It reminded me of an experience my friend had in Bangladesh when he was small, a crowd gathered to listen to a maulana were fired upon by a bunch of raving Awamis (early 1990s).

Fatherhood here was covering your son with your body, being that fence to keep the wild boars at bay, the best you can do given the circumstances. (back to the film)Imagine seeing your father fall protecting you? Anyway that was my moment of the film, it takes place in mid car chase. I DONT BELEIVE IM SPOILING IT FOR YOU, IM JUST POINTING IT OUT.

Oh and in typical layla majnun fashion, the male does all the work(madness,war...) and the female just sits there. Even worse, as soon as the going gets tough she flies away like a bird. What a crap character.

The Russian baddass gangster theme was also present in Eastern Promise released earlier this year, this time set in London. Its the tattoos and effortless administration of pain thats most wincing. Worst of all, the chap doing most of the violence was none other than strider/aragorn from lord of the rings.

Not really films for the hippy inside you.

There's another matter that should probably be pondered about, the assassination. I am waiting for Ardeshir Cowasjee of Dawn to conjure up some words of clarity. Its surprising to see the large amounts of jackass commentary coming from sources both brown, yellow and white. for example,

*New labour wannabe getting history and demographics all muddled and being thick in a vain attempt to promote south asian women MPs.
*Human rights bitches from BD weaving their own victimhood into it, very cheap.
*Crocodile tears shed for 'democracy'.
*The Bastard State expressing its condolences (like anyone cares about you?).

Dramatic events are always spun by folks with political wands. Unfortunately we have become more and more accustomed to swallowing prefabricated opinions from the media. Media which derives legitimacy from imbalanced notions of freedom and stupid mass acceptance.

Damon Albarn from Blur and Gorillas was right to point this out recently. He made the following comments in the context of visiting Mali for a little development tourism.


"At some point in the very near future we are going to have to change our value system so dramatically, and what we deem as important and what we throw away," he explained. "We need to dismantle very significant parts of our culture and really re-examine them. I suppose you start with the celebrity thing."

He added: "There's just so many things I would alter. I think for a start you have to get rid of things like 'The X Factor' immediately."

He also said he wanted to "get rid of 99 per-cent of the media".


Albarn can talk about celebrity because he has grafted for the recognition he has. But where to start...

1 comment:

Shak said...

>I DONT BELEIVE IM SPOILING IT FOR YOU, IM JUST POINTING IT OUT.

I don't think anyone posts spoilers on purpose, even if they qualify them with capital letters. But then again generally most people are inconsiderate without knowing it anyway. The trick is to try putting yourself in the position of others instead of "believing" from your own.

At the very least tagging your posts with "possible plot details" or something would give those of us who are a bit more sensitive a bit of a warning eh? But maybe that's too much trouble for you to do as well.