Month: August 2021

Guest Contributor – Chemist – Hollywood Hates Us

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I recently wrote the below to a friend and they are seeing the same thing:

It seems that the mega entertainment corporations hate their customers so much that they are happy to commit suicide just to hurt their customers.

A crazy statement? Hear me out:
The latest Star Wars trilogy featured all female leads (The poor black dude who featured large in the first movie was a tertiary character at best in the second two.)
“OK, fine,” I thought. “The force can be used by male and female. No big deal. On with the story.” And I’m sure lots of people like myself felt the same way.
But Disney went further. It wasn’t enough to have STRONG FEMALE LEADS (TM) they had to destroy the male leads that came before. Luke wasn’t just a Jedi who was past his prime, he was a coward, a loser and a child murderer. It’s like Disney was saying: “Take that! All you losers who loved the original movies and characters. We’ll wreck them for you.”
Yes, the movies made money – lots of it, but only about a third of what they should have made. Did you hear of anyone standing in line to see those movies 4 times? 3? even twice?

OK, that’s a single example. . . .

The latest Marvel movie – Black Widow – has a scene consisting of women discussing their menstruation issues. I am told that Disney put that in the movie “Just to make men uncomfortable”.
Who watches comic book movies starring sexy women wearing tiny tight costumes? Is it pre-teen girls? Is it soccer moms? Is it the local Karen group of wine and whine?
No! Its men! Men and adolescent boys are your target audience. Why would you put in a scene just to make them uncomfortable?
Because Disney / Marvel hates their audience.
Black Widow is going to be the lowest grossing Marvel movie ever and may not even break even.
But it’s worth it, because they hate their audience and want to hurt them.

OK, that’s 2 examples, but they are both from the same company.

Let’s talk about Dr. Who. (Do we have to?) The BBC recently introduced a female Doctor Who. Not a female Gallifreyan – that had been seen before – but a female Dr. Who – the title character. OK, Its Sci-Fi, anything is possible. The fans will still watch as long as the writing is good. . .
But the writing was horrible. Every single plot revolved around social justice and other Woke topics. The fans stopped watching in droves. Remember that this is the longest running series in the history of television – almost 60 years of fans. There are people who grew up watching the show who are now collecting social security who have turned it off. The ratings are so bad that the BBC is considering cancelling the show.
But it’s worth it because they hate their fans.

The thing is that these companies are hurting themselves. The fans will go elsewhere – Japanese Manga is a big winner. They still feature male characters defeating bad guys and saving the day. (For now.) But the dollars the fans of Star Wars, Marvel, and Dr. Who would have spent on the movies, and products won’t be going to those mega corporations.

This is insanity. This is mental illness. And in the case of a publicly traded company, this might well be criminal.

The Shop Around the Corner (1940) – An OCF Classic Movie Review

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“The Shop Around the Corner” is an MGM movie starring Jimmy Stewart that combines elements of comedy, drama and romance to tell the story of a retail store in Budapest, Hungary called Matuschek and Company.  Mr. Matuschek, played by Frank Morgan is the owner of a leather goods store that is struggling to survive at the end of the Great Depression.  Matuschek is enthusiastic, self-important and comically hot-headed.

His lead salesman is Alfred Kralik, played by Stewart.  Kralik is intelligent, earnest and falling in love with a woman he’s never met.  He’s in an anonymous pen-pal relationship with a woman that he knows simply as “dear friend.”  As it turns out dear friend also happens to be his co-worker Klara Novak, played by Margaret Sullavan.  But in their real life Kralik and Klara detest each other.  In addition to this comedy of errors love/hate relationship, there are other characters and other sub-plots.  Kralik’s closest friend at the shop is Mr. Pirovitch played in a wonderfully comic turn by Felix Bressart.  Pirovitch is Mr. Matuschek’s favorite whipping boy.  His favorite statement is “Pirovitch you’re an idiot.”  To which the meek Pirovitch replies, “Yes, Mr. Matuschek, I’m an idiot.”

There is Ferencz Vadas, another of the sales clerks, played with enormous pomposity and self-regard by Joseph Schildkraut.  And finally, there is the errand boy Pepi Katona who snipes sarcastically at all his superiors and ends up as the hero of the second plot line.  For along with the romance there is a drama.  Mr. Matuschek has become aware of the fact that his wife is having an affair and he believes it is with one of his employees.  And since Kralik has had the most opportunity to meet Mrs. Matuschek he is the prime suspect.  So, whereas formerly Matuschek treated Kralik almost as a son now he hates and distrusts him.  After goading Kralik into anger, Matuschek discharges him.  But when the private detectives finish their investigation, they name Mr. Vadas as Matuschek’s rival.  With his life in shambles Matuschek attempts to end it all with a pistol.  But in the nick of time Pepi breaks in on his suicide and hands Matuschek over to the hospital for psychiatric observation.

Meanwhile Kralik discovers that on top of being fired his “dear friend” is Klara Novak.  He finds this out when he is supposed to be meeting her at a café with each of them wearing a carnation.  Spying Klara’s carnation from outside he throws away his carnation and pretends that he was just stopping at the café to meet Pirovitch.  Klara accuses him of trying to spoil her prospective date, insults him and finishes by calling him an insignificant clerk.  After this he leaves in complete dejection and misery.

But in the next act Matuschek calls Kralik to his hospital bed to apologize for his terrible treatment and to beg him to come back and manage the store while Matuschek recuperates from his nervous breakdown.  Even Pepi is rewarded for saving Mr. Matuschek by becoming a salesman.  Now with roles reversed Klara is dejected because her date never showed up and on top of that she finds that the man she insulted is now her boss.  But all ends well.  Kralik fires the despicable Vadas in royal fashion.  The store has a stellar Christmas sales total and Mr. Matuschek returns in time to give everyone a wonderful bonus.  And finally, the lovers are re-united.  But first Kralik has some fun with Klara by pretending that he had met her “dear friend” and he was fat, bald, old, and a greedy fraud.  When Klara finally discovers that Kralik is her “dear friend” she is relieved and happy.

This is a relatively silly story.  But the dialogue and the acting are remarkably good.  Even the minor parts are played skillfully and with great comic verve.  There is great heart here.  And the humanity of all the characters, even the villainous Vadas feels very real.  You believe the story.  There is a Dickensian feel to the production.  I highly recommend this story to everyone.  It’s a gem.

Guest Contributor – War Pig – When War Pig Met Karen

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I agree about the movies for the most part. Until yesterday that last two movies I have watched in the cinema were Godzilla King of The Monsters and Godzilla vs King Kong. I happen to be a big Godzilla fan since childhood.

I don’t care for Disney’s Marvel Universe movies. I did, however, go see the new Disney movie Jungle Cruise. yesterday in the cinema. My nice wanted to see it so I took her as she hates to go alone. More on that in a minute.

It wasn’t a bad movie, in fact I rather enjoyed it. The Rock was better than usual in acting, Emily Blunt pretty much stole every scene and the special effects and action sequences were what you’d expect from Disney. A good time and I bonded a bit with my niece

My niece is a tall, attractive woman of twenty-one but she looks like sixteen. This frustrates her now but I told her in twenty years she’ll appreciate her youthful looks. At any rate, she went to the ladies’ room after the movie and I stood by to ensure no one with a penis entered the ladies’ room while she was in there. When she exited, we were walking to the entrance/exit and a very liberal Karen stopped us, told my niece she did not have to go anywhere with me and made noises about human trafficking. I told her just because an older man has a young woman by his side it is not always by force. That she was my niece and to kindly get out of the way. She kept it up and I told the kids at the concession stand to call the police.

The local gendarmeri4e arrived and Karen was still fuming. I greeted one officer by name and told him what was going on. Karen said we exhibited classic human trafficking patterns. The cop laughed in her face and told her to go home or he’d run her in for being a public nuisance. Then she accused him of being part of the trafficking gang. That was too much so off she went to the hoosegow to cool off.

My niece (adopted by my brother) is a tall, brown hair, blue eyed pale girl. Being half Blackfoot, my complexion, especially in the summer, is somewhat darker, My facial features also bespeak my (and my brother’s) heritage. My niece is QUITE attractive, which is why she asks me to stand outside the ladies’ room when she goes inside, in case she has to yell for help. But still, we were both laughing and talking about the movie. She was giggly but that is her nature. She likes her uncle and we have some good times together. I have taken her with me to Sandusky then onto one of the islands there where you can see evidence of the last ice age’s glaciers as they scraped the rock. She wanted some literature and photos of it for a school report.

I normally applaud any real attempt to end human trafficking, but this Karen went overboard and assumed she was right (a liberal fault). Heck, it could have been a sugar daddy/sugar baby relationship, or a grandfather/grandchild situation. I am old enough to be her grandfather.

So be careful, people in what you ASSUME to be happening. Assume makes an ass out of you and me, remember.

 

 

 

The Federal Government Has Become an Occupying Army

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Government is always an irritant.  Being told what to do and how to do it is irksome.  No one enjoys paying their taxes or obeying traffic regulations or filling out confusing and sometimes meaningless forms.  But we do it because the overall value of living in an ordered society outweighs the frustration of these petty irritants.  After all, without the law we would have much bigger problems than a traffic cop writing us a ticket for speeding.  We’d be fighting for our lives against some maniac who took offense at how we didn’t go fast enough on a highway.

But in the last year we have reached that threshold where the government we live under is actually a greater harm than the good it provides.  I don’t mean this in the sense that it would be better if tomorrow we lived in the state of nature.  If the post office and the police and the highway department and the local Walmart shut down operation and their former employees became gangs or roving marauders pillaging the town square, I think things would be even worse.  But what has happened is that organs of the state have stopped performing their agreed upon functions.  The police now let mobs attack US citizens at will on US soil and have no intention of stopping them.  The government no longer interferes when corporate entities discriminate against citizens based on things like their political beliefs or even the color of their skin.  The government health agencies have stopped providing accurate information about something as frightening as a biological weapon that a foreign power has unleashed against us.  Worse, they are mandating policies that disrupt almost every facet of our public and private lives and are doing so in an almost vindictive way that provides no health benefit.  The government intelligence agencies now regularly spy on US citizens and then collude with tech companies and the supposedly neutral press to target their political opponents.

Even the citizens who align with the party now in power, the Democrats, are finding it harder to justify the crazier and crazier outrages that have been going on.  Avowed progressives like Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald find themselves forced to make common cause with their cultural enemies at Fox News because they still value the concept of honest journalism, government accountability and the Bill of Rights.

The federal government has decided they don’t need us anymore.  They believe they have crossed some threshold beyond which we no longer have any say over what they do.  And it is becoming clear that they will try to make that a permanent situation.

Needless to say, this doesn’t sit well with millions of people.  What isn’t clear is how to remedy the situation.  The federal law enforcement and military have been making very clear statements that they are watching us carefully and will drag any dissenters away to prison if they think any organization is threatening their control over the population.  It will take leaders of the states to stand up to that kind of physical coercion.  And even that isn’t a sure thing.  It’s amazing how quickly the FBI has come to resemble the KGB or the Stasi.

So, what’s the point of this essay?  It’s to help some people reset their thinking.  The federal government is no longer the legitimate representative of the people of the United States.  It’s a criminal gang that has taken control of the territory where you live.  It is very powerful and well organized and dangerous.  But you have no moral obligation to honor it.  You may obey it out of fear or because you see an advantage to do so but don’t mistake that for patriotism.  You are in the same position that the French people were under the Nazi occupation.  Vichy could pretend to rule “Free France” but everyone knew he was just a cowardly collaborator.  You may have to obey but it is without consent.

And if the day comes when we regain our freedom there may be very dire consequences for the men who did this to us.  Remember who they are.