p e n g u i n d e v i l

Okay, though I am still recommending folks try Niceplayer, it was a short-lived solution to my drive issues. After my last post, the drive in my computer died completely. I do have a new one on the way, so keep your ears peeled for the details next week… And the return of screen-shots.

This week we watched another of those tough documents about conservative America, Enron: the Smartest Guys in the Room. This one has a particular resonance here in town, because of Enron’s short-lived ownership of PGE, which seemed to be aimed primarily at destroying the retirement funds of PGE employees by changing all of the monies into Enron stock. But I digress.

We all know how terrible is the stain of greed (especially greed at the expense of others), but no matter how cynical you may be, I doubt that you can make it through this movie without feeling that people have let you down more than you could have expected. The fantastic loss of money for the working class, the taped conversations of the traders as they were laughing about ripping off grandma in California and leaving her without power (it’s hard to second the argument that anyone straight out of college would have done the same. Unless that’s just the type of people who go to college for that sort of career), the California legislature letting them rob that state (I mean “de-regulate”) and forcing out Gray Davis as governor. It’s really just another one of those tales of Bush-family-related shenanigans and it is yet another terrifying tale of corporate greed (and government complicity) gone wild. And though Schilling was probably the worst of them all, I do have to somewhat agree with the notion the there were just a couple of scapegoats… It really is the culture to blame. Once people feel that acquisition of money is not only something to focus on, but also a right, things can get nasty. The funny part is, not only was all this horrible fraud and theft going on, but the shenanigans to get Gray Davis forced out and replaced with Arnold? It’s too much like a joke to be true, but seemingly it is true.

I strongly suggest watching this documentary. While I think that Enron is an excessive case, the story told is something that is part of every large corporation and the more that people become aware of it, maybe it will start to be more unacceptable?

And finally, after lord knows how many years, I got a chance to watch The Big Gundown. My “most eager to see” western for many years, I can say that it is certainly one of the better (non-Leone) Italian westerns that I’ve seen. It features a fuller story-line and the coolest Western actor, Lee Van Cleef. Van Cleef is again the superior fellow: coolest looking, coolest acting and the best shot around. He plays a “lawman” sent to hunt down a Mexican who is an accused child rapist and murderer. Sadly, the Mexican is played by Tomas Milian who brings the same foolishly smart, yet badly overplayed Mexican stereotype Cuchillo to the screen that later graced the sequel, Run Man Run (in fact, the title song to this film is Run Man Run). But this is a much stronger film, and less ridiculous. Though Cuchillo does manage to evade Van Cleef too many times in a ridiculous variety of close-calls, the rest of the movie excels over others of this kind. Van Cleef is just so grand in these roles that with the fine qualities the rest of the movie has, Milian’s scenes are easy to overlook. It also features one of the best elements of westerns, the arrogant European. This time it is “The Baron”, a monocled German who, in the last part of the film, wears the best outfit I’ve seen yet in a western.

Also finally, we watched May. The Horror-movie that was all the rage a couple of years back. Well, is it a horror-movie? It’s not a romantic comedy, yet it is a romance and it is comedic. May is the story of a sad lonely girl who grows up wearing an eye-patch and without any friends except for a doll made by her mother that she talks to but is not allowed to remove from its display case. She is now an adult, a girl looking for love and friendship. Of course, as happens with lonely people, branching out socially can frequently lead to failure, anger and murder. Well, maybe murder isn’t the right word, since it is a movie about love, but love in the same vein as Frankenhooker.

May comes across very much like an indy ennui film, but with some twisted notions and brutal moments and Angela Bettis is rather unpleasantly odd (as I think she’s intended to be). It is, though, another one of those films where you don’t really feel the urge to like any of the characters (especially since Jeremy Sisto plays one of them… I just can’t get Six Feet Under out of my head, and the characters are quite similar), which lessens the tension of the film and makes it less compelling. It is certainly worth seeing though, and it does incline me to look into more of Lucky McKee’s movies.