Change Your Image
cembalo-91031
Reviews
Real Detective: Blood Brothers (2017)
Laps, gaps and coincidincks
The case has a few holes: a convicted felon is in the area but the officer who sent him to prison is not aware of his whereabouts? Turns out he's involved with a woman who is renting (?) a house from his father. Only evidence of his presence is an oversized pair of jeans. No fingerprints or other routine forensics immediately and routinely taken when it seems altogether plausible that the brother of the woman - who is pregnant - was murdered by a bullet to the eye that somehow looks at first to all involved like a severe beating. The murderer doesn't bother to any great extent to cover up the evidence of blood on the floor. It is established to everyone's satisfaction that the felon is the father of the woman's baby and that he murdered her brother- for borrowing his car without permission. Not a very smart felon.
OK. Meanwhile, one partner in a police team decides he will get the forensics - by himself - but leaves a note to his partner and asks for backup. His partner, whose mother just died and is taken off the case, doesn't find the note until after he is called at his office and informed that his partner was murdered while casing the joint. During this time the woman is released after questioning and followed to an apartment where the felon, a real dumb guy, now resides. It is assumed now that the felon killed the woman's brother and the officer's partner. There is a shootout when an attempt at arrest is made, and guess who is killed? Right. Case closed. It should be mentioned that the pregnant woman is strangely silent throughout, even after her boyfriend, father of her child, is killed.
The Handmaid's Tale (1990)
Interesting and even vital sociological implications.
For those who think this might be far-fetched I refer to the Christian and very influential theologian, St Augustine of Hippo, who thought sex was disgusting (and he had had quite a bit of it) and only redeemed by its procreative aspect. This ably demonstrates that reducing sex to that function is debased, and totally wrong. Yet sanctions on contraception are still widely upheld. Figure out the implications of that. The series ably illustrates the ridiculous and artificial restrictions on female behavior: women are overly delicate in speech and gesture but when violence is mandated they are expected to, and do, comply. And even for unbelievers, quaint, pious expressions are so successfully inculcated they can't resist mouthing them even when unobserved. It reminded me suddenly of Joan of Arc who saved France as a separate country, but simply had to die, because, what do you do with a talented, heroic female soldier whose existence undermines the male biases of the whole system? This movie is not merely futuristic but a kind of parodic reflection of the status and lives of most women in this so-called civilized world. Traditional religion has not been the only negative factor, but it certainly hasn't helped much.
Marguerite et Julien (2015)
A French version of Romeo and Juliet and doomed love.
This is a beautifully directed movie with excellent acting. I link the anomalous intrusive details like helicopters in a seventeenth century setting with the relative values presented, which are that while incest is not generally speaking a good idea, there can be exceptions. However, executions and beheadings, generally and in this case and similar cases in particular, are simply ugly and insane. Within the context of the movie Marguerite's and Julien's relationship is universally condemned, but even that is to some extent tempered with a kind of faith in the power of love and destiny. The movie's style is romantic, perhaps a little repetitive like a long ballad with refrains, but is certainly in keeping with the subject matter. It could be done another way, of course, but that would be another movie.