12 Great Opening Scenes in Cinema

CITIZEN KANE


2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY


ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST


ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA


RAN


HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR


8 1/2


TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A.


SAVING PRIVATE RYAN


THE WILD BUNCH


BLADE RUNNER


ANDREI RUBLEV

Recently Watched Movies

THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT. First watched this on TV in the mid 1980s. Michael Cimino's crime caper movie, released two years before the Bi-centennial, is a cynical action-portrait of  human nature and American history. It begins with a church and ends with a one-room school house. It involves friends and war veterans. America, the land of God, Knowledge and Brotherhood of Man, is really about money(and anyway you can get it). And as the story traverses through natural wonders of Montana, there is the reminder that the land was stolen from Indians. Rating: A-


RAN. Watched this upon release in 1985. Seen it several times since. It's like a beautiful bridge with a collapsed arch. The Lear-figure who has to shoulder the tragic weight simply recedes as character and remains as prop, resulting in an haphazard narrative of impressive but disjointed wonders.Ultimately, the greatest tragedy of RAN is it fails as tragedy. But as drama of power politics, betrayal, and revenge, it is a stunning achievement. Rating: A


DAZED AND CONFUSED. Richard Linklater's surprising masterpiece never gets old. How such a loose story of kids taking it easy was made with such impeccable(and imperceptible) expertise and precision is truly amazing. An obvious labor of love made to seem effortless. It's like slacker on a tightrope. It has the directness of cinema-verite and the fine-tuning of a Swiss watch. Rating: A+


CLOVERFIELD. Recently revisited this movie. Proof that even the most ludicrous premise can be made to work with the right blend of ingenuity and heart. The idea of a space monster smashing NY is far-fetched, so how does the movie grab hold of our senses to accept the fantastic as 'factual'? It begins with a perfect rendition of Home Movie where all the people and places are recognizable and familiar. Then, through traumatized glimpses of the horror that erupts into the lives of the well-situated characters, the audience is left with little room to process what is going on. Events become so outrageous and unpredictable that the Fear Factor takes over. We only think SURVIVAL. But then, just when the characters(and the audience) have been rendered most primal in their instinct for self-preservation, the story strikes a romantic chord as the male character ventures off to rescue a damsel-in-distress and is, touchingly enough, joined by friends who decide to risk their own lives in the spirit of camaraderie. So, the most brutal kind of action-horror takes on an element of sentimentality and fairy-tale. And it works because the characters have been rendered as 'real' and believable in the opening scenes prior to the horror. Also, the all too human theme of love-and-friendship maintains an air of veracity amidst the mounting craziness of a city being rudely rearranged by what looks like a Godzilla-sized alligator-snapping turtle without a shell. There is even poignancy in the subtle reminder of fragility of the 'real'. Just as NY is being turned into smithereens by the monster from nowhere, the old video footage(of happier times) is being erased by new footage(of the mayhem). If so much of our current 'reality' is electronic and manipulated, imagine all the 'realities' that are being made and unmade on a daily basis by countless individuals who create new worlds and wipe them clean by toying with a few buttons. Are we god-monsters too? Certain horror purists may argue that CLOVERFIELD works on surprise than on suspense, which requires more sophistication. But the conception and execution of CLOVERFIELD are pretty amazing and incredibly inventive, even if of a shallower nature. Rating: A-


HIDDEN FORTRESS. This Kurosawa action-epic looks better than ever. It features a samurai order of sacrifice and obedience. Regal and majestic but also repressive and cold-blooded. Then, there is the hot-blooded world of commoners. Spontaneous and lively but coarse, crude, and treacherous. As the remnants of a fallen clan must trek through forests and villages disguised as ordinary people, the haughty princess comes to see what is most beautiful and ugly about humanity. And the two commoners, via their accidental role in aiding the princess to safety, comes to realize a value higher than petty greed. It was never one of my Kurosawa favorites, but seeing it on Blu-Ray, I recognize its greatness. Rating: A


PAUL, APOSTLE OF CHRIST. Watched about 20 min of this and had enough. One of those movies that beat you over the head with sermonizing. There are two kinds of religious films. Ones that get close to the source(before Christianity became a sure thing) and ruminate on the sheer difficulty of bringing forth a new faith. And ones that take for granted that Christ and Apostles were so holy and correct. Even though the latter may show lots of pain and suffering, there's a smug and lazy sense of righteousness and whose side God is on. It may work as theology but not as drama. THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST, for all its faults, presents a Jesus who is troubled and uncertain as to his mission, purpose, and strength. From that arises a real sense of struggle that must be overcome dramatically. We are with a man in a world before he was canonized by officialdom. NOAH by Aronofsky is similarly provocative. In contrast, most religious films are merely self-satisfied in their retroactive renditions of a time when everything supposedly happened as it was deigned by God. There was no struggle toward holiness. Jesus and the Apostles were all holy and only needed to wait it out(and suffer a bit) before humanity came around to seeing their holiness. Rating: C-


GHOST WORLD. I never get tired of this film. An instant classic. Enid is one of my favorite characters. It tell us there's a lot of caricatures in humanity and a lot of humanity in caricatures. Rating: A+


RED SPARROW. Watched about 15 min of this and fast-forwarded the rest. Worse than honest trash. It's pompous trash. Rating: D


THE RIGHT STUFF. Based on the book by the late Tom Wolfe and directed by Philip Kaufman who, until then, was perhaps most famous for his version of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, a movie that also informed parts of THE WANDERERS, his best work. There is something Body-Snatcherish about THE RIGHT STUFF as well. America(and the world) is turning into the World of Organization Man. Soviets shoot rockets into space to hail the triumph of socialism and statism. US ramps up the space race, and the days of the cowboy test-pilots and individualists are over. It's the world of engineers and professionals. Against this, the Magnificent Seven do their best to retain the spirit that is human, heroic, and American. They refuse to be test-monkeys in space. They insist on being pilots. Is it a delusion? Maybe it's a dream. Excellent movie. But like Sidney Lumet's PRINCE OF THE CITY, a failure at the box office. Both films would be the last great work by the two directors. Rating: A


THE BLACKCOAT'S DAUGHTER. Is his film evil? Yes or no, it is a hauntingly beautiful and terrifying story of how a soul can fall deeply in love with evil. A masterpiece directed by the son of Anthony Perkins. Rating: A

Response to "Hungarian Foreign Minister DEMOLISHES triggered BBC reporter calling for open borders in Europe"

Actually, this is what the Hungarian Foreign Minister should have said:

Diversity works only within the EUROPEAN Union. In order for the EU to be European, it must be by Europeans and for Europeans. As it currently functions, the EU might as well be called the World Union, or especially the Afro-Islamo-European-Union. It says something about current EU that it is so hostile toward fellow whites in Russia and Hungary and Poland while being so celebratory and welcoming of Africans, Arabs, and Asians. So, basically, the current EU wages war on White Europe and tries to unite Europe with non-Europe. Furthermore, it wages war on the meaning of what it means to be European. According to EU, a 'European' is anyone who just comes to Europe and signs a piece of paper. So, history, culture, and blood no longer matter. A European with 10,000s of years of racial evolution in Europe and 1,000s of years of cultural history in Europe is NO MORE EUROPEAN than a newly arrived African or Arab who just learned the language and signed a citizenship paper. Basically, it means that the roots of a European has NO meaning. It doesn't matter if your roots in Europe racially go back eons and culturally go back millennia. You are NO MORE EUROPEAN than some Arab or African who just came for free gibs and to assimilate to globo-homo Hollywood-Rap culture.
Calling Africans, Arabs, and Asians the 'New Europeans' is a sleight-of-hand trick. It's like replacing orange juice with lime juice and labeling it as 'new orange juice'. Suppose I take over your house and call myself the 'new you'. That way, YOU didn't lose your house to me because I'm the 'new you'. So, the house still belongs to you because I am 'you', or the 'new you'. Isn't that ridiculous? It's all semantic BS.

Hungary joined the EUROPEAN Union to cooperate more fully with fellow Europeans. It didn't join to become one with Afro-Islamo-European Union. Also, Hungarians know what a real European is. He is a person with deep racial, historical, and cultural roots in Europe. But EU has changed rules so that ANYONE can become an Insta-European by signing a piece of paper. The rich stream of European blood has been replaced with the stamp of globo-homo ink. A true European has no more claim or birthright to Europe than billions of non-Europeans around the world. (This is the logic of colonialism and imperialism. Just like European imperialists tried to suppress the birthrights of the peoples they conquered, the globalist project of EU seeks to suppress any notion of ancestral claim and birthright among Europeans in their mother-continent.) EU will say dumb things like 'Europe was always a world of immigrants', but virtually all those peoples were fellow whites, fellow Europeans. Surely, a bunch of blacks going from one African nation to another is less jarring than a bunch of non-Africans settling in Africa. The same is true of Europe. A bunch of Poles going to Germany or UK is less jarring and disruptive than millions of black Africans and Arab Muslims taking over entire areas of Europe. Also, the history of Europe was about resistance against foreign invaders. Mongols invaded Russia and even reached Poland. They were eventually pushed out. Moors invaded Sicily and Spain. They were pushed back to North Africa eventually. Turks invaded Greece and parts of Balkans; they tried to invade more. Europeans rolled back the Turkish tide. Europe wasn't about inviting invasions by non-Europeans but about repelling them.

Anyway, it is not Hungary or Poland that violated the agreements of the European Union. It was the globo-homo elites of EU who've decided to collaborate with the Empire of Judea. They are not real leaders but comprador-collaborators. Their duty was to keep Europe European and to facilitate easier and more efficient cooperation among Europeans, but they undermined their own project by effectively uniting Europe with Africa and the Middle East(and even Asia). Meanwhile, they badmouth Russia because they're puppets of Jewish Supremacists filled with hatred for Putin who said NO to Homomania(as proxy of Jewish Domination).

Also, there is no greater human right than for a nation to survive as a people and culture. Demographic Imperialism that replaces the people and culture is a form of geo-ethnocide. It's obvious from the creation of Israel that massive movements of peoples can lead to a destruction of a people and culture. Massive Jewish demographic imperialism led to the eradication of Palestine. Palestinians live like animals in a zoo in Gaza. They live under Apartheid conditions in the West Bank.
After WWII, the anti-imperialist struggles of Third World peoples were all nationalist. Hindus in India told the British to go home because India is for Indians. Africans told Europeans to pack up and leave because black Africa belongs to black Africans. Anti-imperialism founded on the principle of universal nationalism was the most fundamental form of human rights. Before we can have individual rights and liberties, we must be free as a people from foreign or imperialist domination. For example, Palestinian individuals in Israel have many individual rights and liberties, but they are NOT free as a people. Their nation, Palestine, has been taken over by Jews, and all Palestinians, no matter how rich or free as individuals, don't have a nation because their land now belongs to Zionist overlords. If it happened to Palestinians, it can happen to anyone. Consider how Kosovo had once been the sacred homeland of Serbians. But over time, Albanian Muslims moved in and settled in Kosovo under Ottoman rule, and the Serbs lost their ancient homeland forever. But I suppose EU can advise Serbians to just see Albanian Muslims as 'New Serbians'. Of course, Albanians don't see themselves that way.

Also, Diversity has many meanings. The World is Diverse, after all. So, Diversity as a condition of the world isn't a problem. The world will always be diverse, made up of various races, ethnic groups, nations, cultures, religions, regions, and etc. But Diversity as PC formula is about forcing Demographic Imperialism on each nation(except Israel). Every nation must be made into a mini-world. But why? Hungary is Hungary, and it should be Hungarian. If you want to see China or Africa, visit China or Africa. Why bring China, Africa, Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, and etc. into your own nation, especially if it's small? If rising Diversity is such a huge headache for massive nations like the US and Brazil with so much space, imagine its impact on smaller nations like Hungary and Poland? At the very least, white Americans can flee from Diversity. In small European nations, you are stuck with it right outside your door.

The kind of Diversity pushed by EU is really a form of imperialism. Diversity as a condition of the world is just a reality. But Diversity as a formula is about coercing all nations(except Israel) to surrender to massive demographic imperialism and replacement. It's usually about higher-IQ prosperous nations with low-birthrates being demographically taken over by low-IQ peoples from poor nations with high birthrates. The result will be loss of entire civilizations. Just do the math. Over time, the current Diversity policy of EU will turn all of Europe into something like Morocco. Is Morocco a happy place? If diverse North Africa is so great, why do people there want to move to white Europe?

Also, EU's pontificating about Human Rights is so much BS. If EU really cares about non-whites, why doesn't it ever stand up to Jewish-run US neo-imperialist policy that destroyed so much of the Middle East and North Africa? For the most part, the EU didn't do anything about George W. Bush's illegal war on Iraq. EU was silent about Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright's sanctions that killed 100,000s of Iraqi women and children. The EU has continued to support Israeli occupation of West Bank. EU has gone along with US sanctions against Iran that hurt so many people. EU supported Obama-and-Hillary's destruction of Libya even though Gaddafi made peace with the West. EU worked with the US to aid terrorists and Jihadis to tear Syria apart. 400,000 people died. EU never stood up to Jewish-run US empire that destroys millions of lives in the Muslim World.
Indeed, the so-called 'refugee' crisis is the result of Jewish-run US neo-imperialism in Middle East and North Africa. But the EU, that is gutless in standing up to Zionist-American power, huffs and puffs about Hungary and Poland whose only desire is to protect their nations. It is the Jewish-run US that is pushing the Invade-Invite Policy. It says the US should freely invade and destroy nations around the world(especially to serve Israel's interests), and as millions and millions of people will be displaced by such invasions, the white world must 'invite' those people as a 'humanitarian' gesture. So, Jews use Western Power to destroy all nations hated by Israel, and then, Jews morally pressure white nations to accept the 'refugees'. Of course, Israel takes none and won't even give back Golan Heights that was stolen from Syria. What a bunch of a**holes.

Finally, Diversity-as-Formula is a form of imperialism. Nazi Empire was about diversity. It was about many peoples being forced to live under the Nazi umbrella. Soviet Empire was diverse. It was about many peoples being forced to live under Soviet Hegemony. The EU is now about forcing demographic imperialism on every European nation to make them more diverse. Just like Nazi Empire forced Slavic lands to accept German settlers, the EU forces European nations to accept African and Muslim invaders displaced by Jewish globo-homo imperialist wars in the Middle East and North Africa. (Jews apparently want to use wars to empty the Middle East so that they can grab more territory.)

The EU project could have worked if it had remained European and respected the national rights of all European peoples. But it turned into an arm of Judeo-Globo-Homo project. As such, it went from a sunny project of uniting and preserving Europe to a stormy project uniting Europe with Africa, Muslim World, and South Asia. It came to be about forcing the Diversity Formula or the Demographic-Imperialist Agenda on each and every nation.

So, why did so many white people fall for this poison pill? Because Political Correctness imbues vain white people with a new kind of supremacism. If imperialist whites of the past were racial supremacists, today's whites are moral supremacists. They think they are soooooooo very goody-good and holier-than-others because they are so obedient to the Globo-Homo Agenda that demeans anything white and patriotic as 'racist' while extolling anything Diverse(usually black) as sacrosanct. So, just by mouthing sacramental platitudes about 'diversity' and 'human rights', these insufferably smug PC whites think they are superior to nationalists and patriots. But then, communists also felt morally superior by mouthing off platitudes about 'equality' and 'revolution'. Just another form of supremacism among people for whom every corner of the world must be made to cave to their dogmatically imbecile notion of right-and-wrong.

10 Essential Films by Martin Scorsese

Goodfellas



Mean Streets



Casino



Raging Bull



Taxi Driver



Silence



The Age of Innocence



Kundun



King of Comedy



The Wolf of Wall Street

Response to "Voters elect against dividing Koreatown to include Bangladesh Town"

http://abc7.com/politics/voters-elect-against-koreatown-split/3628714/

When US cities were white, non-white immigrants sought to assimilate with whiteness.

The idea was US is essentially a white nation but open to others as well.
The idea was that white people had the power, wealth, and good stuff. So, whiteness was the ideal, the standard. Quintessentially American. John Wayne stuff. After all, the immigrants left their own nations. And they didn't want to go to non-white nations but to white majority nations, especially America.

So, as long as whites had the numbers, prestige, and power, all non-white immigrant groups shared something in common: Respect for whiteness and wish to merge with whiteness. Whiteness lessened non-white vs non-white tensions because all non-white groups could ignore one another and move toward whiteness.

But over time in many cities, whites lost the numbers, the power, and the prestige(due to Jewish-controlled PC). So, in a city like LA, there are lots of non-white groups living alongside one another. But none of them represents something that all non-whites would want to move toward or merge with. Non-white groups once valued the movement-toward-whiteness as the process of 'Americanization', but the same cannot be said for movement-toward-non-whiteness(even though the official narrative is that 'American' is purely ideological and has nothing to do with race or even culture). (The exception is movement-toward-blackness in style and attitude but certainly not in jobs, schools, and residence.) It was once considered(and still is, albeit mutedly) prestigious for non-whites to merge with whiteness --- synonymous with becoming 'Americanized' --- , but the same cannot be said for merging with, say, Mexicans, Cambodians, Vietnamese, Hindus, and etc. Even though the official ideology says Mexican-Americanism and Vietnamese-Americanism are just as American as white-Americanism, no one really feels this way in real life. Diversity really means the desire by non-whites to be included in the White or White-made world. Diversity without whiteness would be like building a model without glue. The structure wouldn't hold together. It's been said that Diversity means 'no more whites', but that'd be self-defeating like a model set without glue. Indeed, diversity without whiteness isn't appealing to most people. Latin America and North Africa are very diverse, but neither has enough whites. India is very diverse, but Hindus prefer to move to a white nation. Most people in diverse nations with no or few whites prefer to move to white nations. Ideal Diversity requires the White Magnet. Hindus don't want to be with blacks or even with fellow Hindus. Black Africans don't want to be with Hindus or even with fellow black Africans. Both want to be with whites, and the Diversity in UK is the result of non-whites preferring whites over non-whites(even their own kind).

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41HICBc0vZL._SL500_AC_SS350_.jpg

If an Asian-American moves to a white community, he or she feels 'Americanized'. Indeed, he or she is willing to surrender his or her own identity to take up this new prestigious ersatz-white identity. But would Chinese-Americans want to give up their identity to merge with Mexican-Americanism, Hindu-Americanism, or even Korean-Americanism? I think not.

Indeed, it's interesting that Chinese have been in Southeast Asian nations for so very long BUT they've mostly retained their Chinese identity and pride. In contrast, so many East Asians in white nations instantly surrender everything about their race, culture, and language to merge with whiteness or 'westernness'. People will surrender their culture for something higher but not for something lower. Chinese will surrender Chineseness to become 'white' or 'western'(deemed superior to Chineseness) but not to become 'Filipino' or 'Indonesian'(considered lower than Chineseness). Maybe Sephardic Jews mixed more with Muslims and Arabs because they weren't all that smarter, whereas Ashkenazi Jews in Europe, being markedly smarter, were less willing to merge with goyim. I dunno.

If Los Angeles had lots of whites, this 'fancy' Asian vs 'jungle' Asian dichotomy wouldn't matter. Both the 'fancies' and 'junglies' would focus on merging with whiteness as the American Ideal. Indeed, Asian women find it most ideal to marry white and have white-looking kids. And even in Asia, lots of Asian women get plastic surgery and dye their hair brunette or blonde to look like cartoon-white-people.

But because whiteness is becoming a more precious commodity in places like LA, the 'fancies' and 'junglies' are becoming more ghettoized in their own identities. Vanishing of whiteness means less of something for which Asians(or other non-white groups) are willing to surrender their own identities in order to merge with something higher or more quintessentially American.

Response to a Comment on "Bullseye" by Steve Sailer

http://www.unz.com/isteve/bullseye/

“Jews prioritize scholarship and have been widely persecuted, therefore Jews don’t really tend to have genes that correlate with intelligence.”

Jews were rarely persecuted for their scholarship, at least until the late modern era. It was usually for their business practices and promotion of vice in culture. This hatred of money-makers can be found in Jewish culture itself. Much of the Bible is about moralistic prophets condemning the materialist money-grubbing Jews. Greed eventually leads to decadence, and Prophets warn of God's wrath that descends upon Jews to teach them a lesson over and over and over. Much of the Bible is about the scholarly moralism of Jewish prophets vs wanton materialism of Jewish merchants who lose their way in favor of idolatry.

Same can be found in Chinese culture. Confucianism prized the scholar and hated the merchant, considered the lowest of the low. And anti-Chinese sentiments in Southeast Asia had little to do with Chinese-devotion-to-books. It's because they love money. I doubt if any Indonesian attacked Chinese because the latter was reading the Analects or Tao Te Ching. It was about Chinese business acumen and practices.

For much of Jewish history, there was a kind of understanding between the Rabbis and Merchants... just like the Saudi Royal Family(of tycoons) arrived at an understanding with the Wahabi sect.
Jewish merchants would make lots of money but donate generously to Rabbis who, in turn, would be less judgmental about avarice. Same kind of relationship existed between the Church, Aristocracy, and Merchants in Christian Europe.
And even though Confucianism officially condemned merchants, it was the business class that made the economy work, and so, it was tolerated and protected by the Power managed by the scholar class. And today, the rich class in the West maintains a wink-wink pact with the Prog-priesthood of PC. Homo Worship binds them together.

Still, there was a strain of Jewishness that was virulently anti-Jewish-profiteering. Christianity began this way, with Jesus condemning the close ties between Temple and Money. And Confucianism was anti-Chinese-profiteering. It favored scholars and peasants(at least in prestige) over the merchants.

This all came to a head with Marxism. He declared War on Greed. It was a new round of Jewish prophets vs Jewish merchants. But if this sort of thing was limited to the Jewish community in the past, it became international because Marx was a Christianized atheist German living in the center of World Power. If ancient Jewish prophets kept the debate within the community, Marx universalized the conflict within the Jewish Tribe between prophets and merchants(just like Jewish feminism later projected Jewish male/female neurosis on the rest of humanity). Unlike Christianity that has a passive and otherworldly element, Marxism said heaven could exist on earth.
This did make Jewish scholarship dangerous and threatening in ways that past Jewish scholarship hadn't been. For most of Jewish history in Europe, the main reason for the anti-Jewish hatred was Jewish 'merchantry'. Most Jewish intellectual ideas were for fellow Jews and remained in the community. So, Christians had little interest in Jewish learning or ideas. But Marxist scholarship spilled out into the larger sphere and affected all of humanity. Many goyim welcomed it as liberating and empowering. Many goyim opposed it as radical, repressive, and Jewish. Granted, it wasn't technically Jewish since Marx was irreligious, didn't consider himself Jewish, and called for World Revolution. But it was especially appealing to Jews just like Freudianism was. The prophetic style of Marx was very much in keeping with Jewish tradition.

Marxism spread to China, and Maoism was maybe the greatest war on greed in the name of virtue. But, both Jews and Chinese learned that you can't run a society on moralism and prophecy alone. So, both peoples have arrived at their own 'end of history' of coordinating moralism with materialism. This is maybe easier for the Chinese because China is about Chinese ruling Chinese. Chinese leaders figure that common and basic morality would be good for most Chinese. Wealth is good but must be built on the shoulders of virtuous people. Excessive capitalism has made Chinese overly materialistic and soulless, and the regime wants to change that.
In contrast, Jewish scholarship is more ambivalent about moralism. While goy majority moralism may make for a more orderly and sound society, it also cuts into Jewish profits in Vice Industries like gambling. Also, moralism makes the larger community feel proud and confident. Christian moralism certainly strengthened goy righteousness. To weaken the goy majority, Jewish merchants and Jewish scholars work together to theorize and market immorality-as-the-new-morality. The result, from stuff like 'gay marriage', is quite obvious.

10 French Pop Songs

Chantal Goya-Si tu Gagnes au Flipper



Je t'aime... moi non plus - Serge Gainsbourg et Jane Birkin



Dalida & Alain Delon - Paroles, paroles



Francoise Hardy - Comment te dire adieu



Marie Laforet - Ivan, Boris et moi 1967



1970) Mireille Mathieu Pardonne moi ce caprice d'enfant



France Gall - Laisse tomber les filles 1964 HD (Tele Melody)



La Plus Belle Pour Aller Danser - Sylvie Vartan



Christophe - Aline



Elle est d'ailleurs - Pierre Bachelet