Viridiana

The brokenness of giant inequality, the properness of generosity to the poor, reveals itself to be Heironymus Bosch. The masses deservingly degrade themselves in the slop of aristocratic wealth because the lust for crumbs overwhelms easily the monstrous life of society's worms.

Phantom of Liberty

Perversion infiltrates liberty from the founding of the French nation to the current sickness legitimating the killing in Afghanistan. The search for obscenity does not find obscurity in the absence of lost children but in the absurd truth that we find in the pursuit of nothingness.

The Maid

Can the gift of love, the effort at true understanding, transform a life of suffering? Can the pattern of pain rooted in crowded loneliness--separateness amid glowing togetherness be cleansed through sisterhood healing?

All About My Mother

The theology of forgiveness, of broken flesh--
this is my body this is my blood--
the eternal recurrence of unconditionally
compassionate love.

The Last Metro

The definitive French beauty and well--let's be honest--kind of cute pug dog face fall madly in love through theater's counter fascist struggle.

The President's Analyst

The conspiratorial reality of the 1960s ultimately reduced to corporate surveillance extraordinarily prescient.

A Serious Man

Kitty corner to Mount Zion Temple, the 150 year old Saint Paul congregation, meeting place for a subcultural second Minnesota world, is Kowalski's on Grand Avenue and the Short Line now called Ayd Mill Road, which used to be a Red Owl Supermarket where we would buy hamburger and Campbell's mushroom soup for Wednesday night hotdish.

A World Without Thieves (2004)

Slow motion palimpsest
panning down neck nape
in orchestral melancholy
"there's more than just money between us"
意思:
美国爱中国
我们生了
一个男叫贪
Meaning:
U.S.loves China
let's give birth
a boy called greed

An allegory of contemporary China's economic boom built on bloodthirst
or
when finance wizards, world economy wreckers, reap obscene bonuses--with mighty U.S. greenbacking--can the credit bubble bankers with their gate guarded global real estate jetsetting exclusivity escape blame?

What does a thief look like?
--Dumbo's naive cry--
Who here is a thief?

大哥!
大姐!
你们在哪儿？

对不起
你太晚了
我去游泳
在币

Big Brother!
Big Sister!
Where are you?

Sorry,
You are too late.
I went swimming
in money.

The Hurt Locker (2008)

Sunday: bomb blast in Baghdad kills 155, including 24 children.

"Every time you go out, you roll the dice, you know that..."

Naive compassion gets you killed. The American soldier recognizes the enemy's savagery and overcomes with reckless self sacrifice for little children.

God bless SSgt. William James.

La Ciénaga (2001)

Wrapped in coffee grinds, casaba melon rind, stem and seeds of red bell pepper, empty TJs soy milk quart box best if used by 19May10, the 1980s bound scribbles of a confused college boy.

In mid street, centered on yellow lines, two blocks east of the Valley Village Post Office, the golden spattered fur, dried insides, muzzle of a medium sized dog.

The September Issue (2009)

The Devil Wears Prada: documentary about a hard working woman who must be tough to "get the job done," comic relief provided by funny fascinistas, with ultimate lesson "be true to yourself."

Under the Roofs of Paris (1930)

Quand elle eut vingt ans
Sa vieille maman
Lui dit un jour tendrement:
"Dans notre log'ment
J'ai peiné souvent
Pour t'él'ver fallait d'l'argent;
Mais t'as compris, un peu plus chaque jour,
Ce que c'est le bonheur, mon amour

{Refrain:}
Sous les toits de Paris
Tu vois ma p'tit' Nini
On peut vivre heureux et bien uni
Nous somm's seul's ici-bas
On n's'en aperçoit pas
On s'rapproche un peu plus et voilà !
Tant que tu m'aim's bien
J'n'ai besoin de rien
Près de ta maman
Tu n'as pas d'tourments
C'est ainsi qu'cœur à cœur
On cueill', comme une fleur,
Sous les toits de Paris, le bonheur".

Un jour, sans façon,
Un joli garçon,
Comme on chant' dans les chansons
Lui fit simplement
Quelques compliments,
La grisa de boniments;
Nini, j'te jur' ça s'fait plus la vertu
Je t'ador', sois à moi dis, veux-tu ?

Sous les toits de Paris
Dans ma chambr' ma Nini
On s'aim'ra, c'est si bon d'être uni !
C'est quand on a vingt ans
Quand fleurit le printemps,
Qu'il faut s'aimer, sans perdre un instant
L'air était très pur
Et le ciel d'azur
Ell' dit: "Je n'veux pas !"
Puis ell' se donna.
C'est ainsi qu'en ce jour
La vainqueur, comm' toujours
Sous les toits de Paris fut l'amour !

Malgré les serments,
Hélas son amant
La quitta cruellement
La pauvre Nini
Pleura bien des nuits
Un soir... . on frapp'... c'était lui
Il supplia: "Ma chérie, j'ai eu tort,
Pardonn'-moi, tu sais je t'aim' encor' "

Sous les toits de Paris
Quelle joie pour Nini
De r'trouver un passé tant chéri
Quand il dit: "Maintenant
Tu sais c'est le moment,
Faut s'marier tous les deux gentiment
Car rien n'est cassé,
Tout est effacé,
Oublie le passé
Et viens m'embrasser"
Vit' Nini pardonna
Et l'bonheur s'installa
Sous les toits de Paris c'est comm' ça !

The Color of Paradise (1999)

If a horse breaks through rickety bridge, brays into river rapids, blind boy follows whipped, rag doll dashed down stream, bobs then sinks, father--escaped to other side--bizarrely pauses before shouting, races, dives, grasps slippery stone or hanging branch, bobs then sinks and--quick cut--appears at sea to discover his agonizing love for heartrending son apparently breathless then revived in sun shimmering on wave slushed sand, is this allegory?

Ponyo (2008)

I once dreamed I was a fish who dreamed of being a girl.
I love you Ponyo!

The Headless Woman (2008)

If I slipped a quaalude into the water she called coffee--made with three spoons of Maxwell House per 12 cup pot--it didn't slow her down, the residue of fifty nicotine filled years coursing through bloodstream. Oxygen machine meant to give life, but we knew the reverse was true. Briefly removing the tubes, putting a tissue to nose, she still spoke strongly of macaroni and cheese mixed with tuna Fridays during lent, family, white toast cut crosswise, a margarine tub, and gallons of milk with spaghetti, piping hot Prego, and big round meatballs--what a treat.

I dodged the soft balls of family pride meant to string in the cats cradle of love breaking through our confused clan. She wondered at the appeal of sushi, atheism, contemporary films with F this and F that, as a child dreamed of being a Rockette not vice chair for Minnesota IRs. But looking back, she likely thought, she had it all, not unlike Frank Sinatra, so lying in ER the breathless word was "no" and dad's deep emptiness against doctor's urging, let her go.

I smiled lightly when escape came. "There's never enough time", "touché," she smiled back, "true", and I promised with a kiss to see her in the summer.

I Am Cuba (1964)

PMP, the Pedrito Martinez Project swelters an early August Summerstage audience for the preview of Revolución Cubana.

Exiting the event, nearly 4 hours into the evening, a young man in khaki shorts and "I heart NY" tee says to his friend, "But don't you think it was sort of anti-American?"

Red Desert (1965)

Little rat pitter-patters on Grand Street platform from behind black primed still hopelessly rusting bent garbage storage bin, stands on back paws and peers hello. Waving, "Hi there little rat."

New York Magazine's newest Mozart chef Ratatouille "Can I make you Omelette aux asperges organiques Bleu d'Auvergne AOC?"

Baby rat peaks out to follow. "Aaawww, cute. Don't be shy."

"Clickety-clack, clickety-clack, clickety-clack . . ." Getting louder, getting closer. The pair scurry back home.

2046 (2004)

Sheer stocking rubs up calf to lashes drooping tears on lip tongue squeezing whisper--with raging patience of 6th Avenue express commuters at West 4th doors stuck half closed, "Open the fucking doors!"-- after needed rendez-vous raté, island tonearm plunges rough storm up the Pearl River. Palming paperbills of disdain only scalds the steeping taste for longan, but his ink stains wait for another fiction.

Skinny cyborg retropop phenom return destabilizer, Shenzhen/Sham Chun generation gap. Cotton candy pink Solaris spaceship neon glow, in the course of mouthing cupcake icing inscriptions mechanical word becomes flesh, only to discover--qua anti-Bridge on the River Kwai colonialist caraciture--Molotov torch held for scruffy bearded long hair beauty.

Long fused incendiary hesitation born out of interior scroll slow mo flowered years passed high card gambling destiny destroys forgetfulness ending trilogy triumphant what might have beens--"and so I'm offering this simple phrase"--anguished street sweat idealism disappears in skyline's checkered night.

Days of Being Wild (1990)

Seduce for pleasure, savor abandonment's pain.

Noir's relentless drive to embrace the past-future with no future-past modeled on a Band of Outsiders, searching for the petty cash boosting hopeless middle class corruption, heroic post-war America, domestic savagery haunting northern California redwoods Out of the Past--"Sometimes the cabin's gloomy and the table's bare/ But when he kisses me it's Christmas everywhere"--a vaccine needed for international travel, but no flight for double crossed Swede's set up in Burt's film debut, The Killers too impatient for the diner, yet hotel brooding seems interminable--"And when you kissed Robert Mitchum/ Gee but I thought you'd never catch him"--clinical depression of a man named Leslie.

At last, with dangling cigarette, face the bullets with style.

The Beaches of Agnès (2008)

Waiting for D train, Coney Island to Norwood, 36th street station, a woman reads Eat Out in TONY.

"Did you buy that in Sunset Park?"

She shakes her head no.

"I can never find that around here."

"I subscribe," she says with probably German accent.

Crossing the Manhattan bridge foggy Giacometti figures climbing cables of 1883 Gothic icon reveal themselves in blue as spinning wires.

The R68 emergency brake handle suggests a cockroach.