Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962)

Panning left, Cléo's eyes then head rising, face turning, sidelight from june solstice, rues de Paris, shimmering fountain cheeks, wig white ghosting before black curtain:

Toutes portes ouvertes
En plein courant d'air
Je suis une maison vide
Sans toi, sans toi

Comme une île déserte
Que recouvre la mer
Mes vagues se dévident
Sans toi, sans toi

Belle en pure perte
Nue au cœur de l'hiver
Je suis un corps avide
Sans toi, sans toi

Rongée par le cafard
Morte au cercueil de verre
Je me couvre de rides
Sans toi, sans toi

Et si tu viens trop tard
On m'aura mise en terre
Seule, laide et livide
Sans toi, sans toi
Sans toi

Quick zoom out.

C'est trop!
Je n' peux plus!
C'est affreux!

Forehead collapses on upright lid.

Rocco and His Brothers (1960)

"Once during a strike in Turin, Gramsci spoke to a conscript from Sardinia, one of the soldiers brought in to deal with the unrest in the city, who refused to believe that the workers on strike were poor people, and who told Gramsci, 'I know poor people and how they are dressed.'"--James Joll, Antonio Gramsci

Fascism roots itself in southern brother love and northern sister hate--banned in Milan for "inopportune resemblance to reality"--bare chests, bare fists cut skin for ancient boy on boy action (MMA submission: a soft tap to the elbow, knee, ankle holding the choke, fighters stand glossy eyed, cheek to cheek, palms olive oil blessing to splenius capitis) to defend rape/murder of lumpenprol.

I Love You Man's contemporary West Side Venetian--late night TV sleaze in shades lounging at helm of 30 foot SeaRay Weekender pitching quick rich rules: after making a killing in real estate, always leave others to clean up your dogshit--whose insipid electric strings of Rush underscore relentless screaming reversal of Richman's "I'm Straight," instructs the same blood bonding, full carat VS1 proposal backed by Lexus LS bluetooth compatibility, urbane burial of sewage canals, children rag picking their J. Crew lifestyle, embrace of totalitarian perfume.

Romance, a terminal perversion must be lived by confessing heartache's brightness, triumphant beauty, Death in Venice.

Bashu, the Little Stranger (1989)

Ubiquitous digit clickers flying from globurbia to capture screened glamour perch atop Sephora, BCBG Max Azria, Gap, American Eagle display windows, aside 5 story Little Mermaid alluring us to "Keep Oceans Clean," gaze down confused at Hollywood and Highland residue of vagabonds, after two hour samba de la paz, chants rising from spirit of Persian Queen/ revolucionaria salvadoreña, estrella blanca, montaña roja, sueño bolivariano de Ali Primera--
Dale salvadoreño, ¡Dale!
Que no hay pajaro pequeño, ¡Dale!
Que despues de alzar el vuelo, ¡Dale!
Se detenga en su volar--
final ujjayi cry at Reagan death squads fueled through 8 years of missiles raining on Mesopotamia--mustard gas with a shake to Saddam, BGM-71 TOWs to Khomeini--a hundred thousand corpses picked at by crows, thousands more limbless vets, orphans, refugees, 20 years later, born again in never ending war, taking shavasana.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005)

Dark red morello cherries in light syrup spooned on to vanilla bean Breyers, bright pink spills onto drugstore plastic table cloth, white painted wood chair, linoleum floor.

On the surface, a recycled domestic drama of marriage dry limping from corporate careerism with same pseudo-subversion of 1983 masters of the universe Trading Places denouement: surprise surprise, money does buy happiness after all.

Not small kitchen coffee can coinage--bent black wood Danish barstools, Carrara island, Bertazzoni 8 burner range, Gagg double wall oven, Northland 72" stainless steel wrap door side-by-side furnish 40 x 40 breccia oniciata floored Williams-Sonoma gallery, showered by Smiths' gleeful ketchup in cheek high caliber squirt-out.

Phantasmagoria of the interior decorator's ars erotica as in Pitt, Norton, Bonham Carter ménage à trois égale ménage à un Fight Club compels scale of extreme s/m pleasure unmatchable outside octagon of Ultimate Fighter 1 Finale, Griffin v. Bonnar--Brangelina foreplay Muay Thai style.

More darkly, through another homage to 1970s Dirty Harry vigilantism we defend terror to its last ticking IED, as long as the thugs are multi-millionaire A-list white beauties with a couple of Jags in the garage.

The River (1997)

思惟轉昏汨亂精魂
將心止動轉止轉奔
心銘, 牛頭法融 (Xin Ming, Niutou Farong)

Thinking brings unclarity,
Sinking and confusing the spirit.
Use mind to stop activity
And it becomes even more eratic.
--Translation Master Sheng Yen

Thinking will cause confusion, and confusion will give rise to all kinds of emotions.
If by grasping the mind one tries to stop agitation, then with this movement the mind will be even more active.
--Translation Henrik H. Sorensen

The meditation transfers the dusk flowing chaotic spirit
Stops the heart turns stops the extension to rush
--Translation Yahoo! Babel Fish

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006)

Those who deride Adorno's readiness to equate Hollywood dreck with fascist propaganda consider this box office smash apologia for imperious exceptionalism. Beneath the grease of sentimental hilarity rubs post 9/11 bubba jingoism smearing the face of patsy Continentals with freedom fries to defend carbon based obesity with unilateral militarism.

Feminine Frenchy Sacha Baron Cohen, specialist in junior high school foreigner mockery, norms NASCAR good-ol'-boy gender, firecrackered by rebel flag on roof of Luke and Bo Duke's '69 Charger smoked in scent of roasted meat resting over idyllic southern town square, one morning after lynching picnic.

The same scent spreads from Disney's Main Street U.S.A., with mascot Mickey's welcoming white gloved hands, nostalgia for Song of the South's "happy darkie," Br'er Rabbit comforted by briar patch.

Lacking cartoon bigotry, Disney's pixelated version of racing romanticism, Cars, holds equally pernicious patriarchal lessons for my Lightning McQueen pajamaed, wall-papered, bedsheeted 5 year old nephew: cars are either boys or girls, and boy cars are real men.

In this autotopic country, collapsed mines don't kill, oil canals don't erode Louisiana coastal marshland and vital organs don't spurt from endoskeletons onto highways because machines build, repair and fuel themselves. And when Ford GT40 Stickers jacks off at the thought of rough sex with Carrera Sally we have a charming embodiment of Lukacsian reification: no more wet dreams.

The Firemen's Ball (1967)

Milos Forman: "In the totalitarian system that I lived in the pressure was ideological . . . On the other hand, here in the West, ideological pressure doesn't exist at all, at all. But there is a commercial pressure, because a film is a very expensive undertaking and everybody who puts money into it wants money back."

But isn't commercial pressure ideological precisely because of its non-ideological pretense?

Isn't the allegory of rampant thievery applied to 1960s Communist Czechoslovakia equally applicable to contemporary Wall Street? Instead of the poor stealing from the poor the rich steals from the rich.

And which is the greater crime: pilfering a head cheese for future jellied meat treat or plundering a national treasury to furnish Montana ranch manor, South France coastal villa , 6 car garage of Hollywood Hills home, W Hotel beach front Fort Lauderdale condo and Upper East Side penthouse overlooking 40,000 shelter scramblers, dragging dirt stiffened clothes in punctured plastic bags through streets of outer boroughs? Poor schmucks.