My take on ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD

I am not sure I want to see ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD, but there is François-Xavier Sauvage’s enthusiastic review on Facebook, and then a fight with my husband. Barricaded behind a small popcorn, I wait. Should have bought a large. Hey, it’s a Tarentino movie, and I am not even wearing a hat to protect myself against the violence
.

But I don’t find the violence in this movie annoying or invasive. It is mostly a spoof of violence.


But I see double. Brad Pitt is the double of Leonardo DeCaprio who, as a fading star, plays in Italian spaghetti westerns, themselves the doubles of American Westerns. The TV Brad and Leonardo watch together is itself a mirror/double of their past glory. The filmed reflect the emotions expressed in reality, making Hollywood a double of reality, but a sanitized double. (The king of Lysol reality or fairytale being, of course, Disney.)


What happens outside the roll of film if stardom cannot be maintained at its peak? What happens to one of the doubles? As DiCaprio’s character shows, nothing but self-destruction. For too long, the star and the roll of film have been one, part of the fairy tale, part of the illusion, here symbolized by Sharon Tate, always beautiful, always happy, (never tragic, never real). To go further DiCaprio’s reality is the roll of film. He is Sharon Tate (who also looks at her double at the movies), full of hope and shine within. Out of the shiny strip of film, he does not exist. What is reality, in fact? And we, the spectators, on the other side of the mirror, watching a movie within a movie? Are we watching ourselves? Are we realizing that reality too is an illusion?


Tarentino appears to enjoy his acrobatics between narrative and ideas, as shows the pace’s fluidity and the way his analysis of Hollywood and the story manage to never disconnect. Intellect and emotion hold hands. And yet, this is a highly watchable movie, highly entertaining and without a dull moment. This parable about Hollywood business and Hollywood narcissistic impact (the constant reflection, double) is also a moving, and at times humorous, drama.


Amidst the splendid cast, I don’t remember when I saw acting as faultless as DiCaprio’s; but watch for ten-year-old Julia Butters, who was part of my two favorite scenes and who has been compared to a young Meryl Streep. Also, pay attention to another powerful scene with Brad Pitt and Bruce Dern.  Dern plays an old friend who is now blind---the significant blind man. Let me paraphrase what a young hippie tells Brad Pitt (/the double/Sancho Panza/the ordinary guy/you and me), afterwards: “It is not him who is blind, it is you who are blind!”


Last time I had a fight with my husband, the movie was delightful. This time, it was a tour de force.

Pierre, where are you? I need a fight!

COLLECTIVE RAPE

Almost from the start, the nomination of Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court felt like a joke. Even when Dr Ford threw herself into the arena, other women had the feeling that the beasts would devour her without giving her a single chance.

And that’s what happened.

To be fair, if Republicans constituted the main part of the monster, partisanship didn’t help. As Dr. Ford re-lived her pain in public, she was exploited by senators for political ends. To both parties, she was little more than a thing, a key for the upcoming elections.

As other women victims of sexual abuse offered their help and testimonies to the senate, only to be ignored and rejected, another solution was presented, that of an investigation by the FBI on the accused, Judge Kavanaugh. But the executive made sure to place clear conditions for this investigation: it would last no longer than a week and only a few people would be interrogated.

The FBI is our national police. Is that a way a criminal investigation is lead? Do the police tell its detectives to finish their investigation in a limited amount of time, and to interrogate only a precise list of persons? Is that how crimes are solved? In just a few days, can strong suspicions of attempted rape suddenly become moral compass?

Can a man with a blurry past and a questionable ability to control his temper (Kavanaugh’s display of anger as he defended himself on the senate floor) be crowned as judge of the Supreme Court of the United States of America?

Apparently, yes to all these questions.

The outcome of the US Senate proceedings, the FBI joke of an investigation included, failed to surprise many of us women. After all, quite of few of us have been abused: sexually, physically, psychologically, take your pick or check the data.  

This time, it felt like a collective rape.

HOW A CAN OF WD-40 MADE A CLASSICAL GUITAR BEHAVE

When it comes to owning a guitar, the difference between having an acoustic one and a classical one is like having an easy-going Saint Bernard and a capricious French poodle. When a string breaks on an acoustic guitar, you just have to change it, plus you’ve got a bridge pin that pretty much takes care of one end. When that string is replaced and tuned up, your fingers can glide along, as your acoustic guitar is basically saying, “Cool, man!” Now you know who the comfy St Bernard is.

Now, for the classical little bitch. You want to get away with changing one string, but the other strings yell, “Me too! Me too!” And they’re not talking about revolution. Remember, they’re classical. They’re like duchesses wanting new dresses for their special soiree. So you end up changing every fucking string! And you’ve got to handle both ends. And there is no bridge pin to help you here. So if you don’t tie up your string properly, the string is going to fly into your face, and the duchess is going to exclaim, “Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” At this point, you may be screaming other stuff that may only be intelligible to extra-terrestrials, stuff life, “##@@uFUckIng@$%CuNt@i$VaNA@i’BEtu’REfuCkING$#&DaDdy☻☻☺$$$!!!”

 But finally, finally! You’re almost done. You’re basically tuned up. Except for the low E. That duchess won’t go further than C. You try, you cajole, but the arthritic bitch won’t budge
 That’s when you go to the garage, grab your DW-40 can and tell that duchess, “Now, here’s a new beauty line that you’re going to love!” And after a few drops and a few turns, everything gets back into e/motion.

OUR BELOVED DICTATORS

 Let’s admit it, we love dictators.

We love Mussolini.
 We love Napoleon.
 We love Pinochet.

No? You disagree?

You believe that, in a country like ours, they should be thrown overboard, and in a jiffy, p-l-e-a-s-e?

 True, the frame of this entire nation, what sustains it, what articulates its flesh is liberty.  And this, despite the initial crimes that were committed against Native Americans and African Americans. We’ve got our own apartheid, our own holocaust, which we should claim . Why? Because we must not forget, for one. But also because it is upon these abuses that we learned and were able to construct the most sophisticated democracy on earth. Granted, it makes liberty quite expensive, and democracy far more precious than priceless stones like The Sancy Diamond. But that’s the way it should be. What we have is not to be taken for granted, and the American Constitution, with its system of carefully orchestrated check and balances, is not as infallible as we thought it once was, but only as solid and honest as the lawmakers who handle it.

  Democracy, in order to survive, must reinvent itself, as society evolves. It does so by amending old laws, creating new ones, establishing new rights. Rights of women, of gays and transgender people. The rights of Blacks and Latinos. The rights of Natives and Mother Earth. So democracy is that organic matter, that stream that un-pollutes itself, that manuscript in constant search for “le most juste”— for just action. It is not a finished work, nor should it ever become one.

 Were it so—finished and square, with a wall, no horizon—it would no longer look like itself.
 Finished, it would be, indeed, finished. A dictatorship.

 Democracy can be, in fact, chaotic at times, albeit capable of offering prosperity and stability. When good economics and low unemployment are part of the landscape, when the middle class spreads wide like a solid foundation, we don’t mind the occasional chaos, for that goes with liberty. But when the economy crumbles, when the job market locks up and poverty increases; when the wealth distribution is so uneven that the middle class keeps shrinking at an alarming pace, stability disappears and chaos is as dizzying as a disease.

 Scraping the bottom of the barrel, workers are wondering how they are going to pay their bills. Cancer patients are asking themselves if they will have to cut their pills in half again in order to be able to reach the end of the month.

 In what used to be the wealthiest nation, Americans feel now weakened, unprotected.

 Whose fault? Democrats’? Republicans’?

 Or just Congress, either party, filling their pocket and bowing to high interests, while forgetting that children will  go hungry at home, waiting  impatiently until the next morning, when they will be fed at school the only meal of the day?

 If democracy needs a diversity of parties and p.o.v., corruption does not discriminate. It is all embracing. And in the past ten-fifteen years, it appears that corruption has been far more active than democracy. Had the reverse been true, chances are the aforementioned economic situation wouldn’t have occurred at such a profound level.

 In other words, our congress grew corrupt and lazy as our country grew fragile and desperate.

 Knees were so weak when he arrived. The knees of our county. Our knees.

 But when we saw him, so loud, so strong, we welcomed him with open arms.

 We would grow strong too.

 We had seen his name time and again on gigantic towers.

 A gigantic name on a gigantic tower. TRUMP. Even his name looked like a tower.

He promised order. Order. And a great big wall.

 There he was, a loud mouth, for sure, with a bad temper, just like daddy. But that was character, that’s what it was. Character.

 And he talked like the rest of us. A man so rich who talked like simple people. That meant we could get rich too.

 So what if he was if he was connected to the Russians, or to the mafia?

 He would protect us.

 So what if he was a bit of a dictator at times? So what if he had the Sinclair Broadcast Group force its 137 stations spread propaganda about him all across the nation? He had his heart in the right place. He cared about us.

 Right?

 Right?

 These were rough times and he was the right man for the moment. He would fix things.
 He would.

 Come to think of it, Hitler came soon after that huge 1929 economic crisis. That’s what got him elected. He would fix things too.

We forget

I forget?

With all the daily political drama, and all the fight with the local group of Indivisible, I forget. I forget that I am an individual too. With specific talents and, possibly, a mission.

I forget this incessant Trumpian drama is but an interruption, that this frustration, this anger will eventually stop. Because this regime will stop.

I forget that I can resume what I love to do. Write. And today, I got a reminder.

Once in a while (often in dark moments when I tell myself my steps on the writing page are useless and insignificant), I get messages of people telling me that some people like my reviews. I am always happily surprised when I see this. The joy is comparable to people enjoying my books. Writing is writing is writing. It tells me that people are reading and are reading readers, searching and thinking. A good sign.

Today, I was all the more surprised that two readers liked a review of a book that had completely gone out of my mind. A book of essays with a great title, actually, The War Against Clichés by Martin Amis.

Yes, we do forget. A dangerous thing, forgetting ourselves. A good thing there are those around us to remind us.

WHY THE FRENCH ELECTIONS THIS COMING SUNDAY COULD AFFECT US ALL

France is not the first power in the world. Or the second, or the third. It ranks 6th among powerful nations these days. And yet, with the upcoming presidential elections, it could become the center of the world again. In other words, France’s elections this coming Sunday could affect us all. Here’s how:

If fascist Marine LePen gets elected, she will want out of Europe. Add that to the Brexit, and the entire Europe crumbles, as it was founded on/by the German-UK-France axis. The concept of Europe, besides economical, is a pacifist one. It was built so that something like WWI or WWII would never happen again.

With Europe gone, nationalisms (fascisms) are awakened. Tensions develop. Wars become imminent.
Who profits from this? Russia, of course, who can invade the now divided nations, economically like the Chinese are doing in Africa, or militarily. Or both. Resistance would build, no doubt, in many parts. The US would want to intervene. So would the Chinese. They wouldn’t want their piece of the cake to be eaten. Another World War could begin.

If Emmanuel Macron is elected, Europe will go on. Balance, if precarious, will be worked on and eventually solidified. It all depends on one vote. One vote.

Les Français, on compte sur vous. Pas de conneries!

LIT AND POLITICS

After reading a few disappointing novels, I decided to go with John Irving's The Hotel New Hampshire for a good dose of literature with beautiful prose, and Stephen King's Mr Mercedes. I knew I had two masters in my hand. And I was curious to know how King would do with the mystery genre. What I was sure of was that I wouldn't be disappointed.

Right?

King, after all, can build a sentence. And Mr Mercedes is the winner of the 2015 Edgar Award for Best Novel. So, damnit, I was all set.

What I didn't suspect (although I was reading a mystery) was that I was having one of my---rare, but still present---naivety seizures. But I did wake up. Took 50 pages, though.

Those same pages that the critics from major publications bother to read, I assume. Otherwise, there would be no positive feedback. And the only pages that King wrote, I suspect. I had similar experiences with Grisham. Not the early Grisham. The well established Grisham.

Well, the well established King seems to have imitated his colleague. Oh, I was quite thrilled by Mr Mercedes' beginning, even if I thought that the slang there was a bit overdone.

But after aforementioned pages, everything stagnates. The psychological insights of the murderer, promising at first, go in circles. The incest theme is just there to titillate. Still, I yawn instead, No one who has fallen in love will believe in the love story there. The eroticism and sentiments feel like overcooked noodles. And this silly sleepover is the motivation of the retired cop to find the killer? P-leeease!

Toward the end, there is some action that grabs some interest. Did King edit the mediocre ghost writer? Did some smart editor? But it is too late. It makes the novel all the more uneven.

In conclusion, Mr Mercedes is basically an ode to mediocrity. In other words, a piece of crap. So here is my message to Stephen King, John Grisham and the like. Don't become just a brand! There are writers like me who love words, who work their ass out to produce serious, thoughtout work, so let us share it. What you do isn't fair to the reader; it isn't fair to us. You're just playing politics. Literature and politics make for a bitter, undigestible sauce. So why don't you move the hell over?