La Vie en rose

I find myself being less and less able to appreciate contemporary works of French cinema, especially in regards to their more popular films. La Vie en rose is a film that has slightly rejuvenated my interest in froggy works, but I owe the lovely Marion Cotillard the most credit for my extremely pleasant experience with the motion picture. She is a woman that may have froggy eyes, but also some of the most appealing of eyes that I have had the luxury of experiencing cinematically in sometime. Marion Cotillard also happens to look enough like Edith Piaf for her performance in La Vie en rose to by exceptionally believable. Not since Val Kilmer’s performance in Oliver Stone’s The Doors as Jim Morrison have I seen an actor magically capture the power and charisma of a singer.


One of my favorite actresses of all time is Giuletta Masina. People have often compared Masina’s comic acting performances to the female equivalent of Charlie Chaplin. I consider that a fair assertion, although naturally Masina’s big eyes are much more pleasurable to look at in comparison to Chaplin’s dirty Sanchez moustache. Marion Cotillard’s performance in La Vie en rose echoes back to the days of Giuletta Masina’s heartwarmingly cute performances in films like La Strada. In fact, during the whole experience of La Vie en rose I could not get enough of Ms. Cotillard. It is very hard to find a woman that is genuinely funny (or a man for that matter), but even harder to find a woman that is both funny and cute. Not that I care for Academy Awards or anything, but Marion Cotillard without question deserved the Oscar she received for her performance (the first ever given for a French-language performance).


Edith Piaf certainly deserves her cultural icon status as France’s greatest popular singer. Like your typical modern day Frenchman, Piaf was a mixture of ethnic backgrounds, certainly no Huguenot. Piaf’s rise from the gutter was to her talent’s advantage, giving rise to an organic emotional voice that lacked any type of pretension, going against the French stereotype of unwarranted cultural arrogance. In La Vie en rose, Marion Cotillard is her most passionate when swooning over her French Algerian boxer boyfriend Marcel. Edith has not interest in psycho-babbling over existentialism or rambling about New Left politics, she just wants to sing and party. She may have been friends with the great poet Jean Cocteau and other important French culture figures, yet that never seemed to inflate her ego. Even when Marion Cotillard as Edith Piaf has aged and stars looking fairly decrepit, she still expresses the same spunk that made her magical in the first place.


La Vie en rose is one of the few contemporary French films worth watching multiple times. The film is also evidence that a French film does not have to feature decadent and nihilistic sex for it to be notable. The sex appeal of Marion Cotillard permeates throughout without the actress having to shred a layer of clothing. I cannot express how boring nudity has gotten in cinema, especially in Europeans films, an unflattering post-ww2 result of the European film industries having to prostitute themselves out just to get by in the world market. As shown in La Vie en rose, fortunately for Edith Piaf her best money commodity was her voice and not her body.

-Ty E

A Laud for Hans Landa

I expected Quentin Tarantino’s film Inglorious Basterds to be the pop-director’s most culturally-despicable film yet. His entry in the Grindhouse project was bad enough, but a Philo-Semitic war epic full of Jew porn schizophrenia and bloodthirsty Semitic murderous indulgence?!? Degenerate hack Horror HEEBie-Jeebie Eli Roth has made it known that “holocaust education” was a big part of his upbringing as a Jewish supremacist. In Inglorious Basterds he ecstatically displays his love of bashing in the skulls of heroic (and restrained by a Jew Crew, of course) Aryan blond beasts via his Jude-bat. I may be wrong, but I always thought Jews were generally fairly pathetic when its comes to athletics, heroism, courage, and fighting their own battles in general, but I guess that is why Inglorious Basterds is a War fantasy film. Due to my repelled feeling towards anything involving Tarantino or Roth, it was practically a given to me before watching Inglorious Basterds that the film would be indistinguishable from Elie Wiesel’s favorite wet dream after an all-NIGHT party in Israel involving the most attractive of blond Slavic sex-slaves owned by the Judaic mafia and a couple rusty razorblades. That was until I watched the film and was soon introduced to Tarantino’s best written character ever; SS-Standartenführer Hans Landa.

Quentin Tarantino for once almost stated something true about film when he said that Hans Landa may be the best character he has ever written. My own personal disgust with Tarantino comes from the fact that despite many years of his own personal "VHS-Tape Film School", Tarantino seems to have the least refined and most eclectically all around trashy taste in film. Don't get me wrong, I like a good film noir or horror film like the next guy, but Tarantino obsesses over pure stylized-Scheiße, hence why his films are soulless (with no human feeling aside from excitement and "coolness") big-budget piles of shit. Hollywood has been pretty much always fundamentally anti-art and anti-organic kultur as they like to contrive their own culturally-hollow-Hollywood "reality" so that the masses erroneously imitates these "ideal" pseudo-realities, like the mindlessly good little unconscious comrades they are. With the character of Hans Landa, for once it seems that Tarantino has refrained from obsessing over cool wacky Negro characters, alpha-females, and arrogant beaners. This time Tarantino attempted to put his self in the position of an Austrian Aryan, but Tarantino's Aryan is of course a psychological abstraction of sorts. After all, one could never expect Tarantino to understand the natural psyche of a Teuton for it would have probably induced a suicide-reflex.


Right from the get go, Hans Landa identifies himself as an Aryan who can "think like a Jew." By this, Landa recognizes that Jews will just about do and say anything to get their way. After all, how could such a small tribe of Judaics (with a slave morality to boot) be able to almost completely monopolize the international wealth of the world? Nowadays, we live in the miserable reign of the Tschandala, a "postmodern" nightmare where weaknesses, failure, deformity, victim hood, and other pathetic attributes are worshiped as the height of virtue. Hans Landa recognizes that once a soul loses dignity, he/she is capable of the most (pathetically) amazing of feats. No matter how rich or successful a Jew is, there is still the memory of the Ghetto and the gutter. There never was nor will there ever be a true Jewish aristocracy, for a true aristocracy comes about through strength gained from being the fittest (both physically and mentally) person within ones own blood/soil environment, something that has become pretty much obsolete in the postmodern Western world (a healthy Western would never allow third world immigration) and elsewhere. All Jewish power is derived from the manipulation of capital, linguistics, psychology, and other intellectual abstractions. Whether it be Marx, Einstein, or Freud, all of these great "Jewish geniuses" derived their theories through the iconoclasm of the existing Occidental model which Hebrew-incinerators so instinctively destroyed. As the great Francis Parker Yockey once stated, "An insatiable lust for revenge was born in the soul of the parasite through centuries of silent sufferance of the unassailable superiority of the host. When defeated Europe - and in particular, the most vital part of it, the bearer of the grand European Idea of the 20th century - lay at the feet of this totally alien conqueror from a Culture of the past, no feelings of magnanimity, chivalry, generosity or mercy were in his exultant soul. There was only there the gall which he had been drinking for a thousand years while he had bided his time under the arrogance of the alien Western peoples whom he had always considered, and still considers, barbarians, goyim."


Hans Landa acts as model for all aspiring "Jew Hunters" out there. Skinheads and other related ilk will always fail as they refuse to even attempt to understand the psychology of God's chosen Hebrew as shown in Henry Bean's The Believer. Anyone who has taken the time to study the German National Socialist leadership will understand there is a pathological pattern starting with the movements spiritual father Richard Wagner (who meta-politically influenced both Adolf Hitler and political Zionist Founder Theodor Herzl's almost identical goal of a racially pure Übermensch state). Like Zionism (although this movement will never be truly successful for it is fundamentally at odds with the true nature of Jews/Judaism), National Socialism was inspired by identifying and rejecting the stereotypical traits of Jewish effeminacy and amorality, hence why many Mischling (part-Jews) eagerly became the most committed of Antisemites. National Socialist propagandist and "World Jew-Baiter No. 1" Julius Streicher is noted to have once recognized his Jewish ancestry as the best weapon in fighting the Jews. The honorable and stoic Aryan is no match for the moral bankruptcy that slithered out of the ghettos of Eastern Europe. The Aryan, in all his honesty, will fight for his people and his country whereas the typical Zio-poodle always contracts someone else to do his dirty work. Hans Landa also understands this psychology as shown in Inglorious Basterds by "single-handily toppling the Third Reich" when he recognizes that Germany defeat is now inevitable. Aside from the unfortunate swastika mark permanently engraved into his head, he is the only top National Socialist to survive a Jewish murder rampage at a cute French cinema. Not many people are good at suavely pulling off both a good ol' froggy ratonnade and an one-man conditional armistice in the same lifetime.





Hans Landa is a man that is always about twenty steps above his contemporaries just as Friedrich Nietzsche and Francis Parker Yockey were, two other Sages of the Jewish Question. There truly is a thin-line between authentic Antisemitism and Philo-Semitism as "Second-Generation holocaust survivor" Norman Finklestein has recognized. Hollywood did itself a service when they released American History X, a film that romanticizes the skinhead movement for the skinhead is a true friend of Zion. Skinheads and Ku Klux Klaners save your average Rabbi a trip to the Jewish cemetery where he no longer has to spray paint swastikas on Jewish tombstones for evidence of "growing Antisemitism." Your average "White Power" skinhead is a foot soldier of Zion and just another pawn in the game, similar to some Clown-Azz-House-Negroes like Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton. Hans Landa is a cold, calculating, and obscenely conscious man who has talents that cannot be contrived. He laughs at the mind of a German soldier as his soldierly honor is now obsolete (at least as far as leadership goes) in our world of technological and political bureaucracy, for such a honorable man (naive to the behavior of those with a conspiring nature) will always be used as pawn to whoever is in power. Hopefully, the character of Hans Landa will awaken those out there with the mental capacity as to the proper etiquette when dealing with conspiring cultural distorters. Herr Landa's motivations may have been unsavory but his methods were almost pristine. Landa's Weltanschauung is probably best symbolically expressed when he laughs at double-agent Bridget von Hammersmark's lie about how she broke her leg stereotypically (German) by mountain climbing. Hans Landa has learned how to read people better than the chief Rabbi of Israel questions his Talmud and better than how depraved Sigmund Freud was able (or at least pretended to be able) to analyze the psycho-sexuality of children.

-Ty E

3 Women

Probably Robert Altman’s greatest strength as a director was his intimate interaction with his actors. Altman was a man that certainly expected his actors to give it their all whether it be in the form of a long exaggerated/improvised acting scenes or displays of unflattering and unconventional nudity, the MASH man drained all the talent he could from the actors he directed. If Alfred Hitchcock felt that "Actors are cattle", Robert Altman must have felt his actors were prime cut angus beef meant for the consumption of the most discriminating of cinematic patrons. With the film 3 Women, Mr. Altman wanted to disgust his audience with a couple slabs of rotting and disgusting meat via the repellent homely actresses Shelley Duvall and Sissy Spacek. To their credit, Brian De Palma knew what he was doing when he had Sickly Spacek play the languid lead of Carrie and Stanley Kubrick certainly knew what he was doing when he had Shelley Duvall play the horrendously hysterical wife of a deranged man in The Shining. Robert Altman brought both of those naturally scary women together in 3 Women in a way I have yet to be seen done before.


Pretty much everyone has seen the weird girl at school growing up, the kind of loner girl that you catch a sight of trying to indiscreetly (or not so indiscreetly) take sniffs of her underarm or nervously laughing at the boisterous behavior of a group of wild buck Negroes. These peculiar women are usually on an even lower social status level than that of the nerdy guy because at least people try to fuck with geeks guys for the hell of it. Maybe if the ugly girl is lucky, she might catch the fancy of an absurdly ugly sexual deviant who has an interest in defiling her because at least with her, he might be able to get away with whatever he wants. In Robert Altman’s 3 Women one loser girl finds her love while starting a job at a depressing old folks home in the form of another loser girl who is a little more socially ambitious. Sissy Spacek plays Pinky Rose, a nice woman-girl who seems very excited about the thought of actually having a female friend. Shelley Duvall plays Millie, the object of Pinky Rose’s social desire. Throughout the film, Pinky Rose starts turning into Millie (in character), making for one creature-like union.


The third woman in 3 Women is a bizarre freak of a woman who paints fantastic murals in a small abandoned desert community. Despite her lack of character and speech in the film, her sometimes monstrous and grotesque paintings radiate a certain atmosphere that emotionally drives the film. Millie instantly takes a liking to the third woman after seeing her artwork which angers the pseudo-pretentious Pinky Rose. By the end of 3 Women all 3 women become one. Unsurprisingly, the often ambiguous Robert Altman has no concrete meaning for the end of the film. 3 Women has been compared to Ingmar Bergman’s Persona for good reason, for both films express a sort of naturalistic horror in the form of females interacting emotionally and unconsciously becoming one in a way. With 3 Women, no one can argue that Robert Altman never made a great horror flick.


Robert Altman made a lot of great films with a lot great acting performances which makes it unfortunate that he is best known for MASH. A film like 3 Women makes MASH look glaringly like the laughably overrated cynical anti-war romp that it is. 3 Women will mostly leave (for better or for worse) a feeling of disgust on the viewer when the film is over, but that sort of disgust is what makes one remember the emotional power of cinema. Even after having nightmares featuring Shelley Duvall in the nude not long after seeing 3 Women, I still feel that I invested my time wisely in viewing the film.

-Ty E

Lords of Dogtown

Before making it big with the silly Twilight movie, Catherine Hardwicke had attempted to direct gritty yet somewhat superficially stylized realist films like Thirteen and Lords of Dogtown. Thirteen was an almost unbearable experience, with the climax for me being the surely unerotic and obscenely exposed brillo pad of middle aged actress Holly Hunter. Catherine Hardwicke, being the middle aged woman she is, surely has a different perspective on how to direct women (and men) than your typical male director. With Twilight, Hardwicke made this even more obvious with her scopophilia for actor Robert Pattinson and her unremarkable female lead. I believe Lords of Dogtown to be Catherine Hardwicke’s greatest cinematic achievement and the director’s most successful direction job, as far as the film’s subjects go. The Lords of Dogtown is probably as close as Hollywood has ever gotten to capturing both vintage skateboard action and the lifestyle of the skater.


I spent a good part of my like engulfed in everything skateboarding. When not skateboarding, I took it upon myself to find out about skateboarding history and it did not take me long to find old VHS tapes of old Hollywood Sk8 movies. Out of all the horrible skateboard-related movies to come out of Hollywood, I found Gleaming the Cube and Thrashin’ to be easily the best. Gleaming the Cube has one of the silliest crime subplots ever, but for a young skater it makes for a fun albeit ridiculous film. Thrashin’ is a much cooler flick showing the various skate subcultures of the 1980’s with a radical Romeo and Juliet-style subplot. After all, nothing would be cooler to a bunch of young skaters than the idea of rival skate gangs that have skateboarding duals and rival sk8 gang chases. An especially notable scene in Thrashin’ is when the lead character of the film is chased after at night on skateboard by an enemy punk/hardcore skate gang while the classic The Circle Jerks song “Wild in the Streets” is playing. Thrashin’ is surely The Rebel Without a Cause of skateboarding. It wasn’t until Lords of Dogtown, however, that Hollywood seemed to take the history of skateboarding seriously.


Lords of Dogtown is based on the documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys, a documentary that essentially chronicles the early history of skateboarding. It was directed by one of the most famous Z-Boys Stacey Peralta, so as far as authenticity and historical credibility go, Dogtown and Z-Boys is a documentary in it’s own league. Catherine Hardwicke paid proper tribute to Peralta’s documentary with her film Lords of Dogtown, especially for a woman that has zero ties to skateboarding. Skateboarders have always been weary of outsiders (as Lords of Dogtown even makes known) showing interest and attempting to cash in on the popularity of skateboarding. Within the past decade, it seems that skateboarding has reached it highest point in popularity, with skate parks and stores located everywhere and a good percentage of non-skater teenagers/young adults wearing skate garb. With the 2005 release of Lords of Dogtown, it was about time that skateboarding was recognized as a legitimate and notable part of American cultural (and “sport”) history. Catherine Hardwicke was successful in making a film palatable for the general American audience but especially digestible by teenagers.


Like Dogtown and Z-Boys before it, Lords of Dogtown features an audibly agreeable soundtrack with classic rock, psychedelic rock, punk/hardcore and other appropriate tracks that surely compliment the visuals of the film. Anyone that has ever skated knows that skate videos from skateboarding companies must have agreeable soundtracks to add to the vitality and persona of a particular skater’s video part. Skate videos have also influenced many notable contemporary directors such as Larry Clark (Kids, Ken Park) and Harmony Korine (Gummo, Mister Lonely). Personally, skateboard videos were a gateway and initiation into the world of underground/independent cinema. Skateboard videos made me realize that there were much more unique, independent, and artistic filmmakers out there aside from the high priced garbage that Hollywood is constantly pumping out. Lords of Dogtown manages to express the rebellious and independent nature of skateboarding, even if it is mild in comparison to what actually comes out of the skateboarding world.


Most of the young actors did an excellent job playing their vintage rebel roles. The albino teen from Gus van Sant’s Elephant played by John Robinson does an excellent job playing the anal retentive young Stacey Peralta. Surprisingly, Emile Hirsch is not bad as the most anti-social skater Jay Adams, a skater that would play a huge role in influencing the subculture despite leading a life of petty crime. Healthy Ledger even does a superb job playing a very annoying drunk and stoned surf shop owner, kind of like the Jim Morrison of a surf ghetto. Jewish-Ingun-Wop Nikki Reed also does a good job playing a zesty teenage cocktease. I wasn’t too fond of Victor Rasu as his hair constantly reminded me of a palm tree and his cholo chauvinism is not very tolerable. Like them or not, the characters of Lords of Dogtown are surely “characters.”


I have watched Lords of Dogtown a number of time and it manages to keep its staying power. More importantly, the film makes you want to go out and skate. Lords of Dogtown may not have the hypnotic sensational Occult audio/video power of a Kenneth Anger film but it certainly accomplished what it set out to do in regards to immortalizing skateboard history in all it’s grittiness. As one of probably few skaters that also played on a football team, I can say that Lords of Dogtown did for skateboarding what Friday Night Lights did for football, offering the casual viewer a general yet entertaining inside view to each particular athletic culture. I just hope one day Hollywood decides to direct a Hollywood film about professional skateboard, artist, and Toy Machine skateboard company owner Ed Templeton., but I doubt Hollywood has that much of an interest in sk8boarding.

-Ty E