Needs a Bulldozer to Handle the Burial

Posted on 28/10/2014 by Grumpa Joe

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Yesterday, Peg and I opened the 2014-15 movie season. We miss seeing good films, and finally, Hollywood has put out some good stuff. We also like to go when the prices are less than five bucks, the crowds nonexistent, and the showtimes are early. Our friends told us to go see Gone Girl, and The Judge, but the show times for both were late in the afternoon, and we ruled them out. Even though my buddy told me that he hated the actors in Gone Girl the story carried his interest. We’ll see Gone Girl on another day.

The film that met our requirements was The Equalizer with Denzel Washington.   This film is pure fantasy, super-hero, super-man, one man against an army, type of story that kept me riveted to my seat. Denzel is one of my favorite actors, and always has been. He chooses his roles wisely and does outstanding work in depicting the characters he plays. Don’t ask me to name any of the other cast members because I didn’t recognize any of them. All I can say is they chose a mean, bad-ass looking bunch to play the Russian villains.

This is one super-hero movie in which the super-guy, Denzel, actually gets nicked by some bullets. Most super-hero films leave the hero totally unscathed by  the hundreds of bullets flying past his head. The early part of the film begins slowly with a very good character development and a story that would have satisfied me even if it had stayed boring. About a third of the way through, however, things begin to heat up and the body count begins to rise. Clearly, this is not a film produced by gun control advocates. If it were, there wouldn’t have been a single gun shown in the film. Instead, the author, producer, and director chose to use every type of automatic weapon known to man to tell the story. Yet, there were still very many bodies turned lifeless by methods other than speeding bullets like twisted broken necks, knives, corkscrews, and some more. By the end of the story the author needed a mass grave, and a bulldozer to handle the burial.

Given the climate of our political world today, I actually believe that Black Ops characters like Robert Mc Call (Denzel Washington) may actually exist in the real world. If they do, I do not want to know any of them. I am completely satisfied knowing they exist to protect us from worldly harm.

In some ways the film was a comedy, because of all the Mac Gyver type situations the hero had to work his way through. Some were so predictable I laughed out loud before they happened. I loved this film, and will see it again someday after it becomes available on disc at the library.

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I’m Not Buyin’ It

Posted on 11/03/2014 by Grumpa Joe

Today, Peg and I watched a very powerful film “12 Years A Slave.” We now understand why it received the Best Picture Award. The reason it is so good is because it is a true story, and is the personal account of a man who experienced slavery in the good old USA. We weren’t shocked by the content, nor the cruelty because both of us watched movies like “Roots,” and “Amistad.” We also paid attention in school when studying history. I admit, however, that the cruelty aspect in 12 Years is much more graphic and convincing than that in Roots.

Last week we saw “Son of God” and the cruelty shown to Jesus was similar if not more so. One difference is that Jesus experienced one scourging in his life, slave-owners whipped their property often. There is no doubt in my mind that slavery is evil. It is finally illegal to own slaves in any country of the world, yet there are purportedly twenty-nine million slaves in existence worldwide today.

What made this film more interesting is that main character Solomon Northrup was born a free man in Saratoga, New York. That made him a citizen of the USA. He didn’t get captured by mercenary traders in a foreign country and shipped across an ocean to a strange new land and sold. Kidnappers took Solomon and sold him into slavery in Washington D.C. He learned quickly not to ever mention his background to anyone for fear of a brutal beating.

Most white slave owners were evil. There is no better way to describe them, they acted like the devil. Even those who were compassionate were evil because they believed that owning  human beings as property was their legal right. Many saw slaves as animals not humans. I salute the millions of slaves who have endured the loss of liberty and cruel treatment they received. This is the point where I will infuriate all blacks living in America. I’m not buying into the storyline that I should feel sorry for every living American black because his great, great, great, grandfather uncle aunt, etc. was a slave. The slaves were the ones who paid the price, not you. You are free since 1865 and since 1970’s the US government has spent trillions to end poverty and for discrimination you have suffered under whitey. If you divide the money spent by every black in America since the Emancipation Proclamation you would all be very wealthy.

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What have you done to make your slave ancestors proud? What is their legacy? How do you honor the cruelty and indignity they suffered? Is it they who have made you more dependent on Uncle Sam? Did Solomon Northrup and his friends organize you into gangs? Did he also corrupt your morals to commit genocide on your own progeny? What have you done for yourselves to convince us to drop the need to discriminate against you? Forgive me, but I do discriminate against gang-thugs, and people who play the welfare system to the max. I welcome my neighbors, and friends who share in the goodness of America.

It pleases me if Hollywood made this film to entertain. It pleases me if  they made it to educate us about the life of an extraordinary man. If they made it to send a message that you are a victim of a government gone wild, it is okay. If Hollywood produced this story to eradicate world slavery through awareness, I am pleased.

The problem is that I don’t think Hollywood made the film for those reasons.  I think they made it because they are pushing the political agenda of equal outcomes for all policy of communism, and I am not buying it.

Instead of Hollywood producers, directors, actors, and American Blacks converting America into a socialist state, where everyone belongs to the government, they should focus their efforts on freeing the twenty-nine million slaves in the world who still endure the cruelty, hardship, and loss of liberty.

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A Detail Spoiled It For Me

Posted on 15/04/2013 by Grumpa Joe

The movie Trance is for viewers who love mystery, and suspense. Filmed in England with British actors, this film is different from USA made films.  The story revolves around the theft of an original Rembrandt painting from an auction. The inside man who actually takes the painting suffers a head injury which leaves him with amnesia. His fellow thieves torture him to learn where he hid the painting, but he does not remember. Finally, they hire a hypnotist to delve into his brain to show the whereabouts. The director cleverly weaves the story in and out of reality. Just when the viewer thinks the protagonist is revealing the hiding place, the scene shifts back to reality inside the hypnotist’s office. The ending finally reveals a surprise no one could have suspected.

A simple detail in this film spoiled it for me. Before I reveal what that was let me explain that Britain has very strict gun possession laws. Basically, no one in England can own a gun. The penalty for possession is ten years in prison. Recently, I read a story about a man in England who defended his home from an intruder with a shotgun he secretly kept. The robber got off, the man with the gun went to jail for ten years. Back to the spoiler, the Trance robbers used a shotgun to pull off the theft. Later in the story   a handgun shows up in the home of the mastermind thief. Eventually, several of the gang members die by bullets. I guess the British film industry isn’t very different from Hollywood when it comes to using guns to tell a story. I guess my message is this: even in a country where guns are not controlled but forbidden, people get killed with guns. Bad guys still have guns, and good people kill with their bare hands.

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I spite of the spoiling detail, this movie had me riveted to the seat for the duration.

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I’m Not Buying It

Posted on 23/03/2013 by Grumpa Joe

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Peggy and I enjoyed a day at the movies yesterday. For once we saw a film that just came out. Usually, we wait until we hear about a good film from many friends. The movie is “Olympus Has Fallen.” We sat on the edge of our seats throughout the entire two hours. Normally, by the 90 minute mark I bolt to the  men’s room for reasons I’d rather not get into.

The suspense was great, the action unbelievable, the characters very believable, and the plot, well, let me just say, I’ve seen this plot before. The plot has a new place, and a new hero, but the general circumstances parallel the Bruce Willis “Die Hard” story. In Olympus, the hero is not a police officer, he is a Secret Service Agent.The idea of a foreign country getting into the White House to create mayhem was novel. In fact, I’d say it was genius. The circumstances surrounding the way they did it are totally plausible, at least for me it was. I’d love to hear the military and the Secret Service talk about the reality of taking down the White House in the way this author did it.

Several other things bothered me about the movie, and here is where you the reader will probably label me a right-wing extremist and a racist. Do you know what? I don’t give a darn about what you label me, I believe speaking the truth is an absolute necessity, especially to the liberals among us.

Many Hollywood people, actors, directors, producers are liberals. They all profess a love for our very liberal socialist president, and promote his agenda to share the wealth (as long as it is not theirs). The liberals are behind the current and ongoing gun grabbing gun control laws, yet they use all the latest and most lethal guns in their movies to tell a good story. All I can say is that the bad guys in this movie were slaughtering innocents with high-capacity guns and the audience was loving it. It  would have been a much different story if the tourists milling about the White House grounds were all packing fire. If gun control is such a high priority for liberals why do they support stories like this one which relies on lots of bullets flying? I can answer that simply, they like money, especially the money they get from living and working in a capitalist system. Of course they give it all back to the government to share with the rest of us, right?

A glaring hypocrisy exposed in the film is at odds with the liberal disdain for war and the military. Hollywood liberals glorify super heroes like the police Sargent in Die Hard, and the Secret Service agent in Olympus. These guys received their very excellent training in the military, and the writers love using their training experience to create characters who are the equal to comic book heroes like Rambo, Super Man, Spider Man, Bat Man, Seal Team Six, etc.   Liberals profess concern about the 99 percent in the world but love taking money from the masses to create lifestyles of the rich and famous without really giving back their own blockbuster-earned dollars. However, they love giving back the hard-earned dollars of the rest of us.

The last thing I didn’t buy in this movie or any other movie is an obvious attempt to glorify the black race. (This is when you call me a racist.) There are two main characters in Olympus who are black, the Speaker of the House, and the head of the Secret Service. Both play characters who are strong leaders. The rest of the President’s Security Council is white.  All portray imbecilic-doofuses. I’m not buying it, if you do, you are part of the problem we have in this country today. I happen to believe we have many competent blacks in all areas of life, but I don’t believe the whites we have in the same areas are all ass holes as Hollywood portrays them in their stories, even if it is for comedic reasons.

In spite of what I just wrote I believe you should pay the money, go see Olympus, you will be well entertained for two hours. Be sure to make a pit stop before you go in, you don’t want to miss one second of the film.

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Don’t Under Estimate the Winking Owl

Posted on 15/01/2013 by Grumpa Joe

I have a saying in my house,

“I only Serve the Best Wine. Bring Some.”

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My wine rack now holds several bottles from a winery labeled WINKING OWL. It is a red from Merlot grapes. The wine has a deep red color and a very nice hang time on the glass. The nose is fruity and smacks of oak. The tongue enjoys hints of plums and berries. The finish is smooth. Those of you who are Winking Owl aficionados know what I am speaking of. This evening like most evenings I enjoyed two generous pours of this mellow red. The buzz I enjoy is venerable. During the buzz I write quickly and sometimes incoherently, but I write. Sometimes, I piss people off. Recently a follower left this comment, “you lost a reader with your ignorance.”  Because I read the comment after the Winking Owl had worn off with a good night’s rest, I undertook an analysis of the piece which incited the follower to conclude my ignorance

I touched upon several points in that post. 1.) I likened progressivism to communism, and equated liberals to both. 2.0 ) I cited facts about countries that control guns and confiscated them.  I followed those facts with reports about the effect of the experience on an unarmed population when the government choses to  massacre them. 3.) I offered my opinion about not trusting Obama to do the same in this country. 4.) I very coherently offered a challenge  that I would accept gun control when Hollywood gave up making movies loaded with gun violence.

So where did I go wrong? The facts about governments confiscating guns are true, so I am not ignorant on that point. An opinion is a judgement about something not necessarily based on fact, and the challenge to hollywood is valid. I believe that people commit violent crimes because of conditioning that teaches a disrespect for life from watching too many movies loaded with gun violence. You can argue with me on that one, but unless you can show me facts to the contrary, that’s what I am believing.

That leaves my number one argument which compared Progressivism to Communism. In order to change my mind about that, one would have to argue with solid facts. The progressive mind-set believes in equality for all, and that is the credo for communism too. Besides, I grew up in a family that had relatives directly affected by communism. My mother and father read the letters from their siblings in Europe telling their experiences about communal properties, and the effect of sharing the wealth upon the populace. Those many letters are congruent with Occupy Wall Street and their hatred for the one percent and other leftist cries for the defeat of capitalism. I can see it happening. I also so see a like comparison to the Castro take over of Cuba to the exploits of Obama. These are not ignorances, they are experiences indelibly etched into my psyche.

Anyway, it is my stolid conclusion, made with clarity only possible by consuming copious amounts of Winking Owl, that I am not ignorant, nor was I ignorant in that post. I simply pissed off a liberal, and that folks is the Winking Owl meaning for my life..

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