This is a very entertaining and cinematically inspiring movie, but oddly that’s not due so much to how it tells its tale – which, in fact, drags a bit toward the end, and could have lost a few of the lengthier asides – but to what that tale actually is. The history of LA based Z channel’s amazing programming, and the simple fact that it did exist, bringing all of those offbeat und underrated movies to an intelligent audience, essentially counteracting the stupid culture suppressing forces of market and money, is both heartening and disturbing. For if it’s possible to do TV without simultaneuously numbing the viewers mind and cranking up their aggression with marketing, why is it not happening anywhere? Give us more programming tailored to that “Uncommon Denominator” Z worked so magnificently toward, you bastards!

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The first part of this felkt like someone had invented a new cipher for social communication and forgot to tell me about it. Nothing anybody said seemed to make any sense not within the plot, not as commentary. But eventually the fog lifted (it might have just been the fog of history, anyway), and everything made sense and dissolved into sweet, sweet nothings. Which turned out to be the movie’s point in the first place. Fun, and so, so money.

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There is quite a few gaffes in this movie, the plot is nonexistent, the action drags on forever in places, and the acting oscillates between solid and silly. Still, this is one of the finest martial arts movies ever made. Lee’s technique is amazing, and the surroundings and characters are just done well enough not to intrude.

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The more I learn about Japanese history, the more I wonder how it is possible that the European captains found anybody alive there at all when they arrived. They should have disembarked, a fearful expression on their faces, and waded in blood, among the guts and remains of the honorable dead, who slashed themselves open to maybe make amends for an ill chosen colour of off-white for the master’s new lampshade, or some such. This makes for very fascinating reading, but it is indeed hard to understand how a society, in which disrespect leads to fights to the death, which in turn means seppuku for those who started them, could have functioned, Maybe, then, Yamamoto exaggerates wildly. This is somewhat more plausible for modern readers when they realize that some of his short texts read like they are the direct inspirations for Monty Python’s suicide squad lead by Otto in The Life of Brian, and the Black Knight in the Holy Grail – now of course available as a plush doll, which probably would have horrified old Tsunetomo right into killing himself.

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I guess I first have to say how touching this film is, nor how necessary it is to provide an, albeit small, window into a hidden world of hopelessness and despair, and the inspiring quality not only of the movie, but also of the photographers heartfelt need to do something to help save the futures, and indeed probably lives, of the children she taught in Calcutta’s red light district. Now that’s out of the way – I was actually wondering at several points during the movie, if the portrayal of these kids as very talented artists, while certainly true, does not mislead the audience into separating the victims of social injustice into those whose ruin will be a loss to us connoisseurs of the arts, and those who won’t be so sorely missed. Surely, if we could save the precious ones, things would already be much better.
Nobody should have to live in those conditions, whatever the quality of their drawings or their grades at school, and there remains a bitter taste of defeat in the end, when out of the nine kids all but three seem to be falling back into their doom. But in another sense, a single saved child is already a triumph, so maybe I’m quite wrong. It’s a great movie either way.

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This book has won both the Hugo and the Nebula, and while I don’t fully agree with quite so much formalized praise, its central character, a geostationary tower 40.000 kilometers high, rising from the slightly shifted island of Sri Lanka, is a fascinating and awe inspiring invention. It’s story, intertwined with that of it’s engineer, Vannevar Morgan, is nicely contrasted to that of an ancient king, who reached for the stars of his time and found death in the process, just as Morgan does. I think it’s this undercurrent of engineering and progress as substitutes for religion, which is painted as their opposite, and seems to include anything not logically deducible, that makes this tiring to read. Not accidentally, the humans in the story are shallow and lifeless, and the final chapter betrays the mix of engineering and Nietzsche that seems to fuel Clarke’s world view: at the great noon, the superman will come in a chariot from the stars, to unite with the child and found the future. An engineer’s dream of electric sheep.

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This is Lee’s posthumously published founding document for his own brand of kickass, Jeet Kune Do, that brought him both fame and severe criticism for boldly breaking with tradition and fusing different styles, taking what he would from each. The book, while roughly structured into chapters, reads more like a collection of small pieces than a unit. In part this reflects the limitations of editing somebody else’s work his untimely death put on the editor, his wife Linda, but I suppose to a degree this is a reflection of the inherent notion he expresses multiple times. Go with the flow, do not become rigid in rules, be flexible within your limit. The motto of Jeet Kune Do, set around the unique logo with the Yin/Yang encircled by two chasing arrows, reads ‘Using no way as way, having no limitation as limitation’. Which of course is all part of the ancient asian art of making sense through not making sense.

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I will refrain from making any spelling jokes in this review, tempting though it may be. The spelling bee, to my still somewhat European eyes, seems a very alien tradition, though I’d be hard pressed to say just what exaclty it is about fidgety bespectacled eleven year old kids with overzealous parents spelling words much harder than “overzealous” or “bespectacled” that is so disturbing. But it is. It is also very funny and fascinating to get a look into a world of success and ambition that couldn’t be stranger to me if it were made of cheese and looked like the moon, but I think I said that already.

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A gripping real life story of an honest cop in the late 60s in New York, and the breakthrough for Al Pacino as a big movie star (though I was a bit surprised to hear both the producer and director Lumet talk about how the Godfather was truly Brando’s movie. While old tissuecheek certainly is a very strong presence in that flick, I’ve always felt Pacino and Brando as equally strong. But je digresse). The story, and Pacino’s character based playing, are very intense, and the fascinating fact from today’s point of view is that the movie moves at a quiet pace, yet doesn’t seem slow – a bit too long, maybe, but that’s probably due to an original script that was double the length and needed to be heavily cut. Other cool piece of trivia: the real Serpico came to rehearsals, and was studied by Al Pacino, then shown the door by Lumet once shooting started, and was – or so Lumet reminisces – crushed, because he felt he become friends with them, while to them he was a object of professional interest. He also once told the producer Martin Bregman, in a movie theater empty except for the two of them, that he couldn’t smoke, because it was against the law. Go, Serpico!

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Bei manchen dokumentarischen Büchern fragt man sich unweigerlich, warum man sich die deprimierende Abfolge unheilvoller Tatsachen ins Denkgebäude schraubt. Nun ist es andererseits natürlich Unsinn auf dem Niveau der Erstmal-besser-machen Kritikverneiner, Unschönes nur deshalb abzulehnen, weil es keine konstruktiven Schlüsse anzubieten hat, aber erbaulich hätte ich es doch gefunden, nach der Durchsicht all der Naziwiderlichkeiten rund um Vertriebene und ihre Zentren, Kriegsgeschichte und Schuldausgleich ein paar Vorschläge zu finden, wie man das Pack zum Schweigen und die Geschichte auf einen guten Weg brächte. So ganz ohne das ist das Buch jedenfalls nicht der Diskussionsbeitrag, der es sein möchte, sondern eher die Grundlage für einen. Muss dann eben jemand anders schreiben.

Die für mich interessanteste Detailinformation betrifft das Verbot der Todesstrafe im Deutschen Grundgesetz, das mir angesichts der sonstigen Kontinuitäten von Mordbubenwirtschaft und Gewaltapparat immer ein wenig inkonsistent vorkam. Später schildert, wie ein Vertriebenenfunktionär sich für die Abschaffung verwendet, um seine alten Nazikumpane vor den Galgen der Alliierten zu retten. Das ging schief, weil die Alliierten sich bei den Hinrichtungen ums Grundgesetz der Besiegten nicht recht scheren mochten, und der Plan, die Todesstrafe für gemeine Mörder flugs wieder einzuführen, scheiterte dann ebenfalls. Sie kennen doch unser heiteres Suchspiel? In der Geschichte hat der Weltgeist Sepp Arnemann eine konstruktive Lehre über den Umgang mit repressiven gesellschaftlichen Kräften versteckt. Suchen Sie sie selbst, mir gefällt sie nicht.

Nachtrag: konkret dokumentiert in der aktuellen Ausgabe die Reaktionen Vertriebener auf Späters Buch, und ich nehme einen Teil des oben gesagten zurück. Wer derart die Hunde zum Bellen bringt, hat allerhand richtig gemacht.

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