WISDOM OF THE SAGES
EPISODE IX: FALL 2022
Hello People of the World;
It took me so long to get this together. I am going to post what I have at this point [Oct 27, 2022]. Dang, it’s nearly the end of October now and I still have to write on the October episode. Too lazy, or too busy – or both.
As always: Stay safe. Stay home.
All right, let’s get going:
1:[ This virus showed us how equal we all really are: how much we all need to be gaslighted into think it’s over just so we can all go back to spending money and being racist….
2:[ I went to see “Infernal Affairs” at the Music Box Theatre recently. My thoughts:
I never really cared for Jack Nicholson's acting. I mean, he does good in the roles he is given, but he never seems to be, to me at least, nothing more than Jack Nicholson playing a part. I never not seen Jack Nicholson in a role. So, I never got this reverence for him. It's his mannerisms and voice that makes him too recognizable. And at a certain point, his roles all just blend together - flashing that smile, bending those eyebrows, growling his dialogue. It's boring. Plus, his improv skills are at best, grade school level. That level where you think improv means just doing something off the cuff in a scene and not knowing that improv needs parameters. But directors are too reverent of him that they think his improvisations as godsend. That was what wrecked "The Departed" for me. Once I realized this about him, I cannot unsee it in any film he is in now.
Well, now you know why I bring him up in connection to "Infernal Affairs". One sixth of the Top Movie Review Team wandered out alone to the Music Box to catch the thriller on which Scorsese's "The Departed" was based. Now, I am not going to go into which one is 'Superior' as many in the audience did. They are both different types of films. "The Departed" is a crime thriller. "Infernal Affairs" is a police thriller.
The great Tony Leung (The Grandmaster, Shang Chi) stars as Yan, the cop undercover for ten years working to bring down the drug trafficking happening in Hong Kong. He is playing pretty much the same role he played in John Woo's "Hard-Boiled". The Undercover Chief is played by Anthony Wong, who plays the gang boss in "Hard-Boiled".
It is Leung's understated performance that separates it from the bombastics of a John Woo film and out of the realm away from Nicholson. The great Andy Lau (House of Flying Daggers, Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon) plays Lau, the Triad brother sent to infiltrate the police force and allow the leader to thrive in the city for so long. Once the mole on each side is discovered, the search for the moles leads to a tragic end and new beginnings.
It's an awesome film. Tightly edited, most of the backstory is covered in the pre-title sequence. The acting is superb, subtle, weighty. It is as if real people were caught in this net. The success of this film led to a prequel film and a sequel film that manages, by most critics and fans, to tie everything together without feeling overblown or contrived.
Great acting, tension for days, great cinematography, tight editing, this clocks in at a spry hour and forty-one minutes, where "The Departed" add another 50 minutes of the gangster backstory, as that is Scorsese's strength. Who am I to complain, it won him the Best Director award finally.
All in all, I do prefer "Infernal Affair" over "The Departed", it feels like the difference between an experienced filmmaker with its economic storytelling and a student filmmaker with their over-need to explain things and show cool shit happening. Plus, Lau's and Leung's acting in this far outshines anything Nicholson did in "The Departed".
HIGH RECOMMENDATION
3:[ Sorry, but I have to say this “The Special Editions” are the films now. We need to grow up and accept that.
Them: We need the original THEATRICAL CUT of the "Original Star Wars" released NOW!
Me: Which one, there were like... seven different versions released to theaters in 1977....?
4:[ I made a trip back to Wyoming this month. I had some business with the nephews that I needed to begin to take care of. It was great to see my family on the reservation again. This time, Bonnie joined me and it was fun to see things through her eyes and to show her more of the place I grew up. Plus, she instantly hit is off with my niece Akasha. I miss my family there. Now more than ever since it seems to be getting smaller these days.
5:[ We cannot go back to “Normal” at all after this: We’re arguing about Star Warses again. God, f*cking grow up, please. We need you thinking on how to solve real issues!
6:[ Once again, I had this thought in my head, about how when Native artists reach a point of “rez-fame” or authority, they turn on those that call them out, it’s “jealousy” or the like. Point is, I had this long chain of logical thought as I was riding the train, and it made sense and was reaching for my black book to write it down, but the train was too bumpy, I figure that I would do it later, trusting myself to remember it as it was a rather good point I made, even if I do say so myself. I even repeated the opening over and over to make sure I would not forget. Then, I promptly forgot. As you can read, I barely have the gist of that first moment.
7:[ When I miss the deadline like I have with this edition, I frantically try to recall the tiniest of things that happened to me, the meager thoughts I had about a topic or issue no one seems to care about and try to write it out to pad this sad affair with something akin to genuine input and thought. No such luck. I check my socials for happenings and saying I did in the last month. No dice.
I have gotten pretty rotten about keeping this web log of mine up to date. Mainly, it is because I don’t share it anymore. It is mainly for myself at this point. There is no one to impress and so I leave it to do at the last minute. I am pretty sure no one reads this in general, having accidentally found it online somehow. No one ever left comments. Hell, I am even writing this on October 14, 2022.
That is it for this month.
As always, I invite you to comment, correct, or contradict anything I write here. I am open to a critical debate. Thanks for taking the time to check out what I write here and I will see you in a month.
Until next time, remember “I try to show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to control everything really are.”
2022 Ernest M Whiteman III
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