WISDOM OF THE SAGES
EPISODE II: WINTER 2024
Hello People of the World;
Here we are another month in and things look the same as last year.
Weather.
As always: Stay safe. Stay home.
All right, let’s get going:
1:[ This virus really showed how equal we all really are: I’ve noted this mentality where the collective consciousness seems to forget that the virus is still a thing. We seem to all have short-term memories when it comes to how life-altering this pandemic should have been in terms of advancement of medicine, the inequality of capitalism and systemic racism. But we want things back to the way they used to be, mainly because of how privileged we were and how we all profited from that inequal system….
2:[ MOVIE REVIEWS:
Still, haven’t been to the movie theater as yet. No reviews this month.
3:[ This Month’s Essay:
Been seeing some comments on this. I have to say:
This is the ONLY reason people love "Predator 2"! It's not the acting, or the characters, or the cinematography, or the writing, because it's all really bad. I mean, it's not even "heroic for trash curation" fun. It's terrible. Why do people love it if not just for this shot?
Then, it has to be the casual racism against Jamaican people, right? Or that fact that all of the violent gangs and criminals are people of color?
Then, it must be the heroizing of a violent, authoritarian police force? Much like today, where we cannot EVEN CRITICIZE THEM without the fear of losing our civil rights and even lives for doing so?
Then it has to be the anti-feminism because the only female character is pregnant, and only then, gains our sympathy when we find out. Even the Predator spares her because he knows that women are only good for being brood mares for their respective species.
Then it has to be the badly-drawn characters? Bill Paxton and Gary Busey add more unlikeable characters to their oeuvres. The only Latinos are stock characters of the mystic wise man, tickling beads and dispensing wisdom, that is a stripped-down stand-in for the mage character in any quest story, or a feisty, back-talking Latina that is also pregnant.
It can't be Danny Glover, right? It can't. He's just not an action hero. He's not! He's a great character actor, Color Purple, Tanenbaums and such. Yeah, yeah, "Lethal Weapon". But that was the conceit of those films, that this ordinary, non-action hero dad is dragged into these ridiculously dangerous situations by a homophobic, violent, anti-Semitic lunatic that plays a PSTD-ridden, depressed Vietnam vet.
These have to be why this movie is loved, right?
Otherwise, it's just this shot - "Yeah, we see the Alien skull! Masterpiece!".
That can't be why, right?
4:[ Observation: The ONLY net positive I have found for having a smartphone that does so much is that I can now constantly play solitaire on the trains....
5:[ We cannot go back to “Normal” all after this: thinking that fresh water is an infinite resource.
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.”
2024 Ernest M Whiteman III
