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The House That Jack Built

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Film

Published: 27 January 2019

Hits: 1011

Before I begin, there will be spoilers. And do not watch this movie.

That said, it's a good movie. It's very well made. Lars Von Trier has painted a very accurate and disturbing portrayal of your typical, brighter than average serial killer.

In so doing he has created a very, very, evil film. 

The plot - the adventures of a serial killer named "Jack" - well, as grim as it is to suggest it's enacted daily. But we know this, we don't need a movie about it. How many movies are there about Serial Killers - from the camp - "Silence of the Lambs" to  "Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer" or "Man Bites Dog" or "M" or any of a hundred other films, the genre, the subject has been thoroughly and well explored.

The filming - amoral, almost glamorizing or celebrating Jack's killings. Allowing Jack to speak to Vergil, to "explain" himself - is wrong. We don't need his explanations. No explanation, expatiation or narration can excuse this. And here is where I take issue - details of real serial killings are often scant for the good reason they don't care to inspire copycats. This movie will inspire copycats. 

Do not watch this movie. It is very disturbing. It is very accurate. You will learn nothing. It is pornographic in it's savagery, in it's desire to offend and terrorize the audience more and more. You don't need this. You don't want to become jaded to this. The people that watch this movie, that enjoy it, they won't be the audience that applauds the references to "The Inferno", if they were they would slap Lars Von Trier silly over the ending (it should have ended some 30 seconds earlier, his final scene is a transparently cheap attempt to add some morality or justice to a movie that clearly has none).

DeSade - for all his filth and corruption, had an underlying morality, and wrote within his tastes to explore larger philosophical issues. This movie does not do this. Or perhaps it does, and in my initial offense I've overlooked it, but ----

Matt Damon acts very convincingly the role. I don't know how he did this without suffering some "collateral damage". To be in a movie that goes this deep into it's subject matter, well, it has to take it's toll.

This is an evil movie. There is no need for it. It's gratuitous, it's like watching ISIS beheading people, or footage of accidents in which no one survives, or videos of torture or a hundred other such violations, it revolts, it disturbs, it churns the stomach and imagination, and worst of all it gives an ironic voice to that class of criminal from whom no voice should be heard. There is no morality to it - perhaps that's it's greatness, but I would disagree. 

This is an evil movie. Do not watch this. I've warned you.

Diamonds of YouTube

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Miscellany

Published: 27 January 2019

Hits: 1517

13 degrees today, an amazing day, the season fast approaches and I'd better familiarize myself with my target.

Diamonds. Why not? Go big or go home. 

I've looked at a million pictures of diamonds, rough and otherwise, and am starting to get a feel for the subject. And then I get onto the clickhole of youtube.

Rough diamonds, searching, searching, buggerdly fuck for information. Like, I'm not looking for a map, I have that, I just want some good images, but - like most of the internet it's largely bullshit.

Videos with poor images enlarged to 100 times their original size, computer generated voiceovers. Bad, bad, bad. Then there's the people trying to sell shit, parcels of rough diamonds, they're OK. 

Then there's the "Independent Prospectors", fucking nut-jobs every one of 'em. I mean, hold a piece of quartz on a tray with a piece of silk. Hold it in your left hand. The silk lends value to the piece of quartz. With your right hand wave your phone around the quartz, don't let it focus, and talk about the diamond you found. Or just throw it on an old newspaper - nothing persuades me of success and quality like a Nigerian newspaper. Or a slideshow of rocks that - even to my limited knowledge - are clearly not rough diamonds. River cobbles, Calcite, Citrine, talk about that 2 kg (10,000 Carat) chunk of "diamond" you found and press the $10.00 diamond tester you bought off E-bay from China against it to "prove it's real" and then rail for a bit about how the jewelers don't know anything and they're inflating prices by not buying your piece of diamond at the more than reasonable price of $100.00 per Carat but if you, the educated you-tube viewer are interested please contact at...

You can't even parody this stuff, but I've got a lot of rocks to sell and so maybe I should start making a few videos of my own...

Wargames (1983)

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Film

Published: 27 January 2019

Hits: 959

One I missed in the theatres as a kid and so watched. With a spectacularly young Matthew Broderick, which is saying something, given we're about the same age...

There's the nostalgia for cars, computers, the optimism of the age - the foreshadowing of AI - deep learning programs like AlphaZero and Deepmind, and I knew kids in school that did this, hacked into airlines and printed tickets, enjoyed the general cheesiness and lack of gravity, but - in the end - very much of it's time, no Dr. Strangelove by a longshot. Maybe one to terrorize the kids with, but I doubt they'd forgive me...