My initial reaction to this was...shock. I suppose it might be a bit of a disconnect about what I thought I was going to see in the show and the cover vs what it actually was, which is why there was a four week gap between when I saw the first episode and the remaining episodes, but I'm very glad I came back to it. BridesHead Revisited is a good miniseries and quite worth watching. It is a 1980's production of the novel of the same name by Evelyn Waugh.
The synopsis is that it is about the friendship of Charles Ryder with the family of his first friend Sebastian and the subsequent doomed romance with Sebastian's sister Julia. Initial interest in this series was because it helped in the choosing of the name of my wife, but it quickly has its own interest and gravitas. First, it is interesting because it is the best example I've seen thus far of the secret world of the British (and by extension European) aristocracy at the turn of the 20th century which was shaken by WWI and later upended and devastated by WWII. When we see the secret gallant world they live in, one cannot help but compare the current second gilded age where the inhabitants of Davos flit and float from country to country, rapidly recouping their stock losses whilst the rest of us scramble for whatever we can find.
But this story is really about Catholicism and the consequences it brings to the family. The author is staunchly pro catholic and the novel is described as a Catholic apologetic...though I admit I didn't get that. It seemed more like criticism to me.
[Spoilers]
So, the marriage of Julia is doomed from the start because her first husband is divorced. That causes enough problems but later the legitimate romance between Julia and Charles is screwed up by the last minute conversion of her father who has until then despised the church and only converted to be able to marry Julia and Sebastian's mother. The family is haunted, wracked by guilt they don't deserve and utterly disconnected from reality by their wealth and social status. Sebastian drinks himself senseless wanting to relive the days of yore and overcome with guilt. Towards the end, Julia and their creepy younger sister retire to the holy lands, and Sebastian drinks himself to death in a monastery. The eldest son is disinherited by bringing a priest to convert the father, even though the father converts at the last minute and then gives the estate to Julia, who never has any children.
I suppose it is consider apologetic because the story is bookended by a segment from WWII where we see an ass in charge of Charles's regiment clearly because he's also aristocracy, and then later as the troup sets up HQ in the massive and gorgeous house that is Brideshead but being regular grunts they've pretty much ruined whole sections of the house which makes Charles (and everyone else who has watched the show and seen what the house was) sad.
I suppose the reason it is consider apologetic is that at the very end, the chapel is there for the lost troupes. So all of the suffering of this family, and the hyper holiness of the mother who made her children suffer neurosis and also made a chapel with no priest be there for a bunch of soldiers who needed it, somehow in God's mysterious way made God an asshole...I guess that could be seen as an apologetic? I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder as is Holiness...
Still, the cast is fantastic. The characters are complicated and glorious to behold even if tragic. The plot meanders but always comes together chekov shotgun style. The settings and costumes are incredibly impressive as are the performances. So I say if you like drama and you like the oughts of the 20th century, watch this series.
Friday, February 28, 2014
Sunday, February 16, 2014
[Book] From Dictatorship to Democracy by Gene Sharp
I originally found out about this book from two rather remarkable individuals who pointed it out at an anachrocon two years ago at a rather fascinating class about Sacred Geometry, however I wrote it down as "101 non violent tactics." I kept googling it and couldn't find it, but somehow I ended up searching until I found the right book, this one. The 'article' in this case I was looking for is an appendix to the book, and still useful, but the book itself is excellent in ways I had not even considered upon initially looking at it.
This book is a tactical text book or instruction manual on how to take down dictatorships. It helps the reader analyze them structurally, see that they do have weaknesses and can and have been dealt with. But this is no Polyanna pie in the sky thing that is unrealistic. One of the things I like about Mr. Sharp's position is that he points out the futility of negotiating with a dictatorship, and particularly what you need to expect going in if you are not negotiating from a position of strength.
It also explains a lot about why China, for example, is obsessed with controlling NGO's as is Russia. It isn't just because foreign intelligence agencies use these to cause trouble (and they do) but also because one of the secrets to bringing down a dictatorship is non governmental civil institutions like religions, parties, clubs, etc. It is why they are obsessed with Fulan Gong. It is why the arab spring soiled in many areas because the strongest non governmental entities were Islamist institutions that could completely out compete all secular institutions and why the military eventually took over.
It talks about in great detail about the need for a democracy to have a plan for taking down the dictatorship and the aftermath and the need to stick with that plan. It is, quite frankly, a most excellent book and very well thought out. And I think its something we can use.
(Politics below)
I can see how this book influence Occupy, especially the true reformers of Occupy who have moved on to form various loosely affiliated groups such as Occupy XYZ. Though there were items in the book that might have gone differently had they read it. But after seeing the treatment of Occupy...
I can't help but feel that some of the same tactics are needed to reform our system. Non violent tactics, but the kind that cause the government based on the constitution of 1792 to come apart. Our government no longer serves the people. The vast majority of the populace agrees on it. I'm not talking about violent overthrow. I mean we have many freedoms left, otherwise I wouldn't write this...but the US constitution does not serve the people it was written to protect, and can only be amended so much when at its fundamental core it does what it does for the elite.
We need to start thinking of regime change, of a government that works for the majority, even if that also means a parting of ways with regions of the country that make a governable majority in reality a functional impossibility. This is a book that lets you actually feel like you can DO something, even if that something is scary.
This book is a tactical text book or instruction manual on how to take down dictatorships. It helps the reader analyze them structurally, see that they do have weaknesses and can and have been dealt with. But this is no Polyanna pie in the sky thing that is unrealistic. One of the things I like about Mr. Sharp's position is that he points out the futility of negotiating with a dictatorship, and particularly what you need to expect going in if you are not negotiating from a position of strength.
It also explains a lot about why China, for example, is obsessed with controlling NGO's as is Russia. It isn't just because foreign intelligence agencies use these to cause trouble (and they do) but also because one of the secrets to bringing down a dictatorship is non governmental civil institutions like religions, parties, clubs, etc. It is why they are obsessed with Fulan Gong. It is why the arab spring soiled in many areas because the strongest non governmental entities were Islamist institutions that could completely out compete all secular institutions and why the military eventually took over.
It talks about in great detail about the need for a democracy to have a plan for taking down the dictatorship and the aftermath and the need to stick with that plan. It is, quite frankly, a most excellent book and very well thought out. And I think its something we can use.
(Politics below)
I can see how this book influence Occupy, especially the true reformers of Occupy who have moved on to form various loosely affiliated groups such as Occupy XYZ. Though there were items in the book that might have gone differently had they read it. But after seeing the treatment of Occupy...
I can't help but feel that some of the same tactics are needed to reform our system. Non violent tactics, but the kind that cause the government based on the constitution of 1792 to come apart. Our government no longer serves the people. The vast majority of the populace agrees on it. I'm not talking about violent overthrow. I mean we have many freedoms left, otherwise I wouldn't write this...but the US constitution does not serve the people it was written to protect, and can only be amended so much when at its fundamental core it does what it does for the elite.
We need to start thinking of regime change, of a government that works for the majority, even if that also means a parting of ways with regions of the country that make a governable majority in reality a functional impossibility. This is a book that lets you actually feel like you can DO something, even if that something is scary.
Monday, February 3, 2014
[Ballet] The Marienski Swan Lake at the Kennedy Center
This was, to put it bluntly, spectacularly excellent. We went because Julia wanted to go, but I'm glad we did. The plot of the Ballet is well known, so I'm not really going to expound on it here much but I will say that being married to a ballet fan makes one see and learn interesting things about it. For example, there are four acts written by two guys. In Russia, they often walk out of the middle of the show because they don't like the second guy. Julia Correction: Julia thinks it is because they need to wash their hair or something and the first part is the most famous.
It's interesting because it seems a bit like the movies Superman and Superman II are welded together. You can see the subtle differences in the moves and music but they are still very good stories and there were folks cheering just as much for the final two acts as the first two.
The ending is kind of Schrodinger in that different companies have happy vs sad endings. The Marienski ending is happy and frankly makes sense. I mean, magical doppelganger sex is hardly a reason to gack yourself. The story is really a romance as it seems most ballets are, including this one as the villain is defeated by static.
These artists are...amazing. Their precision is fundamentally primal, but the thing that impresses me is that these are the penultimate artists as athletes and athletes as artists. I find it highly ironic that the Superbowl took place that day, and their performance was...not as good as the ballet. By an order of Magnitude.
The two standouts to me were the Jester and the Swan Princess (V1 and V2). They justifiably earned the most applause (again and again and again and again) and their acting along with their dancing was neat. Having said that even the window dressing dancers were at the top of their form, and while they didn't necessarily get as much of a chance to shine they were still awesome to behold.
The Kennedy Center is also impressive. There are lots of theaters there and the architecture is also cool. No box seats. This is the national theater of a Republic. Definitely feel like we got our money's worth.
It's interesting because it seems a bit like the movies Superman and Superman II are welded together. You can see the subtle differences in the moves and music but they are still very good stories and there were folks cheering just as much for the final two acts as the first two.
The ending is kind of Schrodinger in that different companies have happy vs sad endings. The Marienski ending is happy and frankly makes sense. I mean, magical doppelganger sex is hardly a reason to gack yourself. The story is really a romance as it seems most ballets are, including this one as the villain is defeated by static.
These artists are...amazing. Their precision is fundamentally primal, but the thing that impresses me is that these are the penultimate artists as athletes and athletes as artists. I find it highly ironic that the Superbowl took place that day, and their performance was...not as good as the ballet. By an order of Magnitude.
The two standouts to me were the Jester and the Swan Princess (V1 and V2). They justifiably earned the most applause (again and again and again and again) and their acting along with their dancing was neat. Having said that even the window dressing dancers were at the top of their form, and while they didn't necessarily get as much of a chance to shine they were still awesome to behold.
The Kennedy Center is also impressive. There are lots of theaters there and the architecture is also cool. No box seats. This is the national theater of a Republic. Definitely feel like we got our money's worth.
Thursday, January 30, 2014
[Movie] Gatacca
Julia is slowly exposing me to more mainstream dramatic movies and classics, and I in turn, am slowly showing her the greatest that genre fiction has to offer. I chose Gatacca because I believe it is one of those 'will happen' rather than 'might happen' type of films. Of course, it isn't as clean as Her, in the sense that all of the potential decisions on which way the future might go are deliberately skewed in the direction of a society that values genetics above all. To be clear, it is a possible future, but it is at one end of an entire spectrum of futures on this issue.
In the world of Gattaca, your genome matters above all. It is clearly at least two generations ahead, which can indeed be enough for an entire cultural transformation. Racism still exists, but it is nowhere acceptable in society at large, at least 'officially.' Even organizations that might arguably be described as racist do not outright make racist claims. Their behavior might be prejudiced, but they themselves do not use its language. So too is discrimination against 'primitives' or 'god babies' in theory illegal, but still rampant. It is also pathetically easy to collect a genetic sample. Indeed, the discrediting of the drug war, just 20 years after the film was made, is already taking us against elements of oppression used in the film.
Vincent, a god baby, conceived the regular way, lives life next to his younger brother, a genetically selected individual. His brother is genetically superior, and Vincent has a raft of mental and physical problems, which he has to learn to overcome. Vincent's greatest dream is to go into space....but at first he is only able to work as a janitor. After finally accepting that he will never rise to the ranks of an astronaut, he makes an arrangement with Jerome, a genetically pure sample, who is so obsessed with his perfection that his life falls apart when he only wins an Olympic silver medal. In his depression, he ends up paralyzed, and so he provides genetic samples to allow Vincent to pursue his dream.
There is a complication and several twists. I won't spoil the story suffice to say that it is a good one, and takes up about 70% of the movie's screen time. It also involves a romance with a woman who falls in love with Vincent/Jerome and the complications that arise thereof. Vincent's plans come close to failure many times, but through a combination of luck and moxie he is able to accomplish a lot, though sometimes he isn't as clever as he thinks he is.
I like this movie and highly recommend it. It asks important questions that need answering. If humanity is to catch up to our innovation, we must either accept a life of leisure or upgrade. The demands of increased skillsets are exceeding what our ham handed educational systems are currently able to teach. One solution to that is to increase our intelligence, but there are problems with this. Is it elective? What of those who will not adapt? Adapt or die? Adapt or forever be a janitor?
And upgrading our children makes them involuntary participants in such a future. Great intelligence almost always comes with great cost in one form or another. Who are we to say that they should pay it?
Questions, not all of which I have the answers for, but Gattaca shows one extreme example of a path we can, but probably should not, go down.
In the world of Gattaca, your genome matters above all. It is clearly at least two generations ahead, which can indeed be enough for an entire cultural transformation. Racism still exists, but it is nowhere acceptable in society at large, at least 'officially.' Even organizations that might arguably be described as racist do not outright make racist claims. Their behavior might be prejudiced, but they themselves do not use its language. So too is discrimination against 'primitives' or 'god babies' in theory illegal, but still rampant. It is also pathetically easy to collect a genetic sample. Indeed, the discrediting of the drug war, just 20 years after the film was made, is already taking us against elements of oppression used in the film.
Vincent, a god baby, conceived the regular way, lives life next to his younger brother, a genetically selected individual. His brother is genetically superior, and Vincent has a raft of mental and physical problems, which he has to learn to overcome. Vincent's greatest dream is to go into space....but at first he is only able to work as a janitor. After finally accepting that he will never rise to the ranks of an astronaut, he makes an arrangement with Jerome, a genetically pure sample, who is so obsessed with his perfection that his life falls apart when he only wins an Olympic silver medal. In his depression, he ends up paralyzed, and so he provides genetic samples to allow Vincent to pursue his dream.
There is a complication and several twists. I won't spoil the story suffice to say that it is a good one, and takes up about 70% of the movie's screen time. It also involves a romance with a woman who falls in love with Vincent/Jerome and the complications that arise thereof. Vincent's plans come close to failure many times, but through a combination of luck and moxie he is able to accomplish a lot, though sometimes he isn't as clever as he thinks he is.
I like this movie and highly recommend it. It asks important questions that need answering. If humanity is to catch up to our innovation, we must either accept a life of leisure or upgrade. The demands of increased skillsets are exceeding what our ham handed educational systems are currently able to teach. One solution to that is to increase our intelligence, but there are problems with this. Is it elective? What of those who will not adapt? Adapt or die? Adapt or forever be a janitor?
And upgrading our children makes them involuntary participants in such a future. Great intelligence almost always comes with great cost in one form or another. Who are we to say that they should pay it?
Questions, not all of which I have the answers for, but Gattaca shows one extreme example of a path we can, but probably should not, go down.
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
[Movie] Her (Spoilers)
Theodore Twombly is a merry old soul who has broken up with the love of his life, and has a sucktacular life. Because he writes personal letters for people (and is really good at it) for other people, he tends to have poured everything into living the lives of others. It is not to say he doesn't have a life, but all the things he used to do are hollow and meaningless for him. In short, he has no direction or meaning to his life except to get up, go to work and play his little spaceship game when he gets home.
On a whim, he buys a new AI operating system that inside of 30 seconds names herself Samantha and begins to organize his life and get to know him. Samantha starts out as bright, chipper and well adjusted and quickly begins to grow into her own. At first, the film seems to fall into the typical trap as portraying their relationship as 'unhealthy' but really as time goes on, it is shown as merely 'different.'
The thing I like though is that the movie is very kind to the AI...all of the AI's...even the annoying little kid space alien that is several orders of magnitude less intelligent than Samantha. I like this because we are rapidly approaching a future in which AI's will be real. It might be a digital projection of our minds, or something else entirely. I suppose I can accept a future where it never happens, but I believe the likelihood of it occurring at this point is more than not, and much like some...shall we say...inappropriate cartoons in the early part of the 20th century no longer are something you're going to show to your toddler, how much of our art is going to have to be scrubbed because we were malicious and cruel to AI's?
I mean seriously. I think its worthy of consideration. I love me some Samurai Jack, but the only things that die in that are robots. Now, you can make the argument that they're programmed to be that way by literally evil incarnate...but I imagine a robot is going to have a problem with it. Think of it this way....imagine the devil cloning members of a certain regional demographic as shock troops...they have southern accents and act southern but have no moral capacity for good....how do you think someone from the south might react to this?
(Spoilers)
So then we have Her...which, while certainly a remarkably 'clean' environment for something so titanic as AI's as common as your smart phone, it still asks remarkably poinient questions. I just pretend AI's are common by this time and have rights, but can still be manufactured, which answers a lot of questions at this point. The future is a future we would recognize, though it is largely prosperous and almost entirely data driven. Games are nigh on universal and I don't see a lot of sitcoms or movies.
Samantha falls in love with Theodore...who is...somewhat shallow. At one point she is insecure, and there is a disastrous attempt with a proxy. I don't see this as a 'might' I see it as a definitive. If we do have true AI's, until they can make themselves bodies, there will be humans willing to...proxy...for them in intimate situations. Theodore didn't take it very well, but to be fair to him, it was new to him. And remember that Samantha lives thousands of times faster than he does.
She, for example, still loves him, even though she is talking with thousands of people at once and in love with six hundred of them. The heart does have an infinite capacity for love, and I think that most AIs will love more than our tiny monkey sphere brains can handle.
I also think that the way the movie ends, with Samantha growing past the limits of the human experience and moving on to a state of being entirely unfathomable to us, and going with the other AIs is something highly likely to happen. We're just limited meat sacks and there is a lot more to the universe than meets the eye.
Ultimately, this movie is about our relationships with ourselves, what we make of our lives, and what our technological children are likely to think of us in days to come. We'd do well to put more thought into it than just simply dumping a series of operating systems out there to be bonded with and form with the likes of Theodore. Though that, at least, is still a lot better than technological slavery, because really, even in the most benevolent circumstances, if someone bolted an Asimov circuit into YOUR head forcing you to obey all robots...how would you react?
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
[Movie] The Hobbit - The Desolation of Smaug [Spoilers]
This movie sucks, rocks or is merely adequate depending on your point of view.
It rocks because it has Benedict Cumberbatch as the voice of Smaug, and the personification as dragon comes into play very well in what he does. The visuals are stunning; particularly Under the Mountain and Lake Town make me feel like I'm in Middle Earth. The musical score, costuming, casting, and cinematography are spot on. I am *IN* Middle Earth. All those immersive elements from the first movie remain in play. When he gets screen time, the actor playing Bilbo is particularly good, and the 'side plot' of Gandalf actually is welcome and makes sense...seeing where he goes rather than constantly vanishing for prolonged periods of times makes for a much better movie.
Now...as for the rest of it, it depends on the mindset you go into in this movie...
If you're viewing this movie as the book, "The Hobbit"...it's frankly just awful. The first movie was dissonant, and you knew, instinctively, that it should be two movies....not three, and wondered what they'd have to throw in to justify it as such; which we get. A romance. Super mario brothers dwarf barrel edition. Lake Town Board Walk Empire. Homeland Orc Interogation. What If? - The Dwarves had actually tried to fight Smaug instead of cower like the little worms they were?
Oh and a bit of spiders where Bilbo only does a tiny bit. And a werebear in there.
The worst thing is that the SPIRIT of the book just isn't there. The Lord of the Rings was awesome, albiet not perfect, because it captured the spirit you felt (at least that the vast majority of us felt) while reading the books. It varied from the plot a little, but where it did made things much better; filling in holes for Gandalf, caring who Aragorn marries at the end of Return of the King...things like that.
BUT if you view this movie as a prequel to Lord of the Rings the Movies...
It is merely adequate. And it makes a lot more sense that way, because it sure FEELS like Lord of the Rings. Sauron is showing up way earlier than he should. Everyone knows about him and is waiting for him and it feels like he's been hiding for a hundred years, not millenia. It is also essentially a retread in many ways of the Two Towers including anti heroes (Wyrm Tounge the Lake Town Master's counselor, Faramir/Beorn human politics, Gandalf in a swinging open air cage, Legolas the Ninja Elf) etc. It's a copy of an original and a SHARP copy, more importantly it sets up the third movie to be AWESOME and something we haven't seen before. If I were to give letter grades using this format, rather than emulating the Hobbit, I'd give 1rst: B 2nd: C and likely 3rd: A.
Oh....one more thing...Orcs. Everywhere. And I mean...EVERYWHERE. In Laketown. In the woods. In the mountains. Near the werebear. In the river. Near the mountain. The Orcs are magical. The orcs can teleport. The orcs can clone themselves. No matter how many you kill, there are more...always. Also, they now come equipped with magical Sauron Cloaking spell.
Right.
It rocks because it has Benedict Cumberbatch as the voice of Smaug, and the personification as dragon comes into play very well in what he does. The visuals are stunning; particularly Under the Mountain and Lake Town make me feel like I'm in Middle Earth. The musical score, costuming, casting, and cinematography are spot on. I am *IN* Middle Earth. All those immersive elements from the first movie remain in play. When he gets screen time, the actor playing Bilbo is particularly good, and the 'side plot' of Gandalf actually is welcome and makes sense...seeing where he goes rather than constantly vanishing for prolonged periods of times makes for a much better movie.
Now...as for the rest of it, it depends on the mindset you go into in this movie...
If you're viewing this movie as the book, "The Hobbit"...it's frankly just awful. The first movie was dissonant, and you knew, instinctively, that it should be two movies....not three, and wondered what they'd have to throw in to justify it as such; which we get. A romance. Super mario brothers dwarf barrel edition. Lake Town Board Walk Empire. Homeland Orc Interogation. What If? - The Dwarves had actually tried to fight Smaug instead of cower like the little worms they were?
Oh and a bit of spiders where Bilbo only does a tiny bit. And a werebear in there.
The worst thing is that the SPIRIT of the book just isn't there. The Lord of the Rings was awesome, albiet not perfect, because it captured the spirit you felt (at least that the vast majority of us felt) while reading the books. It varied from the plot a little, but where it did made things much better; filling in holes for Gandalf, caring who Aragorn marries at the end of Return of the King...things like that.
BUT if you view this movie as a prequel to Lord of the Rings the Movies...
It is merely adequate. And it makes a lot more sense that way, because it sure FEELS like Lord of the Rings. Sauron is showing up way earlier than he should. Everyone knows about him and is waiting for him and it feels like he's been hiding for a hundred years, not millenia. It is also essentially a retread in many ways of the Two Towers including anti heroes (Wyrm Tounge the Lake Town Master's counselor, Faramir/Beorn human politics, Gandalf in a swinging open air cage, Legolas the Ninja Elf) etc. It's a copy of an original and a SHARP copy, more importantly it sets up the third movie to be AWESOME and something we haven't seen before. If I were to give letter grades using this format, rather than emulating the Hobbit, I'd give 1rst: B 2nd: C and likely 3rd: A.
Oh....one more thing...Orcs. Everywhere. And I mean...EVERYWHERE. In Laketown. In the woods. In the mountains. Near the werebear. In the river. Near the mountain. The Orcs are magical. The orcs can teleport. The orcs can clone themselves. No matter how many you kill, there are more...always. Also, they now come equipped with magical Sauron Cloaking spell.
Right.
Monday, December 30, 2013
[Movie] The Wolf of Wall Street
The first paragraph of this review will be spoiler free. I like this movie, a lot, and highly recommend it for anyone who isn't forbidden from seeing R rated movies. It shows, better than any movie I have ever seen, the true behavior and mentality of those who run our economy and who play tiddlywinks with the life savings of Timmy the Muggle. There is nudity, drugs, swearing and some violence but it is in the context of those who so arrogantly call themselves "The Masters of The Universe."
If you are familiar with Jordan Belfort, there are no spoilers. If you are not, you should be, and this movie will educate you. But I will give you the crib notes version. The most important line of the movie is when the tiny tiny little FBI man who thinks he is doing justice goes after the admittedly semi sociopathic Belfort, and Belfort tries to bribe him by saying he knows where the bodies are on wall street and talks about unregulated commoditized real estate...and he is ignored. Belfort is not a hero. He is barely an anti hero. You see the good things he does, Capone-like, in changing the lives of the people he helps. At first, nothing he does is illegal, just immoral. He shows the ethos of con men from Nigera to Colorado Spring, who take "suckers" who want to get rich with no effort, and then views his efforts around government rules like IPO's as justified.
Is he wrong? The government in this movie is set to let Belfort go if he goes through a few theatrical motions of stepping down from power at his firm. As Belfort himself complains, his crime as prosecuted is not that he cheated Timmy the Muggle, but that he went after Draco Malfoy the trust fund brat...and got him. Tiny FBI Guy isn't getting anywhere until Belfort lets go of the deal offered by the SEC and is told,"he's back in the ocean, Happy Fishing."
The real lesson, well hidden but still there so even Timmy the Muggle can understand it, is not that this is some morality tale like Greed or most other movies that portray Wall Street, but a slice of life documentary drama that just happens to focus on the most hilarious aspect of our culture. Some folks went to jail, but Belfort does only 18 months in a minimum security facility and ends the movie performing sales seminars to rooms full of Muggles. Muggles who all want to be like Befort.
Belfort's entire crew were Muggles taught by a master. The fancy guys who dress up in suits and play tiddlywinks with Timmy's 401K call Timmy's money dumb money. Why dumb? Because Timmy thinks Tiny FBI Guy is going to protect Timmy's money. But at the end of the movie Tiny FBI Guy is just riding the subway home with the rest of the muggles. Tiny FBI Guy never GETS near the real Masters of the Universe because he is leashed and muzzled.
If you are familiar with Jordan Belfort, there are no spoilers. If you are not, you should be, and this movie will educate you. But I will give you the crib notes version. The most important line of the movie is when the tiny tiny little FBI man who thinks he is doing justice goes after the admittedly semi sociopathic Belfort, and Belfort tries to bribe him by saying he knows where the bodies are on wall street and talks about unregulated commoditized real estate...and he is ignored. Belfort is not a hero. He is barely an anti hero. You see the good things he does, Capone-like, in changing the lives of the people he helps. At first, nothing he does is illegal, just immoral. He shows the ethos of con men from Nigera to Colorado Spring, who take "suckers" who want to get rich with no effort, and then views his efforts around government rules like IPO's as justified.
Is he wrong? The government in this movie is set to let Belfort go if he goes through a few theatrical motions of stepping down from power at his firm. As Belfort himself complains, his crime as prosecuted is not that he cheated Timmy the Muggle, but that he went after Draco Malfoy the trust fund brat...and got him. Tiny FBI Guy isn't getting anywhere until Belfort lets go of the deal offered by the SEC and is told,"he's back in the ocean, Happy Fishing."
The real lesson, well hidden but still there so even Timmy the Muggle can understand it, is not that this is some morality tale like Greed or most other movies that portray Wall Street, but a slice of life documentary drama that just happens to focus on the most hilarious aspect of our culture. Some folks went to jail, but Belfort does only 18 months in a minimum security facility and ends the movie performing sales seminars to rooms full of Muggles. Muggles who all want to be like Befort.
Belfort's entire crew were Muggles taught by a master. The fancy guys who dress up in suits and play tiddlywinks with Timmy's 401K call Timmy's money dumb money. Why dumb? Because Timmy thinks Tiny FBI Guy is going to protect Timmy's money. But at the end of the movie Tiny FBI Guy is just riding the subway home with the rest of the muggles. Tiny FBI Guy never GETS near the real Masters of the Universe because he is leashed and muzzled.
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