Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.
---Thomas Jefferson
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Sunday, November 7, 2010
QUOTATIONS
Greed is good. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.
---OLIVER STONE
Of course I'm happy. That shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.
---Bob Dylan
It has served us well, this myth of Christ
---Pope Leo x (Giovanni de' Medici)
Surely you can't be serious.
I am serious... and don't call me Shirley
---AIRPLANE
I must pause for one fast second and say a fast word about oral contraception. I was involved in an extremely good example of oral contraception two weeks ago. I asked a girl to go to bed with me, and she said "No".
---Woody Allen
Nearly every man who develops an idea works it up to the point where it looks impossible, and then he gets discouraged. That's not the place to become discouraged. But keep your day job.
---Thomas A. Edison
If an unfriendly power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.
— "A Nation at Risk" (1983)
Never marry a man who has no friends. I am always amazed at the number of men I have counseled who have no friends.
---Father Pat Connor
In the second year of the great civil war, when the Irish brigades marched through the streets, New york was a city full of tribes. War chiefs, rich and poor. It wasn't a city really, It was more a furnace where cities someday might be forged.
---GANGS OF NEW YORK
For conservatives, seeing is believing; for liberals, believing is seeing.
---George F. Will
Crack that whip
Give the past the slip
-DEVO
You see and you know
---Jack Benny
Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, for knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind. Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works.
Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, for knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind.
---WALLSTREET
And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.
From the Oliver Stone film Wall Street 1980
Read by Michael Douglas
Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. You not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief.
---C. S. Lewis Grief
San Francisco in 1966 was what the whole young and popular world would be doing Saturday nights if the Nazis had won the war. It was the Sixth Reich.
---FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS
Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.
---Thomas Jefferson
... These guys are proud of what they did. They did Dealey Plaza! They took out the President of the United States! That's entertainment!
FERRIE Oh man, why don't you stop. This is too fuckin' big for you! Who did Kennedy? It's a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma. Even the shooters don't fuckin' know! Don't you get it yet? I can't be talking like this. They're gonna kill me. I'm gonna die! (he sits down, cracking, sobbing) I don't know what happened. All I wanted in the world was to be a Catholic priest - live in a monastery, study ancient Latin manuscripts, pray, serve God. But I had this one terrible, fatal weakness. They defrocked me. And then I started to lose everything.
---JFK
JIM GARRISON ... some story ... the whole thing. It's like it never happened.
DONALD SOUTHERN It never did.
---JFK
Kilgore (Robert Duval) stands there, hands on hips, looking at the burning jungle in the distance.
KILGORE
You smell that? Do you smell that?
LANCE
What?
KILGORE
(pointing to trees)
Napalm, son. Nothing else in the
world smells like that.
(crouches down)
I love the smell of napalm in the
morning. You know, one time we
had a hill bombed for twelve
hours...and when it was all over,
I walked up. We didn't find one
of them, not one stinking dink
body. The smell, you know that
gasoline smell? The whole hill-
smelled like-victory.
He looks of nostalgically. A shell comes in and HITS in the background. Willard and the soldiers react; Kilgore ignores it.
KILGORE
Someday this war's gonna end.
---APOCALYPSE NOW
It is a matter of life and death, a road either
to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry
which can on no account be neglected.
---SUN TZU, ON THE ART OF WAR
This strange disease of modern life, with its sick hurry, its divided aims.
---Matthew Arnold
For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to every one that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still.
---John Maynard Keynes
A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.
---H. L. Mencken
EISENHOWER
The conjunction of an immense military
establishment and a large arms industry is new
in the American experience. The total influence
- economic, political, even spiritual - is felt
in every city, every statehouse, every office of
the Federal Government ... In the councils of
government we must guard against the acquisition
of unwarranted influence, whether sought or
unsought, by the military industrial complex.
The potential for the disastrous rise of
misplaced power exists and will persist ... We
must never let the weight of this combination
endanger our liberties or democratic processes.
We should take nothing for granted ...
---OLIVER STONE
Of course I'm happy. That shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.
---Bob Dylan
It has served us well, this myth of Christ
---Pope Leo x (Giovanni de' Medici)
Surely you can't be serious.
I am serious... and don't call me Shirley
---AIRPLANE
I must pause for one fast second and say a fast word about oral contraception. I was involved in an extremely good example of oral contraception two weeks ago. I asked a girl to go to bed with me, and she said "No".
---Woody Allen
Nearly every man who develops an idea works it up to the point where it looks impossible, and then he gets discouraged. That's not the place to become discouraged. But keep your day job.
---Thomas A. Edison
If an unfriendly power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.
— "A Nation at Risk" (1983)
Never marry a man who has no friends. I am always amazed at the number of men I have counseled who have no friends.
---Father Pat Connor
In the second year of the great civil war, when the Irish brigades marched through the streets, New york was a city full of tribes. War chiefs, rich and poor. It wasn't a city really, It was more a furnace where cities someday might be forged.
---GANGS OF NEW YORK
For conservatives, seeing is believing; for liberals, believing is seeing.
---George F. Will
Crack that whip
Give the past the slip
-DEVO
You see and you know
---Jack Benny
Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, for knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind. Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works.
Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, for knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind.
---WALLSTREET
And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.
From the Oliver Stone film Wall Street 1980
Read by Michael Douglas
Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. You not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief.
---C. S. Lewis Grief
San Francisco in 1966 was what the whole young and popular world would be doing Saturday nights if the Nazis had won the war. It was the Sixth Reich.
---FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS
Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.
---Thomas Jefferson
... These guys are proud of what they did. They did Dealey Plaza! They took out the President of the United States! That's entertainment!
FERRIE Oh man, why don't you stop. This is too fuckin' big for you! Who did Kennedy? It's a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma. Even the shooters don't fuckin' know! Don't you get it yet? I can't be talking like this. They're gonna kill me. I'm gonna die! (he sits down, cracking, sobbing) I don't know what happened. All I wanted in the world was to be a Catholic priest - live in a monastery, study ancient Latin manuscripts, pray, serve God. But I had this one terrible, fatal weakness. They defrocked me. And then I started to lose everything.
---JFK
JIM GARRISON ... some story ... the whole thing. It's like it never happened.
DONALD SOUTHERN It never did.
---JFK
Kilgore (Robert Duval) stands there, hands on hips, looking at the burning jungle in the distance.
KILGORE
You smell that? Do you smell that?
LANCE
What?
KILGORE
(pointing to trees)
Napalm, son. Nothing else in the
world smells like that.
(crouches down)
I love the smell of napalm in the
morning. You know, one time we
had a hill bombed for twelve
hours...and when it was all over,
I walked up. We didn't find one
of them, not one stinking dink
body. The smell, you know that
gasoline smell? The whole hill-
smelled like-victory.
He looks of nostalgically. A shell comes in and HITS in the background. Willard and the soldiers react; Kilgore ignores it.
KILGORE
Someday this war's gonna end.
---APOCALYPSE NOW
It is a matter of life and death, a road either
to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry
which can on no account be neglected.
---SUN TZU, ON THE ART OF WAR
This strange disease of modern life, with its sick hurry, its divided aims.
---Matthew Arnold
For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to every one that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still.
---John Maynard Keynes
A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.
---H. L. Mencken
EISENHOWER
The conjunction of an immense military
establishment and a large arms industry is new
in the American experience. The total influence
- economic, political, even spiritual - is felt
in every city, every statehouse, every office of
the Federal Government ... In the councils of
government we must guard against the acquisition
of unwarranted influence, whether sought or
unsought, by the military industrial complex.
The potential for the disastrous rise of
misplaced power exists and will persist ... We
must never let the weight of this combination
endanger our liberties or democratic processes.
We should take nothing for granted ...
DEVIL'S ADVOCATE
THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE
The Devil's Advocate
God's your prankster, my boy.Think of it. He gives man
instincts. He gives you this extraordinary gift and then, I swear to you -- for his own
amusement -- his own private, cosmic gag reel -- he sets the rules in opposition.
Meet Faust in fancy cowboy boots: Kevin Lomax, the lawyer played by Keanu Reeves in Taylor Hackford's unexpectedly seductive ''Devil's Advocate.'' Kevin is at the heart of a high-concept sentence (''Slick yuppie is co-opted by slicker New York Satan'') that has been spun into a lavish-looking, cleverly entertaining morality play with shades of ''Rosemary's Baby,'' ''Wall Street'' and countless other tales of selling out to Manhattan's temptations.
This time it's the devil as head honcho at a law firm, with Al Pacino having great, wily fun with the screenplay's bons mots. ''Look at me, underestimated from Day One!'' bellows this executive, who has a taste for fashionably urbane black. ''You'd never think I was a Master of the Universe, now wouldya?''
His idea of such mastery definitely goes beyond Tom Wolfe's.
With a gratifyingly light touch, the screenplay by Jonathan Lemkin and Tony Gilroy (adapted from a novel by Andrew Neiderman) names Mr. Pacino's character John Milton, since he knows a thing or two about paradise lost. And it is in Gainesville, Fla., that they first find the ambitious Kevin, who thinks he has much to gain. Kevin, played with uncharacteristic sharpness by Mr. Reeves as a smart and debonair hotshot, is first seen successfully defending an unsavory schoolteacher against a charge of molesting a student (Heather Matarazzo of ''Welcome to the Dollhouse''). Then, with his gorgeous and sultry wife, Mary Ann (Charlize Theron), he celebrates this dubious victory. High on his own career trajectory, Kevin is in a mood to say yes when a strange lawyer flashes a big check and tries luring him to Manhattan.
The firm that summons Kevin has business in places like the Middle East, the Balkans, Central America and West Africa. It has a receptionist named Caprice. It has a witchily beautiful temptress called Christabella (Connie Nielson). And it has the devilish penthouse lair of Milton, complete with Purgatory artwork and a big roaring fire. Bruno Rubeo's deft production design, handsomely photographed by Andrzej Bartkowiak with the same burnished look he has given many Sidney Lumet films, gives this place a stark minimalism that is one part sleek efficiency, one part torture chamber. Running water cascading off the open edge of a terrace is one of the film's many ways of suggesting souls on the brink.
The Lomaxes are given a big apartment and Mary Ann stays home the way Rosemary did, painting the place while her husband advances his career. Meanwhile, Kevin stays preoccupied and becomes increasingly seduced by the cases that come his way. One involves Delroy Lindo as a mysterious figure accused of sacrificing goats in his ghetto basement. Another features Craig T. Nelson as a developer living in Trump-like, gilded splendor. The film's more mischievous tricks include using Donald Trump's real apartment as a set, since Versailles was perhaps unavailable, and producing Senator Alfonse D'Amato at a party scene for the Devil's law firm.
Meanwhile, Mary Ann starts having trouble. She misses her husband. She is pursued by Milton, who talks her into doing something drab to her beautiful blond hair. She receives equally unhelpful decorating advice from fellow corporate wives and abandons her favorite color, though Mary Ann's bright green figures sadly in a later hospital scene. During one outing with these women, complete with shopping, chardonnay and talk of plastic surgery, Mary Ann suddenly sees a terrifying vision.
The film uses morphing and Rick Baker's monster effects strikingly, but it also keeps its gimmicks well tethered to reality: an afternoon like Mary Ann's might be enough to make anyone see demons. Later on, Kevin's wandering eye yields an unsettling sex scene in which two different women in his life are suddenly made indistinguishable. Mr. Hackford uses diabolical editing at strategic moments to confuse identities in this way. While there is no small irony in a big Hollywood film's finger-wagging about the seductions of wealth and power, ''Devil's Advocate'' does avoid clumsy moralizing and old-hat notions of good and evil. It helps that Kevin is no naif, and that his churchgoing Mama (Judith Ivey) sees Manhattan as ''a dwelling place of demons'' well before that perception becomes unavoidable. It helps that the film finds Faustian deal making and yuppie ambition not very different. And it also helps that in this, the ultimate lawyer joke of a movie, it becomes so clear why Kevin's legal talents are the Devil's instruments of choice. Mr. Pacino's mischievous Milton eventually notes that nobody on earth could do his bidding better than a well-trained band of attorneys. If those attorneys are as pampered as Kevin threatens to become, so much the better. As Milton likes to point out, ''Vanity is definitely my favorite sin.''
(Special trailer note: Lurid advance ads for ''Devil's Advocate'' make it look ridiculous. It's not.)
.
Look but don't
touch. Touch but don't taste.
And while you're jumping from one foot
to the other he's laughing his
sick fucking ass off! He's a
tight-ass. He's a sadist. He's
an absentee landlord!
(incredulous)
Worship that? Never..
Vanity is definitely my favorite
sin. Self love. It's so basic.
What a drug. Cheap, all-natural,
and right at your fingertips.
Pride. That's where you're
strongest. And believe me, I
understand. Work for someone
else? -- Hey, I couldn't hack it.
'Better to reign in Hell than
serve in Heaven.
The Devil's Advocate
God's your prankster, my boy.Think of it. He gives man
instincts. He gives you this extraordinary gift and then, I swear to you -- for his own
amusement -- his own private, cosmic gag reel -- he sets the rules in opposition.
Meet Faust in fancy cowboy boots: Kevin Lomax, the lawyer played by Keanu Reeves in Taylor Hackford's unexpectedly seductive ''Devil's Advocate.'' Kevin is at the heart of a high-concept sentence (''Slick yuppie is co-opted by slicker New York Satan'') that has been spun into a lavish-looking, cleverly entertaining morality play with shades of ''Rosemary's Baby,'' ''Wall Street'' and countless other tales of selling out to Manhattan's temptations.
This time it's the devil as head honcho at a law firm, with Al Pacino having great, wily fun with the screenplay's bons mots. ''Look at me, underestimated from Day One!'' bellows this executive, who has a taste for fashionably urbane black. ''You'd never think I was a Master of the Universe, now wouldya?''
His idea of such mastery definitely goes beyond Tom Wolfe's.
With a gratifyingly light touch, the screenplay by Jonathan Lemkin and Tony Gilroy (adapted from a novel by Andrew Neiderman) names Mr. Pacino's character John Milton, since he knows a thing or two about paradise lost. And it is in Gainesville, Fla., that they first find the ambitious Kevin, who thinks he has much to gain. Kevin, played with uncharacteristic sharpness by Mr. Reeves as a smart and debonair hotshot, is first seen successfully defending an unsavory schoolteacher against a charge of molesting a student (Heather Matarazzo of ''Welcome to the Dollhouse''). Then, with his gorgeous and sultry wife, Mary Ann (Charlize Theron), he celebrates this dubious victory. High on his own career trajectory, Kevin is in a mood to say yes when a strange lawyer flashes a big check and tries luring him to Manhattan.
The firm that summons Kevin has business in places like the Middle East, the Balkans, Central America and West Africa. It has a receptionist named Caprice. It has a witchily beautiful temptress called Christabella (Connie Nielson). And it has the devilish penthouse lair of Milton, complete with Purgatory artwork and a big roaring fire. Bruno Rubeo's deft production design, handsomely photographed by Andrzej Bartkowiak with the same burnished look he has given many Sidney Lumet films, gives this place a stark minimalism that is one part sleek efficiency, one part torture chamber. Running water cascading off the open edge of a terrace is one of the film's many ways of suggesting souls on the brink.
The Lomaxes are given a big apartment and Mary Ann stays home the way Rosemary did, painting the place while her husband advances his career. Meanwhile, Kevin stays preoccupied and becomes increasingly seduced by the cases that come his way. One involves Delroy Lindo as a mysterious figure accused of sacrificing goats in his ghetto basement. Another features Craig T. Nelson as a developer living in Trump-like, gilded splendor. The film's more mischievous tricks include using Donald Trump's real apartment as a set, since Versailles was perhaps unavailable, and producing Senator Alfonse D'Amato at a party scene for the Devil's law firm.
Meanwhile, Mary Ann starts having trouble. She misses her husband. She is pursued by Milton, who talks her into doing something drab to her beautiful blond hair. She receives equally unhelpful decorating advice from fellow corporate wives and abandons her favorite color, though Mary Ann's bright green figures sadly in a later hospital scene. During one outing with these women, complete with shopping, chardonnay and talk of plastic surgery, Mary Ann suddenly sees a terrifying vision.
The film uses morphing and Rick Baker's monster effects strikingly, but it also keeps its gimmicks well tethered to reality: an afternoon like Mary Ann's might be enough to make anyone see demons. Later on, Kevin's wandering eye yields an unsettling sex scene in which two different women in his life are suddenly made indistinguishable. Mr. Hackford uses diabolical editing at strategic moments to confuse identities in this way. While there is no small irony in a big Hollywood film's finger-wagging about the seductions of wealth and power, ''Devil's Advocate'' does avoid clumsy moralizing and old-hat notions of good and evil. It helps that Kevin is no naif, and that his churchgoing Mama (Judith Ivey) sees Manhattan as ''a dwelling place of demons'' well before that perception becomes unavoidable. It helps that the film finds Faustian deal making and yuppie ambition not very different. And it also helps that in this, the ultimate lawyer joke of a movie, it becomes so clear why Kevin's legal talents are the Devil's instruments of choice. Mr. Pacino's mischievous Milton eventually notes that nobody on earth could do his bidding better than a well-trained band of attorneys. If those attorneys are as pampered as Kevin threatens to become, so much the better. As Milton likes to point out, ''Vanity is definitely my favorite sin.''
(Special trailer note: Lurid advance ads for ''Devil's Advocate'' make it look ridiculous. It's not.)
.
Look but don't
touch. Touch but don't taste.
And while you're jumping from one foot
to the other he's laughing his
sick fucking ass off! He's a
tight-ass. He's a sadist. He's
an absentee landlord!
(incredulous)
Worship that? Never..
Vanity is definitely my favorite
sin. Self love. It's so basic.
What a drug. Cheap, all-natural,
and right at your fingertips.
Pride. That's where you're
strongest. And believe me, I
understand. Work for someone
else? -- Hey, I couldn't hack it.
'Better to reign in Hell than
serve in Heaven.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)