Month: September 2020

“A slave stood behind the conqueror, holding a golden crown, and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory is fleeting.” – Patton

Patton hated fighting against the German fighting tank. No one likes the Peter Panzer.

Last month I did a post on books. The response was amazing, and had lots of comments from folks that aren’t regular commenters. It also cost me about $50 in books that are now on my shelf and in the “to read” pile. And I thank you folks for that. Now I won’t get through my “to read” pile until 2254.

To follow up, I thought I’d bring up movies. Manly movies. This summer, Pugsley and The Boy and I spent several nights watching Man Movies. These were movies that I selected that exhibited manly virtues. I’ll go through some of them below.

I’ve selected movies that are greater than 17 years old. Why? Because of the second movie on the list. Otherwise it would be 20 years, and that’s a long time. My friend drove a limo for 20 years, and now in this economy has nothing to chauffer it.

One question I’ll answer about each one is does the movie pass the three criteria of the Bechdel Test? The Bechdel Test was devised by (really) 1980’s lesbian women to use as a criteria on what movies to watch. I’m not very optimistic that good Man Movies will pass this test:

1. The movie has to have at least two women,
2. who talk to each other,
3. about something other than a man.

And no, none of these movies are about the invention of braille, even though I’ve heard that’s a great feel-good movie.

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First up:

Patton

Patton was my favorite movie the first time I watched it. How old was I? I was still in the PJ and Saturday morning cartoon set. As long-term readers might have guessed, I have a passion for history. General Patton (because of the movie Patton) is a primary reason I developed that love.

Patton also has a personal connection to the Wilder family. Pa Wilder was yelled at personally by General Patton. It turns out that Pa had been sent with orders to deliver supplies to a unit that didn’t exist. So, he’d stop and ask where the (I’m making this up) 551^st Infantry Division was. There was no 551^st Infantry. The United States Army was purposely trolling any spies that were in France. When Pa Wilder ended up at Patton’s 3^rd Army and asked for the 551^st, Patton yelled at Pa and then took all of the supplies. And all of the trucks. All of them. Pa Wilder and his company had to hop a ride to get back to Paris.

I walked in and The Mrs. was yelling at the TV: “Don’t go into the church, you moron!” She always gets emotional at our wedding videos.

I’m surprised Patton didn’t tell Pa and his Company to grab their M-1’s and hoof it to Bastogne.

(Note for newer readers who can do math: Ma and Pa Wilder adopted me after the wolves who raised me on Wilder Mountain decided I was too wild for them to continue having me around. Pa Wilder would be grandpa age, since I’m firmly a Gen X kid.)

One night this summer The Mrs. went to bed fairly early. I realized that neither Pugsley nor The Boy had seen Patton. The movie is nearly three hours in length. I expected that they’d watch a few minutes of it, pat me on the head for my love of this outdated movie, and move on.

Nope. They sat, riveted. When they had to go to the bathroom? “Hey, Dad, pause it, please.”

Does Patton pass the Bechdel Test? No. The only women I recall in the movie are a Garden Society that Patton gives a speech to. They have no lines. Would Patton be stronger if there was some subplot involving a young and brave female supersoldier who could fight even better than all the men because she’s the bestest ever?

Of course not.

I had trophy for winning a limbo competition, but it was stolen. How low can you get?

What Patton does, though, is inspire. He was a fountain of bravery and strength. He was probably the best fighting general the United States had in Europe. Patton’s sense of determination and destiny? The stuff of legend. Patton won Oscars® for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Most Manliest Movie Ever Made Up To 1970.

Not a second is wasted. The Boy and Pugsley finished the movie with me around 2AM on a Sunday morning. Good times.

Master and Commander: The Far Side of The World

I first watched this movie with The Boy when he was very young. Master and Commander tells the tale of fictional Captain Jack Aubrey and his ship’s surgeon as they sail on adventures during the Napoleonic wars before the French started surrendering every month when the power bill came in.

If you’re sad that you have never sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, remember, neither has the Titanic

The stunning thing about this movie is that it’s 100% Manly, even though it was made in 2003. The ship is crewed by men. They try to kill French men, who are in turn also manly. The only women seen in the movie are some native women who bring supplies to Captain Aubrey’s ship, the H.M.S. Surprise. Bechdel Test? Fail.

The rest of the movie?

Combat. Strategy. Honor. Tons of honor: there’s even a suicide done for the sake of honor.

And also a responsibility. In one scene, a 14 year old is left in command of the H.M.S. Surprise. The honor and responsibility are not lost on him: a continuing theme of this movie is the responsibility of command. Sure, if you’re the Captain you get the biggest bedroom on the ship. But the cost of that is responsible for every man on the ship, and even the ship itself.

The cinematography is amazing – and the H.M.S. Surprise is a real sailing ship. The movie didn’t make a bunch of money at the box office. That’s okay. At least they made it.

Russell Crowe plays Captain Aubrey. It’s his best role in any movie I’ve seen him in.

Zulu

The Battle of Rourke’s Drift is one of those, “did this really happen?” history moments. Several thousand Zulu warriors (3,000? 4,000?) attacked a small mission in South Africa in 1879. Who was left to defend it? About 150 troops, but only 120 of them were able to fight.

And who was in charge? An engineer. Lt. John Chard, who was described later as, “one of the most unambitious and ugly men” that particular general had ever met. That general had to award him the Victoria Cross (VC), which is the highest award Great Britain has for bravery. Smells like envy to me since the general never earned a VC himself. Also, 11 Victoria Crosses were awarded to soldiers at Rourke’s Drift. That’s not 1% of every Victoria Cross ever awarded.

But it’s close to 1% of all of them. Ever.

I did find a great new machine at the gym – it does everything: Chips. Cookies. Candy bars.

The 1964 movie Zulu is about that battle. It’s fairly unique in that the leader of the Zulu warriors attacking the British soldiers is played by the grandson of the Zulu chief who actually did attack Rourke’s Drift. Stanley Baker and Michael Caine play Lt. John Chard and Lt. Gonville Bromhead. Yes. That’s a real name. Someone actually named their child Michael.

Why is this movie great?

Well, it obviously fails the Bechdel Test, since there are zero conversations between women about anything.

But neither soldier really wants to command. Both of them (in real life) were described as wanting to smoke pipes and fish rather than work hard. Chard assumes command because he has to – he became a Lieutenant first.

The only way to win against 33 to 1 odds? Discipline. And the British soldiers showed it in abundance. They fought smartly, as a group. The movie is well paced, and Stanley Baker and Michael Caine tear up the screen. There are some historical inaccuracies, but it’s a movie, not a documentary.

Why is it manly?

Duty. Ingenuity. Unwillingness to give up.

The Thing

Since there are no women at all in The Thing (1982), it becomes the fourth out of four movies to fail the Bechdel Test. I’m thinking that 1980’s lesbian women probably aren’t good judges of movies I’ll like based on a criteria that has nothing to do with what makes a good movie. Good thing the Oscars® are joining them and demanding that arbitrary criteria are included in selecting the Best Picture Oscar™!

Chuck Norris was abducted by aliens. Once. That’s how we know that UFOs aren’t real.

The Thing was never in danger of winning an Oscar®. It’s a gore-fest John Carpenter movie. And it’s wonderful. If you don’t like horror movies – it’s not for you. But in this movie, Kurt Russell does his best Clint Eastwood imitation for the duration of the film and starts the movie by pouring scotch into a chess computer because it beats him.

The basic plot is that a small group of men are cut off from the world in Antarctica. Antarctica means “no bears.” Arctic means, from the Greek word, arktos, which means “bear.” Antarctica means the opposite, which would be no bears. But Kurt Russell has a manly beard that would make any bear claim him as their own.

The Thing is a great movie.

There is suspense. Just like evaluating a member of Congress, there is that moment when you have no idea who is good and who is bad.

But there is also the manly moment – when Kurt Russell stands up and decides he’s going to stop the alien. Is it because he’s a good guy? Yes. He decided fairly early in the movie that he was probably going to die, but that he would sacrifice everything so that a shape-shifting alien wouldn’t be able to escape Antarctica and become Billary Clinton.

The Thing again returns to the theme of being a man: Liking humans more than aliens. Willing to fight to the last to stop those aliens. Adapting to extreme changes in reality during the span of days.

I have a much longer list, but those are the four that made the cut for a very short list.

Your suggestions?

“Murder, arson, terror, I’ll agree to anything that gives us power. Power! And we can’t have power if we compromise. Even though it takes years, terror and power.” – Nicholas and Alexandria

Hmmm, ever notice that people started worrying about Global Warming® when the Soviets collapsed? I guess they missed the Cold War.

We’re in the middle of the biggest changes that we’ve seen in the country since World War II or the Great Depression. After WWII, the cities filled up. Coming back from the war, soldiers found that far fewer farmers were needed. Dorito® farmers were also impacted, even if they had a cool ranch.

The centralization of the cities offered the chance to work at huge manufacturing facilities. This was driven as United States took the industry developed to build Sherman tanks and other weapons of mass destruction and converted them to building cars and washing machines. Clarification – they didn’t convert the Sherman tanks into washing machines. But I kinda wished they had – the spin cycle would have been cool, and it probably would only have taken 150 gallons of gasoline per load.

Sure, there were lots of small manufacturing plants scattered across small towns everywhere – there are a few still operating in Modern Mayberry – but the big job creation was in the big cities. As factories have been offshored and closed down, many of the jobs that pulled people into cities have gone away. Cities in many cases (but not all) are now anchored by office jobs – things like finance, insurance, real estate and professional services. Which is nice, because they’ll need insurance after this year.

I’m going to protest the next riot by going out and buying a television.

As I predicted in past posts, we’re seeing the Fall of the Cities as people look around and ask themselves, “Why am I buying a 1,000 square foot two-bedroom house that costs a million dollars to live here?” It was a question I was asking even before the Wu-Flu©. But COVID-19 was the gasoline on the, er, bonfire of the cities that finally got the people living there to ask it, too.

• First, it showed how cities are hotspots for spreading disease. Except during peaceful protests.
• Second, work from home showed how few jobs needed to go in to the office every day to keep the large companies going. Why do you need to be in New York City working in a cubicle when you could do the same job from the middle of Missouri with a phone connection? One business I’ve heard of dropped its use of offices from five skyscraper floors down to two. And they don’t anticipate ever using those spare three floors again.
• Third, it created economic chaos, unemployment, and uncertainty. This creates fear in the lives of people doing their work on a day to day basis. How will they pay for PEZ®? How will they get a job when millions are unemployed, and companies are failing?

My friend Dante was involved in PETA protests, but stopped. Dante’s in fur now.

• Fourth, it separated people from each other in their daily lives. Even the masks, which (whatever their efficacy) are preventing normal human interaction in most cities. Some states have mandated that anyone outside of their house has to wear a mask. Not when within six feet of one another – just anyone who is outside. Additionally, people need to see each other’s faces – that’s how we bond and interact. People need people. Even the most introverted person needs human contact at some interval.
• Fifth, the result of this was a moment in time that could be made into a crisis of crime and destruction. This allowed BLM® and Antifa™ an opportunity. And that opportunity wouldn’t be wasted.

Antifa® isn’t new – it’s been around since the 1930’s. It started in Germany under the name Antifaschistische Aktion, and was set up (surprise!) as part of the Stalinist wing of the German commies. Today in the United States, they use the exact same symbol, and exact same name, Antifaschistische Aktion.

I knew there were problems with Antifa™ in this black and white photo, but I couldn’t see the red flags.

The original organization started even before there was fascism in Germany of any significance. Fascism was defined by the commies as capitalist society in general. So, unless you’re a communist (and if you’re a regular reader of this site, you’re not) this means you. Antifa© puts the world into two buckets:

• Good: Antifa© members.
• Bad: Everyone else. And, honestly, they’re not so sure that some of the communists might not need some quality time in Spokane Gulag.

Antifa© has led riots across the country. They are systematically attempting to destroy the United States, and they’ve decided to start in the cities. And people are starting to move out. The patterns are varied. One YouTuber® I watch occasionally said he’s done with San Francisco. His wife had a successful business. Had. Now it’s folding up. He cited the figure that 1400 of 2500 street-level businesses in San Francisco were just gone.

What’s the difference between a gender studies degree and being homeless? About five years.

Now he and his wife are gone. They haven’t decided which “red state” they’re moving to but they’ve already left San Francisco. He did directly promise to leave his Blue State ways behind him. He has the recognition that it wasn’t an accident that San Francisco is a mess, rather it was the result of decades of bad decisions. Given that his job can be done anywhere he has an Internet connection, nearly every place in the United States is an option.

The same thing is happening in New York City. People are leapfrogging out of the cities to the suburbs. People in the suburbs are moving rural. They’ve seen what’s happening, and have decided they’ll take whatever real estate gains they can get, and go.

Now an additional crisis has been created:

As such, we’re witnessing a great migration of people out of the cities, and out of Blue States. But that’s not enough, is it? The goal isn’t to own the cities, the goal is to eliminate fascists. Which is everyone who isn’t in Antifa®. How better to do that then to create yet another crisis. It looks like that’s exactly what someone has done.

The fires spreading across the West? At least some of the fires burning all over the West were intentionally set – see various stories at the bottom. It appears that places like Facebook® are banning stories where anyone says that Antifa© is lighting the fire. So, no matter how it looks like it’s something exactly like what Antifa™ would do, and in locations where Antifa™ hangs out, and done by people who look like they could be on an Antifa® recruiting poster, it surely can’t be Antifa©, right?

The fires have been devastating – at least 600,000 people in Oregon have been placed under an evacuation order. Large numbers of these fires were caused, on purpose.

Sounds like a weapon of mass destruction to me . . . .

Old pic ctsy: Bundesarchiv, B 145 Bild-P046279 / Weinrother, Carl / CC-BY-SA 3.0