Trailers: Nazis At the Center Of the Earth, Jack the Giant Slayer, The Croods, Star Trek Into Darkness

The Virgin Mary with Jesus, Priscilla Catacombs, 2nd Century.

Happy Feast Day of the Immaculate Conception to you all!
Many blessings of joy, peace and Grace to you all on this happy day!
I know some are tired of the same old socialism vs capitalism debate; I am, too; I wish things could go back to the way they were; but they won't. Just to validate the importance of socialism and capitalism going at it, I would like to draw your attention to two facts: first,  socialism and capitalism were the most searched words of 2012; secondly, please consider this trailer for Nazis At the Center Of the Earth, about the "whole gang" of socialists who started World War II being alive and well in Antarctica, planning their comeback:

A film like this could not be made today if I was the only socialism-taking-over-the-world capitalist in America, and, to my knowledge, a film like this wasn't even made after World War II, the closest in topic was the Alec Guinness-Max von Sydow film The Quiller Memorandum. Even though it looks like a pretty straight-forward kind of film without any encoding, look again: of course it is encoded, but it's going to be a bit more obvious and a little easier to access. For example, in the last seconds, when the facial skin of a man is ripped off, that's a great encoding for how socialism "strips us" of our identity (the face is the primary means of physically identifying someone). Why Antarctica? Please recall that it is in Antarctica that Captain America went down with the plane and he was discovered again. Antarctica is both a mysterious place and, more importantly, a place pushed to the "margins" of society, a place not inhabited regularly and so frozen it's assumed life can't exist, but an idea can,...

While director Joss Whedon (The Avengers) made a commercial about a Romney presidential win putting us on track for the zombie apocalypse, it's micro-budget film like Nazis At the Center of the Earth which demonstrates more clearly how it's socialism which ushers in the "zombie apocalypse," whether you believe it's coming or not, because it's with an army of zombies that Hitler plans on re-taking control over the earth.

The premise of Nazis At the Center Of the Earth isn't just located in this film; the zombie Nazi soldiers are throughout Resident Evil: Retribution, fighting the capitalists trying to hold on to what bit of earth they can. Nazis At the Center Of the Earth is available to watch on Instant Streaming on Netflix and for DVD home viewing (I might even watch it tonight!).
Now, here is two examples of films going in the opposite direction, or, at least, I highly suspect they will:

You may recall that Jack the Giant Slayer had been slated for opening this summer and was pushed to March 1, 2013. In all honesty, from this look at the film, it probably makes more sense in the political context of a second Obama term. Why should we examine trailer footage before seeing the whole film? For one reason, it keeps us sharp: it's far easier gleaning symbols and info from a two-minute trailer rather than a whole film, an information overload, but we still have to glean and examine; secondly, it creates a greater alertness for recurring symbols (such as the giants: where have we seen them before? Wrath Of the Titans--well, the Cyclops--and we will see something like it in The Hobbit). Thirdly, we are more aware of what we are looking for when we enter the film and pick up on minor--yet important--details faster than if we go in without an idea of what to look for.
And, it's fun.
So let's start!

The magical beans. What a story retains from a re-make and what it loses are invaluable for helping to determine what the modern message is about. Just as we did with the story of Snow White, before Jack the Giant Slayer comes out, we will examine the original story and decode elements from it so we have something to compare Jack the Giant Slayer to which will enhance features the film makers change (and we will do it with Hansel and Gretel Witch Hunters also). Why would beans be retained in the story? I can guarantee you it's not for nostalgia, rather beans are the food of the poor, and it will probably have something to do with the poor ("the little people") rising up to revolt against the 1% and "cutting them down to size" to make them eat beans, too. If this will be a pro-socialist film, it will be like the others: anti-capitalist, because the socialists cannot show us depictions of life actually under socialism that would be desirable because it doesn't exist; rather, they will feed us scenes of "intolerable life under capitalism" and make us sick of it so it's easier to start a socialist revolution in America (I should say, rather, expand the socialist revolution in America, because everything Obama does promotes socialism).

The whole trick to decoding is this: asking a simple enough question. If you are having problems breaking through the symbols, you aren't asking a simple enough question. For this film, we can ask, who in America has gigantic stature? The super-rich, the 1%. We can substantiate this theory with the perception that the super-rich live in a world "above" the daily grime and cares of us mere mortals who toll for a living. That Jack is obviously poor would be, for a socialist, the only virtue he requires to be heroic; we also learn that he reads, but what does he read? IF the giants are the 1% (and that will be mirrored ALSO in the humans who want to rule over those who are poor like Jack, like the captain of the guard) then what Jack reads is probably the father of socialism, Karl Marx.
How can we say this?

One way we can distinguish the "artificial" from the "natural" will be by the world of the giants and if it is decadent vs the virtuous simplicity of Jack's life on the farm. IF it is pro-socilist, any class mobility which does occur will be a statment that class mobility is esier to achieve in socialism rather than capitalism

As Resident Evil: Retribution makes the point, capitalism is a natural system because people were engaging in it long before Adam Smith wrote the textbook, Wealth Of Nations. Socialism, on the other hand, never existed until after Marx wrote The Communist Manifesto and revolutions were forced upon the people into overturning existing governments therefore, socialism is looked at as an artificial system (and because it artificially controls the economy) by capitalists while socialists extol the virtue of its origin as a "brain child" of Marx and coming from a book. The Princess, of course, would not be a social status existing in a socialist state (just ask the Romanovs) and if this does prove to be an anti-capitalist film, that will be a wonderful inner-contradiction. We can say with certainty that Isabella symbolizes the future of America--because she and Jack become romantically involved, the film relies upon a traditional formula for the battle of who will dominate the future through the battle of winning the female of child-rearing age--so there is both the overtaking of the giants and the freeing of the poor which the films appears to make its agenda.

You've heard me say too many times: historical films are never ever never ever never ever about history or something which happened in the past, they are always about the here and the now; so the simple question to ask is, what "new world" is being offered to Americans?

Likewise, this film appears to follow in the same vein as Ice Age 4: Continental Drift: as you watch the film, try to identify how this applies to today (not prehistoric times) but today, and what it would be saying to an audience today about "an old world ending" and a "new world beginning":

The Croods, opening March 2013, like Ice Age 4, wants to try and establish that the "new world" being offered to Americans was the "original" world, the original and natural way in which people lived and worked; don't see it in the trailer? What a coincidence, neither do I! That's because it's not in the trailer, and never will be! As we have said time and again, socialists can't sway us with positive images of socialism because they simply don't exist, so they use negative images of capitalism--like the "fear" of leaving the cave and the "cave" itself--to make us want to venture out of the "old world" into a new world being advertised as colorful, new and exciting. Again, the young female Eep (Emma Stone) symbolizes the future of America; the father, Grug (Nicholas Cage) wanting Gran (Cloris Leachman) to die, is Gran symbolizing the past of America; that doesn't mean it's going to be an accurate painting of America's past, but it will be interesting to see what they do with her.
On the other hand,...

What would be the deciding factor of this being a pro-capitalist film?
The old order has been destroyed (just as in each of the films above) but it's seen as being bad, for the worse (as in Nazis At the Center Of the Earth whereas Jack the Giant Slayer and The Croods want you to see that destruction as being good). Now consider Paramount's synopsis: When the crew of the Enterprise is called back home, they find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization has detonated the fleet and everything it stands for, leaving our world in a state of crisis. With a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one man weapon of mass destruction. As our heroes are propelled into an epic chess game of life and death, love will be challenged, friendships will be torn apart, and sacrifices must be made for the only family Kirk has left: his crew. The "unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization" is a pretty accurate description of Obama and the Democrat party changing America.

Why make this film?
It's an act of rebellion.
Denouncing socialism and the push socialists are intent upon making to destroy America, and the world with it, Star Trek Into Darkness wants to be that voice, along with Iron Man 3 and Thor 2, of Radio Free America, inspiring us who want to resist such devastation and assuring us we are not alone in our dismay (in spite of the liberal media insisting we are alone and old-fashioned and out-dated).
Happy Feast Day Of the Immaculate Conception!
The Fine Art Diner