Saw Looper

I saw Looper.
It's just discouraging--and it is meant to be--when Hollywood continually depicts you as a drug addict, slut, criminal, greedy, soul-less murderer because you don't want the government to control your life. It's the same styled thesis as The Hunger Games with the same time travel--but inverted-- as we saw in Men In Black III. Like all the other pro-Obama, pro-socialist films, all it does is hack away at how terrible capitalism and capitalists (like myself) are without being able to offer any substantial advantage to socialism except that it's not capitalism. But, I promised you a break, and I will keep to that, and will get the The Hurt Locker up next, but I wanted to let you know about Looper in case you were thinking about going to see it and wanted to know (I will be getting a complete post up asap).

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Without Baggage: Erasure & Identity In The Cold Light Of Day

The tagline, "Be careful who you trust," fits the film and its purpose quite well: we have trusted our allies and we need to continue trusting them, but the film makes the point in the generation gap between Will and his father Martin that with a new generation of Americans, the old alliances aren't necessarily going to hold, unless the new generation goes to war itself. As the villain Jean Carrack (Sigourney Weaver), we have a government official more concerned about personal profit than the ideals of helping our global friends and, seeing the type of person Carrack is, Will slowly starts to make the right decision. Please remember this seemingly innocent discussion on Will not having a change of clothes with him (he does have clothes on the boat from last time and that's important) because it figures into our discussion on erasure.

I'm am impressed with this film, politically and aesthetically.
You are probably saying that you have no interest in this film: it only scored a 6% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and it did terrible in the theaters, so why am I even bothering to post on it when, as you all know, I am seriously behind as it is? The film takes an outside approach to the current political and economic troubles plaguing America right now to draw our attention away from ourselves and towards the greater world stage, and it does so very convincingly. Further, it has artistic moments of visual vocabulary expansion that is well worth our time to discuss.

Although the trailer sets up the family reunion on the boat as a happy occasion, that's far from the truth of the narrative: Martin (Bruce Willis) and Will (Henry Cavill) are at absolute odds with each other, so much so that Will even refers to his father as "Godzilla." While Will has agreed to meet his family in Spain for sailing, he doesn't want to be there. Let's start at the very beginning because that is where director Mabrouk El Mechri starts with Will.

Will arriving with Martin at the family boat after a disagreeable car ride from the airport and without his luggage. Before we see his face, we discover that Will's luggage never left San Francisco. Why? There are a number of ways to understand it, all valid and all displaying facets of a character who becomes very deep by the end of the film. One way is to ask, What else has been left in San Francisco? The famous Tony Bennett song from 1954 goes, "I left my heart in San Francisco," and that is a viable understanding not only because of the fame of the song, but because it's apparent as the scenes with his family in the boat go on, that Will, too, left his heart, his business and his attention span in San Francisco along with his change of clothes. Another angle is Will is ready for the upcoming adventure because "he doesn't have any baggage," in other words, after the failure of his company, besides saving what remains of his family, Will has nothing to lose. Still another way--among many other still possible understandings--is that Will has to "put on the new man," and he can't do that if he has an identity to which he clings

When we first meet Will we don't meet him. Director El Mechri takes his time to let us see Will's back, the bars of the service desk crossing out the features of his face and the sunglasses blocking his eyes, the windows of his soul (a similar device is used in the opening sequence of The Words with Dennis Quaid's Clayton Hammond not being shown as he gathers up some objects and we don't see his face). It's during this visual commentary that we learn his baggage never left San Francisco and, in conjunction with the physical lack of identity El Mechri makes in these imperative first seconds of the film, we are shown volumes of the philosophy of identity and metaphysics.

Will and his mother talk about Martin. The film supplies us with the standard symbols were used to:  a mature woman symbolizing the motherland (America) and a man of mature age symbolizing the founding fathers (and, in this case, Martin symbolizes the "fathers of American foreign policy" after the lessons of World War II--Will calls him "Godzilla," and we'll discuss this below) so Martin dying actually is not a bad thing in the film, he must die in order for the next generation (Will) to learn the lesson itself of why that which was done, was done for the greatest good and should continue to be done. Yes, we discussed this in Taken 2 and we will continue the same dialogue in Expendables 2 but it's my estimation that The Cold Light Of Day does it best and most thoroughly.

At this point, we don't even know his name, we just see the back of his head and what El Mechri wants to draw our attention to is that which he is not showing us. In theory, when a philosopher wants to let his/her reader know that a word is "necessary but inadequate" for what the writer desires to communicate, such as "being," they will write "being" and then draw a line through the word leaving "being" legible yet in a state "under erasure," or sous rature. Physically speaking, this is exactly what El Mechri does with Will's character, placing his physical features "under erasure," because Will is necessary as a hero and a future founding father but at of the start of the film he is wholly inadequate, and discovering his inadequacies and how he is converted into an adequate hero is the job of the viewer.

Why are they on a sail boat? It symbolizes the "ship of state," and Zahir's men coming aboard, putting a gun to Martin's head and kidnapping his family (minus Will who is not "on board" with Martin because he "jumped ship," and these are political connotations) is possibly how Will's generation thinks of Israel, not much more than terrorists (Zahir works for Mossad, Israeli Intelligence) and how the current US political administration has painted our long-time ally in its siding with the Arab states instead of our friend (please see Israeli lawmaker states that President Obama has not been a friend to Israel). While Will thinks Zahir is the threat to his family, and he's willing to trust Carrack or at least the police, as events escalate, he realizes that isn't enough and his family is actually safe only with Zahir as well as the world (the terrible things that will happen to global stability if Carrack succeeds in selling the briefcase, symbolic of the selling of Israel to the Arabs).

The reason Will "jumps ship" and leaves the boat (is thereby absent when his family is taken hostage) is because, symbolically, there is a disagreement over what the "ship of state" is and the best way to steer it. Martin gives Will command of the ship, but as the narrative relates, Will's business is bankrupt; while he's on the phone discovering that he can't recover his lost business (symbolically, a part of his "lost luggage" [and I apologize for this part, I am not familiar with ships so I know I am mis-using terminology!]) the ship's mast he should be watching instead of texting/talking comes around and nearly knocks out Dara, Will's brother's girlfriend that he saves at the last second, but she gets a cut on her head. Martin gets so angry, he throws Will's phone into the ocean. This is what we can call "the heart" of the film.

Why is this an important shot of Will? After he's left the "ship of state" it shows that he's "all washed up" yet his shirt and shoes in the bag means something has been saved, preserved. This would be a good time to discuss "the call," and why phones are so symbolically important in films. Everyone has a destiny, a purpose in life, and most of our lives are spent preparing ourselves to "answer the call" to duty we are meant to fulfill; if one hasn't prepared themselves to fulfill their destiny, their destiny still calls, but they are inadequate to do what must be done. This conflict is a favorite device in horror films, such as Scream, Night Of the Living Dead and Invasion Of the Body Snatchers (the original and the re-make). In The Cold Light Of Day, Will constantly being on his phone means he is willing to answer the call, but he's answering the wrong call (this is the case with Kim Mills in Taken 2) and Martin demonstrates this to him by throwing Will's phone "overboard." Importantly, it will be his father's phone, after Martin is murdered, that Will takes up as his own because he realizes his father's calling is also his calling (discussed below).

Will, like many Americans today, is more concerned with the economy (his lost business) than the larger "business" of steering a proper course for the government (international affairs, why they are on the ocean) and the future of America (Dara, as a young female can symbolize a possible future for the country) is at danger because no one is watching the way "the winds are blowing" jeopardizing the health and safety of the future (Dara being hit by the ship's beam). Martin throwing away Will's phone is his way of re-directing Will's attention to what is really important, because ultimately, each viewer in the audience (regardless of age) is meant to be identified with Will because all of us have been tending to the business of the economy rather than international affairs. So what does Martin's "call" in life mean to us and why should we pick it up as our own?
The clue is "Godzilla."

It would be easy to get upset with Martin for having a "second family," but we have to remember that American democracy has many children, not just us, and we are responsible for our political siblings just as we are for those of our own family.

I know, I know, you're saying, "Not Godzilla again!"  But just as Godzilla is imperative to understanding The Amazing Spider Man, so it's imperative to understanding The Cold Light Of Day. Steven Spielberg's Jaws was a metaphor for what the Japanese did to America during World War II and American justification for bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki (please see Jaws & the Cleansing Of America). While the monster shark Jaws symbolizes American fears of the Japanese suicide submarines, for the Japanese, the giant lizard Godzilla symbolized the US and the destruction ravaged upon them by us dropping two atomic bombs; as I explain in post on Jaws, the Japanese started seeking out the help of Godzilla to save them from other monsters who started attacking them, specifically Mothra and Rodan (symbolic of the fast-paced growth of socialism/communism in Asia) so, while the Japanese were upset with us for what we did, they recognized the US as being a "better monster" than the other enemies they had (please see Decay Rate Algorithm & Cross Species Genetics: The Amazing Spider Man for more on this topic). So, when Will refers to his father Martin as "Godzilla," this is what he's talking about!

Carrack later reminds Will of how, when he was little, he got a scar across his palm making her a martini; why does she bring it up? Psychologically, it's meant to establish a bond of trust between them, they know each other and are on the same side; it really serves as a kind of prophecy: drinking the martini is like her selling the briefcase, she is expecting to get something, but both times, Will gets in the way of what she wants and frustrates her designs.

Martin, as a symbol of the "founding fathers" of post-World War II foreign policy, knows that the American economy is not the most important thing in the world, (and this is easier to write, given the  terrible events that have rocked the US in the Middle East the last month) rather, the Middle East peace and stability is the most important because the global stability depends upon it (please see US Officials Didn't link Libya attack with video like the president and secretary of state). We might be reluctant to be the "Godzilla of the Middle East," The Cold Light Of Day tells us, yet the consequences of not enforcing peace is far worse for America and the world if we don't. This is the call Martin is anxious for Will to pick up and answer, to give himself to because it's the important call and it's not by accident that call is tied to a briefcase.

While FABRIK is the name of a nightclub, it's a great play on words, because the "fabric" of Will's soul because, just as Zahir has to decide to believe Will, Will has to decide to believe Zahir and this is the moment that changes everything, and, above all, changes Will.

When an important briefcase appears in a film, it's hard not to link it to the briefcase in Pulp Fiction. We don't find out what is in the briefcase in The Cold Light Of Day, but neither does Will, he has to join the CIA for that. What is important, among many other things, is that an exchange has taken place, instead of being concerned with his personal lost luggage at the start of the film, by the end, he has risked his life countless times to not only stop the corrupt Carrack from selling out Israel, but saved the case itself and it's this shifting of priorities from the personal (his lost business) well-being to the larger, world stage (helping Israel) that converts Will into the hero and becomes the vehicle for him overcoming his inadequacies at the start. In other words, what was erased at the start of the film, is filled out by the end and it is nothing short of his individuation and person-hood.

In the start of the film, it's almost comical and awkward how lacking in physical skill Will is for an action hero, but this, too is intentional, because at the end of the film, Will has accomplished his will, stopping Carrack. In art, especially action films, the hero has "unlimited free will" (as in Will himself) so if Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner) wants to slide down a concrete wall without the horizontal velocity crushing him, he can do it, because his physical strength exists in proportion to his inner-strength and virtue as a hero (the stronger the hero's virtue is the greater his strength and stamina, the weaker a hero's/character's virtue, the weaker their strength and will power (please refer to All Points Of Convergence: The Bourne Legacy for more). We saw this in Casino Royale with James Bond (Daniel Craig) at the start of the film being awkward, clumsy and slower than the villain he chased, but by the end, his allegiance to justice and a cause greater than himself has strengthened him to overcome danger threatening him and those he has vowed to protect (please see James Bond: Beyond Boundaries for more). This is the same case with Will in The Cold Light Of Day, the more he dedicates himself to saving his family and doing what is right on the international scale, the stronger Will's will becomes and the more he realizes himself and his potential hence.

We have a greater family than just our immediate family, and when one family is threatened--like Zahir's that was blown up by a market-place suicide bomber--all our families are threatened. Sometimes we take the best care of ourselves when we actually put ourselves to the side, and worry about someone else. (If you missed The Cold Light Of Day in theaters, it will be out on disc between December-January).
Eat Your Art Out,
The Fine Art Diner

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Justice Or Revenge? Taken 2 & American Paranoia

Let's face it: money matters.
No one expected this huge haul for a sequel, and while some critics have placed the success at Liam Neeson's door, the sequel to Taken has raked in twice what the original did and has set an opening record for an action film during the September-October cinema season; we have to ask why? Given the film has received only a 19% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and audiences have graded the film at an average of a B+  (I would give it a B), then what was driving people to see this sequel? Would the film done as well if there had not been the Libyan attacks on the US Consulate and worldwide Islamic protests against America? We can only speculate, but given the inconsistencies between the film's critical reception and how much money it's pulled in, world events are certainly re-coloring the message of the film in a context (probably) never intended.
Which brings us to a genuine problem.

I actually didn't intend for Taken 2 to start the breathing break from our capitalist and socialist break I promised but it fits in nicely with The Cold Light Of Day. I didn't see the original Taken from 2007, but that was a totally different world then compared to today (here is a synopsis of the plot if you haven't seen it). It's important to note that Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) and his wife Lenore (Famke Janssen) are separated and their daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) is allowed to go to Paris where she is kidnapped and sold into sex slavery before she's saved by her father. Mills kills the man who sold her, and it is the father of that man, Murad, who comes to take his revenge on Mills in Taken 2.

If people were going to see Taken 2 as a result of world wide Muslim anti-America protests, can we interpret the film within this context, or do we have to ignore what has happened in the world (which the film makers obviously could not have guessed would happen) and take the film at face value? It is my experience that the best art is always prophetic, that is, artists (in this case, film makers) are able to articulate internal conflicts and tensions within culture and make an educated guess on where that would lead, and in the case of Taken 2, the guess was right on; in other words, while the film makers could not have known precisely "how," "what," "when" and "where," they knew the "why" and encoded that into the film; catharsis, especially after real-world tragic events, will always be a purpose of art, and I believe the public trauma of the death of US Ambassador Christopher Stevens, and his being sodomized, as well as the deaths of those American military personnel protecting him and the US Consulate, the attacks on the Consulate on the anniversary of 9/11, then being betrayed by our President and Secretary of State who apologized for us, is what drove so many out to see this film and re-order a chaotic world in terms we are familiar with; did the film accomplish this?

Ben Affleck's Argo opens this week, centered upon similar events, the 1979 Iran hostage crisis during the administration of Democrat President Jimmy Carter. The film, based on the actual caper of the CIA, involved disguising the six escaped Americans as a Canadian film crew to smuggle them out of Iran. I expect great things of Mr. Affleck artistically, as he has fully dedicated himself to advancing the craftsmanship of films on every level, and I have full confidence of the quality of the film; however, knowing Mr. Affleck's liberalism, I expect an interpretation of the film to be along the lines of  Hollywood following President Obama's "lead from behind policy," and for Affleck--not to be showing the situation of radical Islamic anti-American hatred and possible solutions--rather, that America should pull out of the Middle East altogether because we are the bad guys and no amount of good intentions on our part can do anything to help the world, rather like The Hurt Locker, which is an anti-war film on one level only (when liberals start talking, they drop all kinds of important values to the wayside, they just can't help it, and end up contradicting themselves terribly). On the other hand, the newest James Bond film Skyfall, opening November 9, also contains an embedded reference to Istanbul (which is where Taken 2 primarily takes place) in that is where M has Bond assassinated. That will be interesting.

Let's begin with an old, American cinematic tradition involving the law of the Constitution and the actual practice of Americans today: the separation of the father and mother of the future of the country. In other words, film makers have usually employed the status of separation/divorce between spouses to illustrate how the country--the motherland, symbolized by a woman of mature age--to be separated from the law of the Constitution--the founding fathers as symbolized by a male of mature age--and usually a hard worker but misunderstood by his estranged family, but he usually proves himself still the hero in the end; the re-unification of the husband and wife means the stabilization of the American identity between its past and present, equalizing a hopeful future for the country (this was especially popular in John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara films, such as Big Jake and McClintock). This same formula structures the situation between Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) and Lenore/Lenny (Famke Janssen) with their daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) and the formula hasn't changed.

The very end of the film, when all has been saved, and Lenore (not wearing her wedding ring to estranged second husband Stuart) happily sits with Bryan's arm around her in an LA ice cream parlor with Kim across from them; it might look innocent, but it's perhaps the second most serious political statement of the film. Of all the places they could go to eat in LA they chose a "newly opened" at the end of the pier 1950s styled ice cream parlor; why? As long-time readers should recognize, the 1950s were that Super-Power time in American history when we came into our own as an international leader in global politics, specifically against socialism/communism. Bryan Mills, being an older male and a symbol of the "founding fathers" in the film, not only invokes the history of American's founding and our ideals as a democratic republic, but, as well, the strength and leadership we have always shown internationally which, because the family is gathered and reunited in this atmosphere, includes the upholding of America staying a super-power.

What Taken 2 really focuses on is the difference between "justice" and "revenge." To Murad, the father of the man Mills killed in Taken, slowly and painfully killing Mills, his ex-wife and daughter is justice; to Mills, that man he killed had kidnapped and sold his daughter, and countless other girls, into sex slavery, so killing him was justice while Murad, who doesn't care about what his son did, only wants revenge. On the larger scale--and I think Taken 2, as well as Argo, Skyfall and The Hurt Locker beg for this--we have to examine the eye-for-an-eye retaliation between the jihad launched against the US on 9/11 and the declared War on Terror resulting, and the resulting suicide bombings and killings and protests resulting from that. This is where the film's most important political message comes into play, and it deliberately sets it up so we are sure not to miss it.

Instead of going to lunch with mom and dad, Kim gets the idea of her recently singled mother going to lunch with dad alone and herself staying by the pool to relax. As Mills and Lenny go to lunch, Mills realizes he's being followed and calls Kim who doesn't answer her phone (another important example of not answering "the call" in life, our destiny and what we are supposed to do). She's wearing a red bikini (pictured above) and we have to ask, is that merely Hollywood sexuality coming through, or is there a meaning? I like to think there is a meaning, especially when we contrast what Kim wears with the pale pink (one could call the color "nude") of Lenny's tank top beneath her sweater. As a symbol of America today, Lenny's faded tank top over her breasts denotes a weariness/inability to nurture anymore (which is what a woman's breasts symbolize artistically, the nurturing potential she has) possibly because she's so busy taking care of her own problems. On the other hand, seeing the flashbacks of trauma Kim experiences when she hears her father tell her they are going to be taken, we could say Kim's ability to nurture--as a symbol of the future America--is filled with anger over what has happened to her and she's buried that anger beneath her depression (the blue shirt and jean shorts). This makes sense when we examine her will power, i.e., her feet, because she wears only flip flops, flimsy things, and because they are slipped on and off easily, so is her will for doing or not doing things (like not really caring if she passes her driving test in the beginning of the film, then starting out being angry at her dad for tracking her, but then not being mad, wanting to take music lessons, then skipping them to be with Jamie). She almost immediately "changes" when she takes an active part in helping in the rescue of her mom and dad: she gets the gun and two grenades then escapes the hotel by going through the maids' locker room, where she tries a locker that is locked, but then finds one opened and takes the clothes therein and puts them on. It's always psychologically/spiritually significant  when a door, window, or whatever is locked when a character tries to get it opened the first time and can't (what it means is context specific) but, in the case of Kim, it's safe to say that whatever her first reaction was, in terms of what she thought  she needed from within herself  to meet the challenge of helping her parents, wasn't the right instinct; symbolically, the clothes she puts on fulfiills what she needs to be in order to fulfill this call of her destiny (see next caption below).

As the murder spree ends, only Murad is left alive and Mills tells him, "If I kill you, your other sons will come and seek revenge." Murad answers that they will. Mills tells him that he will take Murad's word that the blood feud is over between them, and drop his gun and walk away, because he's tired, if Murad vows he will leave him and his family alone. Murad agrees. Mills drops the gun and turns his back. Murad picks up the gun and fires it at Mills' but it's out of bullets. Mills drops the last bullet and puts his hand over Murad's face, pushing him into a spike sticking out of the wall and impales him, Murad dying with his eyes open. This is the film's thesis and what it wants to communicate to us.

I think this scene was actually cut from the film, however, it displays what they are wearing well. Kim's jacket is nearly identical to her father's shirt color (over Mills' gray T-shirt, which, because of his regrets for not being there for Lenny and Kim more, causing Lenny to leave him as they discuss when he realizes they are being followed, probably means "penance" for him, that saving his family from this danger is to make up for not having done more earlier). Kim's jacket, however, is in a military style, with the collar and shoulders, so she's taking what she needs to do and her role as an act of war, she is actively helping instead of passively being rescued or saved (or just waiting). The blue and white shirt means her depression has been changed into wisdom because of what she has learned (depression and wisdom are often linked because it is through the misfortunes and sadness of life that we gain greater knowledge of ourselves and others) while the white means her purity has been saved (the redness of her wrath, the red bikini top, has been washed clean). The similarity of the colors of her jacket and her father's shirt shows how they are united in helping each other and knowing what must be done. Kim also wears white tennis shoes, meaning she has a more active will and she is "tied" to following through with what she must do (the shoelaces instead of just slip-on flip-flops). Hair symbolizes our thoughts and Kim's hair being tied back means she has disciplined her thoughts mostly (she keeps her cool and follows directions) but the stray hairs means she hast "lost control" and gets upset (which we see happen when she's driving the taxi). Lenny wears a shade of purple either meaning suffering or pertaining to royalty; as the matriarch of the family, she is the queen, but she also suffers; more on this below).

It's not going to matter, Taken 2 tells us graphically in this scene, if we leave the Middle East or not because they will continue the violence at whatever cost, so we might as well defend ourselves. To politicians and foreign policy makers in America, this is a radical statement, so much so that they will probably miss it. But that's not the only golden nugget in plain sight in this scene: instead of using the gun to kill Murad, Mills uses his bare hands. The gun can be taken as a sign of technological superiority (remember, for example, in Iron Man, the insurgents needs for better weapons) and Mills doesn't utilize his military advantage, rather, it's his natural strength overcoming Murad and that's a philosophical statement: the man defending his home and hearth is stronger than the man seeking a blood payment (revenge) and holding to that ideal makes us stronger in our efforts at defending ourselves than those attacking us and they will only end up losing face as a result (Mills' grip on Murad's face). The spike? That can easily be interpreted as any number of things, but my take is that, since it sticks out of the wall, and the wall is part of the house (symbolic of the soul), Murad's own being has killed him, i.e., his instinct to shoot Mills in the back is what impales Murad and his whole family.

As the film progresses, Kim has to take to the roof tops in order to locate where her father is. We saw a similar chase scene on dilapidated rooftops in The Bourne Legacy (in the Philippines). In both cases, Americans run on top of third world houses; why? The house symbolizes the soul, so being on-top is a sign of getting "on top of the subject," or being "on top of things" in terms of knowledge and understanding, the kind of perspective you and I attempt to gain when we engage art and film; the films putting their characters on top is an invitation to us, the viewers, to join them on top and take a bird's eye view of what is happening and see the bigger picture the film presents.

At the start of the film, Murad intends to take Mills, Lenny and Kim but Kim is not with them and manages to escape. As part of his revenge, Murad has a small slit cut in Lenny's throat, then has her chained and hung upside-down so her blood will drain to her head and she will die. It's because this is exactly what has happened to America (the motherland Lenny symbolizes) as a result of the 9/11 attacks that this image of Lenny's blood slowly draining out of her is so powerful, the most powerful image of the film. Take the slit on her neck to be the bombing of the World Trade Center (the financial "artery" of America) and you can see how the money spent on the War on Terror, the lives of brave American men and women lost fighting the war, fears of another attack, the paralysis to American air travel (Lenny being chained illustrates how tedious it is to fly now, we're chained) and that we were attacked at all shows how "upside-down" the country has been turned as a result.

This was a well-staged device: please note the "stick" object Mills fights with in this scene, which he took from one of his assailants; towards the end, when Kim has dropped the gun down to her father and tries escaping the man pursuing her, she comes to a dead end and, taking a piece of rebar from a pile of bricks (like the weapon her father uses in the scene pictured above) drops it because she doesn't have his skills to defend herself. Don't get upset with me for this, but one way of understanding the nightmare of the Cold War is that it trained and prepared agents like Mills to handle the War on Terror and resulting attacks whereas Kim and her generation don't have those skills or the guts required to keep America strong and a global leader (again, we'll see this in Expendables 2).

Lastly, the driving test.
I will be discussing this "generation gap" again in Expendables 2: whereas Expendables 2 sees the younger generation as not having the heart to continue America as a superpower, Taken 2 demonstrates Kim can do it, she just needs the "drive" characteristic of previous generations. She has failed her driving test twice, and Mills is trying to help her so she can pass; when they drive together in the start, he warns her about going too fast and being careful not to hit other cars; when they are trying to escape with their lives in Istanbul, he has to tell her "Faster! Go through it!" and wreck the car or anything necessary to save their lives. There is a difference, in other words, when she let's her emotions "drive her" (when she's upset that dad found her with her boyfriend) and the "drive" she needs to save herself (the future of America), her father (the founding father) and her mother (the motherland), and the film employed this technique quite well.

In conclusion, we have to ask if elements of the film--even just the basic premise--was a primary draw for American audiences given recent world events because it had such an unexpected big opening weekend; I think it did (nothing against Liam Neeson, but The Grey, starring him made just under $20 million its opening weekend, and Taken only scored $24 million, so this huge $50 million haul had to come from somewhere). If there had not been attacks on the American Consulate and international protests against America in the last month, I doubt Taken 2 would have done much better than The Grey; that's not to undermine its artistic genius, however, because--as I pointed out above--it wisely contains many prophetic elements revealing insight into current global tensions that have erupted and do not appear to be solved, or even, solvable. It reveals how deeply troubling the attacks have been to Americans and that our leaders have to do something to assure us that it won't happen again, we are safe and justice will be served and seeking justice is not the same as seeking revenge.
Eat Your Art Out,
The Fine Art Diner

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Worm Cakes & Scream Cheese: Hotel Transylvania

Essentially, it's Moonrise Kingdom with different costumes.
Genndy Taratkovsky's Hotel Transylvania follows the line of pro-socialist films we have been seeing for months now and follows the same manner as well with a critique of capitalism to turn people away from it, while failing to glorify socialism, and show how the same drawbacks inherent in capitalism are "solved" by socialism. How does it establish itself as being against capitalism? There are plenty of clues and they are the same ones which have continuously showed up in other films, but I would like to start with that feature which would draw a viewer such as myself to the film: the collection of old horror film monsters.

Why is "fire bad" in the film? Fire not only destroys, and purges, but it''s also the sign of a mob! The monsters are afraid of fires because capitalists are afraid of French & October styled Revolutions overthrowing them and killing the upper-class, like the one in The Dark Knight Rises.The absence of fire in the hotel means the monsters and upper-class who can afford to take vacations in today's terrible economy are safe from being killed/punished. Because Dracula risks being burned to death by the sun in the end of the film, Hotel Transylvania suggests that a mob isn't needed to overthrow the upper-class, they will be purged naturally (the burning of the sun).

Both Hotel Transylvania and Frankenweenie (opening this weekend) know that the "old monsters" have always been culture's catharsis for labeling, identifying and overcoming our fears, like the Boris Karloff classic from 1932, The Mummy, which I have identified as being about the Great Depression (please see The Curse and the Mummy for more). In those films, however, the "monsters" were usually symbols of abnormal sexuality (as in Nosferatu, please see  The Undead: Nosferatu on World War I and homosexuality in the trenches) or other social taboos film makers wanted to keep taboo such as promiscuity (Dracula has often been the primary threat against woman's sexual purity; please see both For the Dead Travel Fast: Dracula and False Light: Interview With the Vampire); now, with a film such as Hotel Transylvania, it's the general population, which is still capitalist, that has become the "taboo faction" of society with socialists inverting the ideas of "normal" and "abnormal."

Dracula with his teenage daughter Mavis who wants to see the world. The film makes us think capitalists are the ones who habitually create "false worlds" to deceive others, but forget how the Soviet Union, North Korea and China have all deceived the world in the past by creating false impressions of prosperity and freedom that did not exist.

Just as (both book and film versions of) Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter establishes itself as being pro-socialist by making all the vampires business owners and wealthy, Hotel Transylvania makes the vampire Count Dracula a business owner and developer of the luxury resort for monsters (and he's a "count," which Frankenstein refers to him mockingly as being "His Lordship," a point of class structure we shouldn't overlook). The point at which Hotel Transylvania negatively illustrates business ownership is two-fold: first, Dracula has to take care of all his guests--so the work itself is drudgery--and, secondly, a legitimate point, Dracula's running of the business tends to come between he and his time with Mavis (and no one would argue that this happens). Before we move onto the other characteristics the film depicts amongst capitalists, and why capitalists, such as myself, are monsters, we should look at the "hero" who depicts socialism and the better standards of living for which the film argues.

Dracula is shown to be a bad employer on numerous levels (a device utilized in Arbitrage, as well) but the film intentionally displays Dracula's superiority complex by his categorizing everyone as either a guest of the hotel--his customer--or his employee, and it's as an employee that Dracula disguises Jonathan, thereby putting Jonathan beneath him economically and socially, although the film reverses that by everyone liking Jonathan and getting upset with Dracula, to the point that, the famous climax of old horror films when the townspeople would mob and go to "get the monster," in Hotel Transylvania, the monsters mob together to go "get Jonathan" and bring him back to Mavis.

How do we know that Jonathan is a "hero of socialism?"
The film erects a series of diametrical oppositions, such as "good and bad," "black and white," "freedom and imprisonment," "fun and boring," "human and human eater," etc., and guess who comes out on the "positive side" of those oppositions each time (The Dark Knight Rises does the same thing, but demonstrating the positives of capitalism, instead)? While Jonathan is the only human with any real involvement in the story, he's also the one who "livens" up the Hotel and brings fun to the entertainment that makes everyone like him (instead of liking Dracula, the owner, so Jonathan is a better "business owner" than the business owner, even). Jonathan's primary identification as a "socialist" however, comes from his limited possessions (he has only a back pack and no known job) and his staying in youth hostels throughout his wide travels (as well as being a vegetarian, more on that below). 

Mavis, Dracula's daughter, symbolizes the future of America, like all young females in narratives, but in Hotel Transylvania, the film makes it clear that the "future of America" is being falsely led: on her 118th birthday, she wants to go meet humans for the first time and Dracula has given her permission because he has built a false village not far away "peopled" with his zombies in disguise. They mock an attack against Mavis for being a vampire and she returns home heart-broken. She falls for Jonathan, thinking he's a cousin of Frankenstein, even as Dracula tries to get Jonathan out of the hotel so she won't "fall for his kind," which Frankenstein tells him is "racist." A vampire making a statement that his vampire daughter and a human can't be together romantically suggests a post-Twilight world wherein there is no moral values separating humans from their greatest enemy, the vampires (and a reference is even made to Twilight in the film). Even though the statement is made by a monster, Frankenstein, it shows the influence Jonathan has over the monsters. No, if you were about to ask, there is no discussion on how Jonathan will be "converted over" to becoming a vampire to live forever with Mavis, or what Mavis will do when Jonathan dies and she's still alive; yes, it's important, because it demonstrates how adverse to reality socialists are in their arguments for their side; we also saw this in Ice Age 4 with the mammoths having possum in them (how did a possum mate with a mammoth? They don't care, neither do they care about a mammoth mating with a ground hog, and this "unnatural" mating shows up in Hotel Transylvania as well).

Food plays a big role in the film, from pancakes filled with live, wriggling worms, to Jonathan himself becoming food for the monsters, and this is one of the (now) typical attacks on capitalism we have seen consistently brought up. The gross food order Frankenstein makes is meant to show that "we are what we eat," and for those eating such disgusting food, we must ourselves be disgusting to want it; Jonathan, on the other hand, orders the vegetarian meal, demonstrating that he is "natural" and "healthy," and for those who want to go the natural route in life, they should also go the socialist route. Dracula, being a blood-sucking vampire, of course symbolizes an employer who "sucks the blood" out of his employees.

The Wolf Man, Wayne, and his wife Wanda, are a sore point of contention with me on this film. Werewolves have had three prominent appearances in films as of late: Underworld: Awakening, Dark Shadows and The Cabin In the Woods. Typically, a werewolf symbolized a man unable/unwilling to control his sexual appetite, thereby reducing himself to an animal (please see The Bright Autumn Moon: The Wolf Man).  The plethora of bratty children Wayne and Wanda have, as well as her being pregnant again, testifies to Wayne's breeding habits; the terror the children wreck is a message for birth control, possibly even pro-abortion. At one point, Wayne is red-eyed and still awake with his pups all around him in bed, sleeping soundly, and he can't get to sleep. This negative image of not just paternity, but of children in general lays out a pro-socialist/Obamacare agenda of the government implementing birth control amongst Catholics who generally favor large families (myself included).

As the owner of a large, upscale hotel, Dracula has the staff needed to run the place: shrunken heads on all the doors constantly saying, "Do not disturb," witches on broom sticks as "housekeeping," zombies as the bus boys and bell hops, as well as knights who act as middle-management (pictured below). After an incident in the hotel, Dracula gets angry with the knight and yells at him, "What do I pay you for?" and takes off; the knight takes the moment to mention, "He doesn't pay me!" and that is intentionally planted in the narrative to create discord between employees and employers and to make people think, "The government would be a much better employer than my current employer!"

An additional facet to the knights acting as middle-management is that it makes capitalism look ancient and silly, whereas, in Resident Evil, we will see, this is actually an advantage. It was the disadvantages of feudalism and the changing work force which gave rise to the open-markets and competition leading to capitalism; Hotel Transylvania thinks this long history is silly and automatically means the American economic model needs to be updated.

We've discussed "vehicles" as symbols of economic stimulation and a great contrast is made between the two in the film. One of the opening shots is of a hearse with the license pate "Undead" which is the shuttle service for the hotel while Jonathan pulls out a green foot-scooter from his back pack, aptly articulating the difference between the two economic models of capitalism and socialism: the hearse, while the car of the dead (because socialists want us to think capitalism is dead) is driving fast and confident through the wild terrain; Jonathan''s portable little scooter is self-operated (the newest green energy) and is promoted as the "it" and exciting thing to have! We saw a similar situation in Madagascar 3, when the bear (symbolic of Russia) tottered around on a tiny tricycle, then exchanged it for a roaring motorcycle, recalling how the Soviet Union went from the inefficient communist system to the fast-paced world of market capitalism. 

Gremlin with Jonathan's scooter. Not only is this a great way to contrast the personal possessions between Dracula and Jonathan, but their lifestyles as well. Dracula has a castle and a successful hotel that serves the needs of his guests; Jonathan has nothing but what is in his backpack and no home, no job, he just "rolls with it." At one point, desperate to get rid of Jonathan, Dracula takes him through a secret entrance and then can't remember the tunnel to take them outside, the castle is so big, mocking the abundant wealth Dracula has. The film also makes it look like anyone can live like Jonathan, and that induces Mavis to go with him but who is going to pay for it? Whose tax dollars will sustain this kind of lifestyle, China's? The ignorance of who pays for the socialist lifestyle--like Jonathan's free-roaming--is a ploy to make people vote for a socialist government because what they think they will personally get out of it.

We recently saw contact lenses being used in The House At the End of the Street and they are used in Hotel Transylvania (funny, the things that film makers pick up on to use?). In Hotel Transylvania, Dracula looks into Jonathan's eyes to erase his memory of what he had seen, but, due to Jonathan's plastic contact lenses, Dracula is unable to. Because the eyes are the window of the soul, Jonathan's plastic covering over his eyes demonstrates how materialism covers over the soul in a socialist government; well, you might ask, if that's what it really means, and the film makers are pro-socialism, why on earth would they put something that negative and condemning in the film? Because they don't believe there is a soul! Everything is material to a socialist, evidenced by the plastic lenses of the contacts, and if you can't shake a stick at it, then, for a socialist, it doesn't exist. Jonathan tries to get the lenses out of his eye with his finger, sending Dracula into a fit of disgust because even the great enemy of humanity knows people have a soul and Dracula can't bear to see Jonathan doing that to his eye! (Please refer to For the Dead Travel Fast: Dracula for more).

Jonathan, not believing he's seeing  a real, walking skeleton, sticks his hand inside its rib cage and another skeleton comes along and says, "Get your hand out of my wife!" (and Jonathan sees her showering later). This is actually an argument we saw with Magic Mike and the "sharing" of a wife because in matrimony, your spouse belongs to you; socialism makes fun of a spouse being personal property of the other (mainly because of feminists) but it also drives home for capitalists the license of sharing in a socialist government and the total break down of morality.

Last but not least, is the role art plays in the film.
Mavis asks Jonathan if he's ever been endangered of being eaten and he says no, except once at a Slipknot concert, a guy was going to eat him; what does that mean? Slipknot has been surrounded by controversies, but, most importantly, they would be considered a product of capitalism because they have been so commercially successfully, introducing the art in capitalism or socialism argument once more. By linking up a controversial, heavy-metal band with being eaten, introduces a lousy moral argument into the fray, namely, that capitalism produces "human eating" art, like the vampire employer/business owners and that such art doesn't exist in socialism. Well, that's partly true, because art doesn't exist in socialism, it's controlled by the government so it's all propaganda. 

You are probably sick of all the capitalist and socialist interpretations as of late (although, really, it's not my fault, it's what all the films are discussing!) but we will take a short break: I am seeing Taken 2 tonight (which has scored $50 million this opening weekend) and getting that up, but then I will be posting on Paranorman and The Cold Light Of Day, both of which will take us away from the socialist/capitalist dialogue for at least a breather!
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Everything Is a Secret: House At the End Of the Street

If you haven't seen Mark Tonderai's The House At the End Of the Street, you're going to be mad when you read the spoiler below and wish you had gotten the surprise because it is, so far thusly, the most targeted, intellectual assault against socialism I have yet seen in films of the past year.  There has been creative and metaphysical screenwriting in films as of late, and HATES' David Loucka and Jonathan Mostow have certainly demonstrated their skills; not all will think so and I can understand complaints however I am genuinely impressed with their staged manipulation of my compassion and sympathy, then how they slam me with the reality reflected by this narrative. As usual, I am judging the film based on cultural context, not a general entertainment value; the 11% approval rating HATES has received on Rotten Tomatoes might be because it's so anti-liberal.

While this poster doesn't seem that impressive in design, psychologically, I think it's well done. First and foremost, a house always symbolizes the soul, because the body houses the soul the way an actual home houses the body so windows always symbolize "interior reflection" and "meditation" because self-examination of the soul can only be achieved by "looking inwards." So, what's Elissa (Jennifer Lawrence) doing? She's looking outward, and that's the first key element that's important: part of our inner-growth depends on our exterior surroundings and how we understand what's going on. Where is Elissa standing? Within the frame, suggesting that she has "been framed" and, when the film ends, we know how. Also important is that well-placed piece of wood (the window frame part) going across her throat. Technically, Elissa is never in danger of being decapitated, as in The Omen, however, when we remember that the "head" symbolizes the "head of government" and how Ryan (Max Thieriot) tries coming between Elissa and her mother Sarah (Elisabeth Shue) even as he appears to be upholding Sarah's request that they not be alone together, we can see by the teaser-poster that Elissa is symbolically endanger of "losing her head" when she falls for the guy that everyone tells her she shouldn't. Next, the curtain on the left side of the poster has been drawn back. We saw a curtain being drawn back in The Chernobyl Diaries and I can say with confidence that symbolized the Iron Curtain of the Cold War; in general, curtains--especially during the Middle Ages--meant that knowledge was being kept hidden or knowledge was being revealed, especially mystical knowledge. Once Elissa has finally "pulled back the veil" and looks at the house at the end of the street (where Ryan lives) knowledge has been revealed and she's better able to reflect on where she is and why but only when Elissa willingly pulls it back herself, she won't let anyone else do it for her, so she's really framed herself.  Lastly, what does she see? The house, the house where the father and mother died, "Mr and Mrs Dead People," as she calls them, and the house is supposed to be abandoned, but they realize it's not abandoned because there's a light on there. Light symbolizes "illumination" because our intellect can't see and gain knowledge in the dark, so a house (symbolic of a soul) which should be abandoned has been illuminated? That's not completely satisfying, is it? Because there was a double murder committed there, a mother (the motherland) and a father (the founding fathers) we can take another typical understanding of a home and expand that, not to the "soul of an individual," rather, to the soul of a country or an institution and that yields a far more interesting and consistent interpretation when other aspects of the film are coalesced together. And the last last thing I will address is the shirt Elissa wears: why is it gaping open like that? Sex appeal? Possibly, but I think a more direct and rewarding understanding is that she's "been exposed" and since it's the area of her heart which is "exposed," it not only means her emotional involvement with Ryan, but also that she's exposed to danger because there is an attempt to stab/shot her in the heart.

What I thought the film would be about is Carrie Ann, a female child, symbolizing the future of America; killing the mother, i.e., the "motherland" would mean the changing of America from the old capitalist ways to the new socialist program and the killing of the father would be the killing of the founding fathers and the Constitution in favor of a new government, Karl Marx; Ryan, keeping Carrie Ann safe and alive, would be an unwilling patsy to the mayhem she was reeking but would be unwilling to put her in danger and he would have to make a decision that would show Elissa to be a model of liberal upbringing and progressive social thinking. Was I wrong!  (This is your last chance to stop reading and not spoil it!).

"It's a long way back to Chicago," Sarah tells Elissa as they wait for the owner of their new rental to arrive and let them in at the start of the film. Chicago is a major city in the US, but we also have to consider films invoking Obama's hometown, like Lawless and The Vow; if these two came from Chicago, they probably are Obama supporters, but having left Chicago, they are now in a position to leave Obama. Why is this shot of Elissa slanted? Somethings "askew" such as there is something askew about Elissa that we wouldn't know if the director wasn't using this angle to communicate it to us, in other words, we are being alerted to something "off center" about Elissa and we discover from Sarah that Elissa tends to take someone she finds broken and tries to fix them. In and of itself, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this in real life, yet this is a work of art, so this characteristic takes to a new level especially when we discover more about Ryan. It's an important angle in the film that Elissa is a singer/songwriter because HATES adds another vote in the cinematic battle on art and capitalism or art and socialism; whereas films such as Men In Black III and The Artist, The Raven and The Words argue that art is better off under capitalism, while films such as Arbitrage argue that art is better without capitalism.

What the film, in my estimation, is really about, is the way people who voted for Obama/International Socialism started being drawn to him and defended him from the "unrealistic" and "harsh" criticism of people only concerned about their property values and money because he was trying to do something good and better for America but now, going through the trash that he has done and said, people have started to piece together that he has kept socialism alive in spite of it having died so long ago, and socialism has constantly resurrected itself killing "new governments" to keep up the image that it's still a living form of government and possible today. Only by "illumination" will those "shackled" to Obama be able to free themselves and stop the threat he poses to this country. This is what I am confident the film is saying, now let me demonstrate how and why, because this is the fun part!

In this scene, Ryan and Elissa look at a tree in Ryan's backyard; Ryan tells Elissa, my mother said everything was a secret, secrets are everywhere waiting to be found, and he shows her how the tree they stare at "has a face" hidden within it. To be perfectly honest with you, I didn't see the face, and neither does Sarah at the end when Elissa asks her about it, but the invitation to "see a face" is an invitation for us to see a face in the film, and I certainly saw that in our President. Because the film tells us that "secrets are everywhere, waiting to be found," that includes secrets within the film itself, waiting for us to peer into them deeply enough to discern the features they have created.

It's important, as you saw in the trailer above, that Elissa first meets Ryan "on the road" as she walks home and she first rejects the ride he offers, but then it starts raining and so she gets in. Elissa had been at a party with a group of the rich kids from school who were partying and Tyler hits on her while he's drunk, so she decides to walk home; this scene is the heart of the film. Symbolically, this is all a great way to understand what happened in 2008: Tyler, the overachiever and upper-class jerk wanting to "get it on" with Elissa, can be seen as the Republican party who was drunk on power--having held the presidency for so long--and turned off voters more drawn to the offer of Obama, here symbolized by Ryan who shows up "during a storm" (the economic problems) as voters disillusioned with the Republicans "got on board" with the new guy and the blunt stating of "Your parents died," by Elissa refers to how--at this point in the film, with the information we have--the electing of Obama changed history (the motherland of America) by adding a black president to the long list of white presidents (the white founding fathers) and altered the race relations of Americans.We eventually realize how mis-informed we have been and a "reliable narrative" becomes imperative (after having listened to so many lies, people are entitled to the truth).

Just before the scene described above, Sarah and Elissa have been to a neighborhood party and heard what the neighbors had to say about Ryan and their understanding of how Carrie Ann died. Whereas all the neighbors are against Ryan, Sarah and Elissa feel sorry for him, and let me tell you, I, as a viewer, did not want to sympathize with the neighbors and their complaints, and this is a part of the screenwriting genius, because these are exactly the people who end up being right at the end, the same way liberals mock Republicans and the Tea Party for being "racist" against Obama and his policies. It would be typical of us, jaded as we have become by excessive Hollywood sexuality, to see Elissa's constant wearing of tank tops and shirts hanging off her shoulders, to be titillating and a mere means of enticing men to come see the film; however, there's a great conflict structured upon Elissa's sexuality vs. her mother's, Sarah's. We passively discover through Elissa's outburst of anger against her mother that Sarah was a slut in high school, supposedly getting pregnant by Elissa's father, marrying him, and then divorcing him years later because he was always gone. Sarah assumes that, because she was sexually active in high school, Elissa is or will be as well, and Elissa makes the clear case that she's not, and we see her "protection" of her body when Tyler hits on her and she refuses his advances. So, does Elissa wear rather tantalizing clothes to be a tease? No, they accurately describe "who" she is in the film, the future of America. Please note, for example, that Elissa's arms are usually bare throughout the film: arms symbolize strength, and not just physical strength, but stamina and determination, which we see in Elissa several times, not only while escaping from Ryan, but before, when she defends him from everyone. Elissa wears two tank tops, the bottom one being a faint pink, symbolizing femininity, which accurately re-enforces her role as the earth/America, and is again re-enforced by the necklace of open, round circles (circles are traditionally feminine, and if you don't believe me, please watch a funny monologue by Will Smith in Men In Black III).  The white tank top Elissa wears symbolizes purity, innocence, and this accurately reflects history: the future of America is innocent of why socialism is so deadly and even evil, because they don't have real experience with what occurs in socialist societies, whereas Sarah--the previous generation--does. (I'm going to discuss Sarah's role a bit further down in relation to Ryan's mother).

Let's go back to a previous scene: during the first night at the new house, Sarah wakes up around 3 in the morning and sees a light go on in the house across the street, Ryan's house. She didn't think anyone lived there, but the second scene is the next day at a neighborhood party when Elissa finds out more about Carrie Ann and about Ryan still living in the house all by himself, which shocks them. The neighbors discuss how they offered to buy the house to raze it because their property values were being dragged down by it (that's an important point in identifying who is who in the film). What is the light going on in the house that should be deserted? Symbolically, the institution of socialism shouldn't have anyone still living in it after after the fall of communism and the dissolution of the Soviet Union because that proved that socialism is an untenable means of government,... didn't it? The light being turned on in a house that should be abandoned means that someone is still "turned on" by what some think socialism "illuminates" about society and politics. It's particularly interesting that it's from her landlord, an owner of personal property, that Sarah finds out Ryan still lives in the house.

The first day at the new house, Elissa takes a walk in the state park (yes, read government sponsored program here, not that there is anything wrong with state parks in reality, but in art, during a socialist takeover of the American government, a state-run park is important) and she sees a blanket and pillow on the ground in the woods, like someone had been sleeping out there. Why is this important? If you think about the film, and how we see Ryan keeping Carrie Ann locked up, whenever she does get out, he immediately goes after her, so she wouldn't just be "living off the land" as we are led to believe in this encounter in the woods or in this shot above, when Elissa peers into the woods wondering "If someone could really live like that" in the wilderness and we, the viewers, see someone move, knowing someone has been looking back at her without her knowing this. Is this a inconsistency in the film, or are the film makers inviting us to peer into the dark woods and discover something? I like the invitation, personally, so, going off that this can't be Carrie Ann, who can it be? Well, as I discussed in Trailers: Ingenious & Mama, in the upcoming Mama film with Jessica Chastain, there have been a number of films as of late using the idea of "living in the wilderness" and both socialists and capitalists have employed it to degrade the other side. This person we witness peering back at Elissa with Elissa seeming to be aware that someone is there is like The Chernobyl Diaries when Uri finds the smouldering camp fire and realizes there must be someone there in the "abandoned" town with them, and the Fallout Zombies are watching the group's every move, unknown to them (please see Extreme Tourism Through History: The Chernobyl Diaries for more). In other words, in spite of the capitalist revolutions of the 1990s and the "Fall Of Communism," socialists were not murdered, they just moved to the margins of society, like the wilderness, to wait for "the perfect storm" to move back in again. So this "person" in the woods isn't Carrie Ann, and that's part of what's eerie about it, because we never meet this person although they are watching everything that's going on, and I think that's the "underground socialists" waiting to take advantage of the situation in America and turn the political socialist revolution into a more October-styled Russian revolution. (Analysis on this point continues below under a shot of Ryan).

Let's go back to Ryan.
When Elissa first meets him, he's driving and he mentions that it's his father's car he inherited. Because a car symbolically signals a "vehicle" for a character (something that drives them in life or spurns them onwards), we have to ask who has inherited a "vehicle" from their father? President Obama's memoir Dreams From My Father discusses what ideals he inherited from his father that "drive him" to be the man that he is and, knowing what a communist his father was, this all makes perfect sense (the car plays an important role in the film, discussed below). So Elissa initially doesn't want to ride with Ryan, but when the rain comes--read "the economic disasters of 2008"--she does, and she finds something that seems inconsequential, but is actually quite interesting.

In this scene, Elissa is getting ready for the Battle Of the Bands at their high school; whereas she had been in a band in Chicago, members of her new school found her information online and were able to access a sample of her singing and decided to invite her to be a part of their band and help them compete in the upcoming competition. This competition is inherent and imperative to capitalism, because it brings out the best in artists and creates an environment of exchange and inspiration, professionalism and reward. As we saw with the skateboarders in Dredd who were practicing a skill that, in America's capitalist economy can become a profession for them with their unique talents and skills, so Elissa in competing in the Battle of the Bands, is preparing her future for a career in music, but Ryan's plans for her are terribly different, as he tells her, I want you, but I need Carrie Ann, and that means no more Elissa. Just below, I discuss how Elissa finds a copy of STP's Core in Ryan's car; in my post Tongues: Rock Of Ages, I examine the difference between Rock and it being the artistic ammunition against communism during the Cold War, and Alternative music being a turning in on ourselves and replacing ourselves as the enemy after the fall of the Soviet Union. Alternative music's intense self-examination of ourselves, found in the music of groups such as Bush, Pearl Jam, REM and Nirvana, is a psychological study in our inner-weaknesses and, what is it that Ryan is studying at college? Psychology, and over the "failed dinner" Sarah stages to get to know Ryan better, Elissa throws out that Sarah went through therapy after she left Elissa's father (symbolic of the founding fathers of America that were "left" in the 2008 election, more on that below in the discussion on the Penn State girl). To know your enemy, you study their weakness, and to put it bluntly, no other music genre has been so philosophical and meditative as the Alternative genre of the early 1990s. Ryan, in other words, feasts on the buffet of our own self-hatred preserved in the music of STP (which was cathartic at the time) but which he (as a socialist) intends to use against us (as a capitalist country).

When Ryan picks up Elissa in the rain, it's ten miles to their street, so Elissa goes through Ryan's cassette tapes and picks up his copy of Stone Temple Pilots' 1992 album Core (which I recognized because Core is one of my favorite albums); what does this mean? Two things. First, it's a commentary that Ryan's taste in music is being contrived because, unlike myself who was in high school when Core was released, Ryan is 19, so he was born in 1993, a year after Core's release, so he was introduced to this alternative band somehow (it's probably by his father--who would have really been too old to listen to Alternative music , having two kids--so, why does Ryan's father listen to music intended for teenagers and young college students?); Core was released just months after the fall of the Soviet Union on December 25, 1991, so Ryan is "stuck" in this warp of the Cold War's ending and hasn't been introduced to any new music. This is typical of socialist states where, because there is no competition, art tends to stagnate and fails to evolve because the avant-garde is considered decadent, like Adolf Hitler's burning of degenerate art. Further, that Ryan is still listening to cassette tapes, demonstrates a tendency of socialist countries to fail in adapting new technologies and mediums (please see notations in caption of image above for more on "artistic competition").

What attracts Elissa to Ryan? He's sweet, gentle and misunderstood. We see, however, his incredible strength and even brutality when Carrie Ann escapes her room and runs out into the night, rushing upon a couple making out in their car until Ryan grabs her and drags her to cover, breaking Carrie Ann's neck. What does this scene mean? The couple in the car are only concerned with having sex, and totally unaware of the danger they are in, a typical horror genre device, but still a powerful one, because that could be any of us, going about our private, intimate lives and being in the middle of terrible danger and completely unaware of it. It's unclear, knowing what we know of Carrie Ann by the end of the film, if she is going to them for help or she's so drugged out that she really could kill them. What is clear is that we think Ryan has been protecting her but he's really been keeping her hostage at his own will and he kills her (by the strength of his rage) when she has threatened to break his hold on her and expose the truth. In this shot above, Ryan wears a blue shirt over a red one because blue is the color of depression, which we can see Ryan having, and red is the color of love usually, but it's also the color of wrath/anger ("I'm so mad I'm seeing red," as the saying goes) so Ryan dresses himself in depression to hide the rage which propels him on. This is a bit of a stretch and I admit, but because of the way blue is used on the Penn State shirt, we can also say that Ryan/Obama came dressed as a Democrat (blue is the party's official color) but was really a "red communist" underneath (red being the official color of the international socialist movement). Just one last little nugget referring to the Cold War: when Elissa sees all the food Ryan has bought on the table, she smirks, "Stocking up the fallout shelter?" Fallout shelters were important during the Cold War because people never knew if a nuclear attack was going to come from the Soviet Union or not. Fallout shelters are not a part of the American experience Elissa is familiar with--the way kids in the 1950s-1970s were--so Elissa has been "introduced" to the idea of fallout shelters (television or history books) the same way Ryan was introduced to the Stone Temple Pilots, and her alert reaction means that she's not as ignorant of the harms of socialism as first thought,...

One last reason why this relationship between socialism and art is so important: the "courting of Hollywood" by Obama, and all the stars who seemingly support him. While art hasn't played a big role in films of the last year (with the exception of Arbitrage) art has played a consistent role in films, everyone commenting to a greater or lesser degree on what is the best environment in which to produce art/film, and juxtaposing Elissa's cutting edge singing and her self-marketing on the Internet against Ryan's cassette tape from 1991 is a definite statement of how poorly art fairs in a socialist society and how art becomes a weapon in the hands of our enemies. In other words, the artists Obama has been courting (like the love songs we hear Elissa singing about her waiting for love), and have supported him so much (like Elissa defending Ryan) are the ones in danger of suffering the greatest loss and oppression because of their art and lifestyles. Now, it's time to talk about Carrie Ann and why Ryan symbolizes a socialist state.

Again, Ryan's car, being inherited from his father, references Dreams From My Father, and the vehicle which Ryan uses; before we fully realize who Ryan is and what he has done, the film makers show us the jerk Tyler and his friends smashing Ryan's car and attacking him, then they turn to beat up Ryan and he snaps Tyler's leg and escapes.Tyler's mom tells the cop that Ryan is a monster and is sick of him defending Ryan all these years, but then we realize that Tyler and his mom are right: the trashing of the car shows Republicans "trashing" Obama's bail out programs and how he has retaliated against criticism by the Tea Party and Republicans: he has "broken their will" (snapping Tyler's leg) by using the Constitution's power for the president. When Tyler's friends set fire to his house, that's conservatives trying to "burn down" the house of socialism Obama has been building. In the picture above, Ryan has explained to Elissa how he wants to rebuild his grandfather's house and sell it, i.e., the system of thought created by Karl Marx and spread it throughout the world.  In his political commercial, Obama has former impeached president Bill Clinton talk about "rebuilding America from the ground up," and that means taking down the structures of capitalism and replacing them with the ideas of socialism.

Towards the end of the film, after finding tampons and blue contact lenses in the garbage, as well as a green wallet from Peggy in the diner, Elyssa starts to realize that--in spite of being told that Carrie Ann had drowned in the surge during the storm in which she killed her parents--Ryan has been keeping her below the basement in a underground cellar (a basement usually symbolizes where we keep our dark desires, our base appetites, but Carrie Ann is kept even further down than the basement). The truth is, Carrie Ann died when she was a little girl on the swing set, Ryan's father buried her and the parents turned Ryan into "Carrie Ann," causing him to kill them in rebellion of "being punished" for revolting at not being his dead sister. The "Carrie Anns" we see in the film are girls Ryan had kidnapped and forced into the identity of Carrie Ann and this, as we also see in Resident Evil, is the primary means of identifying Ryan as a symbol of socialism: Carrie Ann is wholly dependent on Ryan for all her needs, and he frequently drugs her, just as in Resident Evil, The Bourne Legacy and Dredd. When we finally discover the truth about what Ryan had been doing, the entire film is cast in a new light.

What Ryan and Elissa are doing is forbidden, not by my Puritanical morals, rather, by the film itself: Sarah explicitly stated that she didn't want Ryan and Elissa alone together, and Ryan agreed, but here Elissa is and they are making out, just as Carrie Ann, locked up below, under the basement in a cellar, is getting out. Now, what else in the film is "forbidden?" Stone Temple Pilots' album, Core, the title of STP's album, Core, refers to the apple core from the Tree of Forbidden Knowledge in the Garden of Eden (to which is what their song Wicked Garden also refers) and that's why Carrie Ann escapes when Elissa is in a state of disobedience, the "crazy" socialism is let loose when the guard is down and the motherland has been disobeyed. We are led to think that Elissa is in danger and that's why Ryan wants her out, but in reality, Ryan is in danger of being "found out" for what he's done and is afraid of his Carrie Ann getting away.

Let's take another look at the opening sequence.
The first thing we see in the film is a house under water in a snow blizzard, then realize it's a house in a snow globe and it's Carrie Ann holding it; she puts it on a shelf, walks down the hall, trips on a power cord and she knocks over a lamp; there is a storm going on and her mother comes out and Carrie Ann takes her out with a hammer, then kills her father on his bed with feathers flying everywhere, she then runs out into the woods. This sequence is presented as the truth of how Carrie Ann killed her parents, but it's not truth because Ryan killed his parents, so why are we given this story? Because this is the story we the voters have been given in America. The house in the snow globe symbolizes how voters in 2008 thought America was "drowning" and "underwater" and the "new America" (Carrie Ann) did away with the old motherland (the mom) to build a new America (the hammer murder weapon, in contrast to Thor's hammer of justice he uses); she then killed the founding fathers in their luxury (the feathers) and went "natural" and to the government (the state owned woods outside the house). This isn't what happened though, and the film wants us to know that this isn't what happened.

Like the Disney film Brave, HATES also demonstrates the intense conflict between mother and daughter, the older vision of America and the future in opposition. (Please see Brave: Two Bears & the Lessons Of Soviet Union for more).

The reality of Ryan killing his parents goes back to the reality of how Carrie Ann died: when they were little, she swung too high on the swing set and he was holding her hand and she fell backwards. Ryan's mom was freebasing drugs when the accident happened; Ryan's father buried Carrie Ann and his parents started calling Ryan "Carrie Ann" in a fit of denial about her death, then Ryan later killed them for punishing him for not going along with their act. What does this mean? Like Elissa being the future of America (Carrie Ann and Elissa are competing models of America's future, and Ryan chooses Carrie Ann) Carrie Ann, in this part of the story, is the future of socialism, and the swing is the swing of revolution (because it's like a pendulum, going one way and then going in the opposite--political--way) and Ryan is the bearer or carrier of socialism, a future father to spread the seed of socialism. His mom doing drugs symbolizes the "death" of socialism in the Soviet Union and the world because the motherland on socialism (the Soviet Union) was drugged (like in Dredd and The Bourne Legacy) on glasnost and perestroika which led, eventually, to the death of communism there, the "swing" from communist to a capitalist system. It's the tight "hold" on a socialist country that the Marxist philosophy has to have in order to keep it working (Ryan holding Carrie Ann's hand as she kept swinging higher and higher) but the lessening of restrictions and censorship (the mom not paying attention to the kids) meant the "communist revolution" died. The parents transferring "Carrie Ann's" identity to Ryan shows that socialism has to have a country, a government to exist, it's not sufficient to be just a bundle of ideas, socialism wants to be in the world, governing.

The doomed dinner. Sarah has invited Ryan over for dinner so she can better keep track of what Elissa does, the exact opposite of Ryan's mom who is free-basing drugs when the original Carrie Ann dies. Sarah makes it clear that she doesn't want Elissa and Ryan alone together; Elissa manages to fool Sarah by having the calls on the home phone forwarded to her cell phone so Sarah will think she's at home. What does this mean? Elissa isn't taking the "call" of her destiny seriously because a phone symbolizes the "call to action" we are meant to make in our lives which fulfills who we are and what we believe (please see My Favorite Zombie: Night Of the Living Dead on the importance of "the call" in art).

This is where the girl from Penn State comes in, Peggy.
After burying a "Carrie Ann," Ryan goes to a diner where he's given a piece of pie and glass of milk "on the house." Perhaps that's why he decides Peggy will be his next Carrie Ann, because she likes to give things away, the popular conception of a socialist government. Ryan takes her, because of her kindness, and forces a new identity on her, that of his dead sister. When we later see the blue Penn state shirt in Carrie Ann's room, reminds us that in the 2008 presidential election, Pennsylvania voted for Obama, and Peggy's brown eyes made blue by Ryan reminds us of Hawkeye in The Avengers when Loki puts him under his control. In other words, the actions of Ryan in controlling Carrie Ann, taking girls and altering their identity, drugging them, keeping them locked up and dependent upon him for all their needs, then being ready to do that to Elissa, illustrates what history proves socialist governments do to those they control: they control them.

Ryan has captured Elissa and tied her up in the Carrie Ann room. She will knock over the lamp on her right to burn through the bandages after getting her legs untied while Ryan is off killing the cop who has come to check on her (the cop, as an embodiment of the "law of the land," symbolizes the Constitution protecting the socialists--the cop is always sticking up for Ryan--even as socialism threatens to destroy the country).

It's only after most of the film, and Elissa hearing everyone call Ryan a "monster," that she finally digs through the trash--all the things Obama has "thrown away"--and learns what Ryan has done (the trash containing the real identity of our country, our wealth and home values--symbolized by Peggy's wallet, which Ryan says belongs to him because socialist governments believe everything belongs to them, not to us--the tampons symbolic of Peggy's ability to bear children that she won't bear because a socialist system "doesn't bear fruit" and, the contact lenses being a piece of plastic that covers the eye--the window of the soul--because socialist governments put Materialism over religion and individuality so people cannot reflect on their own being (which is part of the reason why art does not thrive in socialist countries).

When Ryan ties her up, Elissa has to free herself after she's discovered the truth (like Obama supporters who refuse to examine all he's done since being in office and see where he intends to take the country). Elissa being tied to a chair shows she's in a "seat of power" (voting) but she frees her legs first, that is, her will power (she's determined not to be lied to anymore) and then, like Carrie Ann in the opening sequence, she trips the lamp (the light of illumination) and frees her arms from the shackles that have bound her but she has to endure the pain of "being burned," that is, as the lamp burns the shackles and her skin, she has to admit she was wrong and was lied to.

The tagline, "Fear its secret," is meant to be taken seriously: what secret? That socialism never died and intends to take over the whole world, including the United States. In 1966, The Quiller Memorandum, with Alec Guinness and Max von Sydow, was released, and its thesis was that, in spite of the Nazis being defeated in World War II, they were still everywhere and teaching in the schools and planning a comeback; people believed it ridiculous but it was precisely that incredulous behavior allowing it to recover from the War; HATES has many similar elements to it and its attempt to uncover how Obama is using the same tactics.

Like Elyssa and Sarah renting their house, we are only renting America, it's a land always owned by the future generations which we have to turn over to them, and we have to be the good tenants of today so there is an America for them tomorrow. HATES tries to show what has happened, and importantly, how we have been lied to four years, what we need to do to escape and what will happen to us if we don't. 
Eat Your Art Out,
The Fine Art Diner

"Fear reaches out, for the girl next door." This is an interesting poster because, if you will kindly note, there is an open door (we can tell by the door knob in the lower-center of the poster and the light illuminating the back of Elissa's arm). So what door has been opened (like the opened, bolted door in The Apparition or the opened box in The Possession, or the box in The Odd Life Of Timothy Green)? The door to America has been opened to socialism and a way we can tell is the gold highlights on Elissa's body, probably here referring to the great wealth of America that is now at risk because of who is coming through that door to put an end to it (Elissa is trying to avoid being killed by Ryan in this scene).

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