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sgiandubh · 7 months ago

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C might mean well, but I find businesses using charity to sell suspicious.

Dear Provocative Anon,

What you say deserves an audio (there have been two of them two weeks ago, compensating for last week's silence). I have many things to tell you and please excuse the delay:

They really can't win, with people like you, can they? And that goes for both C and S, mind you. No matter what they do and try to promote as a side project, there is always going to be someone unhappy and vocal about it. When it's not you complaining 'business using charity to sell' is 'suspicious', there's the other fuckwit asking recently why S hasn't given all MPC's profit to charity, as Paul Newman did with Newman's Own.

So, I will be brutally honest with you, Anon. I have thoughts and questions about your own point of view and this is partially why it took me so long to answer you. It would seem you are not familiar at all with what is called 'corporate social responsibility' (CSR), since at least the Sixties. Which means, in a nutshell, companies who choose to focus part of their activity and dedicate part of their profits to charitable projects. It is done with various degrees of ethics, success and bona fides all around the world, and it is often used as a strong marketing and sales argument.

Think about these people, whose brand is probably immediately recognizable wherever you go, spare perhaps Pyongyang:

I just picked this Coca Cola Foundation recent CSR project in Brazil totally randomly, using Google. Some might think it's just another cynical diversion: one of the world's biggest corporate profiteers, happily contributing to the current obesity pandemic (including in Latin America), suddenly showing one of its biggest markets they do have a conscience, after all, and a social one to boot. And addressing, at the same time, one of the continent's post-colonial bleeding wounds, which is to say, the organic imbalance between rich and poor, as far as access to means of production, land ownership and use and sales opportunities go. 480 farmers benefitting from Coca Cola's magnanimity is probably but a tiny drop of hope in an ocean of dour social injustice, but the truth is, Anon, if nobody does anything good, then nothing good will happen at all. It is as simple as that, and while their modus operandi is probably not exactly my cup of tea, you will have to admit it works, at least to some extent and for some people. Plus it greatly enhances the company's do-good, sensible and reliable global image, because of course, what happens right now in the state of Minas Gerais is but a tiny part of a bigger strategy.

Might I add that even those robber barons, à la Cornelius Vanderbilt or Jay Gould, who made their ruthless fortunes building the railroads of a still very young United States of America, ended up giving a very small part of their same fortune to various charities. It wasn't nearly enough what we would consider as 'reasonable', in 2024, but it did start a philanthropic trend, that took considerable speed after the 1919 Boston Molasses Disaster. The Sixties have just added more pragmatism and gave a name to what was, at its very start, quite an opportunistic endeavor.

Even so, Vanderbilt and Gould themselves did not invent anything, really. One should look to good old Europe to find what is probably the first big CSR project in human history, still going strong since 1521. May I introduce you to the Augsburg Fuggerei:

[for even more pious charity: https://www.fugger.de/en/fuggerei]

Renting one of those wonderful Hansel and Gretel houses for less than one euro/year, plus three daily Hail Mary is something to behold, right? Jakob Fugger the Young, the guy who had this brilliant idea (which, might I add, is still run and operated by the Fugger banker family, even nowadays) was literally a ruthless kingmaker, a colonial trade and exploration pioneer, but also a religious bigot who flatly refused to extend his charity to Protestant families. Still, his pious dream goes on - the Fugger Family Foundation even actively plans its next 500 years. This is Germany, after all 😉.

Those people’s money stinks more of corruption and crime than S or C’s ever could, Anon. Still, they are remembered as benefactors, by many. History is seldom cruel to those who are willing to pay for their posterity.

But you know what, Anon? Compared to the Fuggers and the Vanderbilts and the Goulds, S and C are really small fish in an even smaller, fickler pond. I think they are doing it out of their good heart and I think they are honestly, genuinely responsive to the idea of giving a chance to young, struggling artists. But, in the process, are they also trying to market themselves as more approachable and less controversial, considering the (oh, I shall never tire to repeat this, with gusto) cosmic amount of bullshit plaguing their respective public images? My somewhat cynical answer is also yes, Anon. To which may I immediately add that it's not even important: all that counts are the tangible results of whatever good things they do with their booze and/or fitness profits.

Results and helping trigger a change in one's life is all that really interests me, Anon. It seems to bother you, though, so I will cheekily end this long rant with a couple of questions: do you have a problem with poverty? do you believe in giving people a (second) chance, or do you think only the rich are worth considering and valuable?

If so, I honestly pity you, girl. For the real indigent in all this might be you.

#anon #fandom #shitshow #booze wars #CSR #business #weekly audio

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hogans-heroes · 11 months ago

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Me after the MOTA finale

My longest (spoilery) ep discussion yet under the cut:

There was…so much, this episode and I’m still raw and emotional. What a rollercoaster. Damn.

First just want to say we got some scenes we wanted like Crosby losing his shit over the locked supply room! 10/10 loved it and Rosie yelling “coca-cola” at the Russians will never not be funny.

I couldn’t breathe in the forced march. And Bucky’s state is still bad and Gale stayed so close. The prisoners getting shot by their own plane was horrible, and happened a lot. Can you imagine surviving years in a camp just to get killed like that?

The scene where the prisoners are in the train goddamn killed me i was not expecting such a sudden shift. Bucky comforting the one guy who was terrified. Them being convinced they were going to be killed and Gale and Bucky’s little exchange??? Gale saying he really did believe they would be the last two in the air, with that horrible lost expression like a kid who can’t understand? Them saying these years wpild have be hard without the other and they wouldn’t have done anything different?

Omg Gale really did say he’s “in” for an escape just to get Bucky to calm down and not get shot 😭

Gale looks so much younger with his fluffy escape hair it makes me sad, and his heartbroken look when his friend got killed…

Let’s talk about Rosie for a second. That scene of him in the concentration camp was so powerful because there was no words, nothing happening, no action/reaction like so many other films. You just sit there with Rosie and realize. Seeing that writing on the wall was…well of course there’s no words. That’s the point.

“Not even the earth that covers our bones will remember us.” The power of that statement sucker punched me and drove home even more determination to keep doing what I’m doing in historical work etc., telling these stories.

THE WAY I FLIPPED MY SHIT WHEN WE SAW THE COMMONWEALTH TROOPS IN THE LAST CAMP!!???! The Indian and Caribbean pilots??? The Sikhs!?? The Australians!!! The Algerians and French colonials??! In love

The last camp riot when the tanks showed up was SO INTENSE and amazing. And honestly the best symbolism of the show was the Nazi flag getting torn up but the mix of all nations that fought, then seeing all the different flags flying as the guys cheered.

Gale’s longing look when he saw the planes dropping food instead of bombs broke my heart. His smiles getting back in the plane and taking the food, seeing the people happy to be helped instead of scared/angry of being attacked. THIS BOY HAS MY HEART.

Bucky in the tower and in the Jeep along side Gale’s plane was TRAIN SLAM OF EMOTION MY GOD.

OF COURSE BUCKY WOULDNT LET THEM SHIP GALE’S LOCKER

Their smiles in the cockpit together, real, sweet smiles after all this time, and ending with all the planes flying away into that gorgeous sky…I have no words. It’s been such an emotional journey and was a powerful ending. I still feel like I could burst into tears any minute.

#mota spoilers #masters of the air spoilers #masters of the air #mota #I guess that’s all my word vomit #I am not ok and will be writing an insane amount of fic for the foreseeable future #very emotionally fragile rn

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aeolianblues · 1 month ago

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My mum remembers Coca-Cola coming to the country for the first time.

The first time that bottled coke, in the sleek glass bottles with the elaborately painted logo, was sold out of crates and chillers by a vendor who would cycle from house to house, stacked crates in tow.

They'd seen them before, of course. Granddad was very well-travelled, his work took him across the country and occasionally overseas. It made him a knowledgeable, well-read and respected man. He'd been abroad: Malaysia, Germany, Indonesia, other places I wasn't told about. He'd seen Coca-Colas. He was an adventurer of sorts, which I suppose shouldn't seem too out of the ordinary for someone who had chosen a career of tinkering with chemicals professionally. Wherever he travelled, mum recounted, he'd bring back a little souvenir. Music from abroad, posters, books, branded sweets that weren't sold in protectionist India.

It wasn't an unreasonable decision. After 200 years of being leached dry and Indian industry being virtually nonexistent, it wasn't hard to see why post-colonial India had closed off its domestic industries to outsiders. The government took control of most local trade and incentivised the Indian economy to grow without competition from wealthier players (at that point, there were companies that were wealthier than the entire nation of India).

This did however mean that no international products were sold in India. Imports were limited to the most basic parts and things that could not be procured locally, often raw materials. Coca-Cola was limited to glimpses in foreign films, and of course, to those who travelled. (Nothing was banned, of course. It was about the economy, not access to international goods.)

This changed in 1991. Finance Minister Manmohan Singh's decision to deliberately devalue the rupee, open up the tightly-controlled Indian market for trade and usher in the age of globalisation introduced the world to India again, this time in its local paan shop (or cornershop, aware of the fact that like 3 people that follow me at best will know what that means). Mum remembers buying Coca Cola for the first time, in rupees, locally in 1991 as a girl. It sounds like a very small and trivial thing, but it was part of a decision that changed the Indian economy's fortunes forever.

From a country that had maybe two weeks' worth of forex reserves in tow, India evolved to become one of the fastest-growing GDPs in the world. It was once again Dr. Manmohan Singh's policies, this time as Prime Minister in 2008, that meant India escaped the worst of the global financial crisis. The economy didn't crash, didn't go into recession, fewer jobs were lost, and largely, India emerged unscathed compared to larger economies out west.

But I think about some of these little things, and how he changed the country forever, as the nation observes his passing today.

#politics #economy #history #world history #culture #coca cola #writing #manmohan singh #global news #global politics #news #world news #desi #India

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latin-american-diversity · 2 years ago

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Kogi: The Indigenous people of the Colombian desert

The Kogis are one of the few indigenous people in South America who were able to maintain their pre-Columbian culture. Being a pacifistic ethnic group they never attempted to fight colonists and preferred to move to more isolated areas up the mountain, where they could continue to live their lives without much influence from western culture. They call themselves the “elder brothers” who are taking care of the “Heart of the World” (the Sierra Nevada) and protecting it from the “younger brothers” (non Kogi or Arhuaco Amerindians) who are destroying it. They believe if the “Heart of the World” get's out of balance it will affect the whole world. Having survived the Spanish colonizers, the [Colombian] colonials in the beginning of the century, the Marijuana bonanza of the 80s, the coca planting of the drug cartels and the armed conflict among guerillas and paramilitaries the Kogi are facing their biggest fear now, the destruction of “Heart of the World” due climatic changes.

- Alexander Rieser

#photography #photojournalism #indigenous #native american #indigenous people #kogi #cogui #kágaba #indígena #indígenas #pueblos indígenas

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jloisse · 1 year ago

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🔻Produit Israélien

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a-man-for-hire-and-his-archives · 9 months ago

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Article from Mail about Andrew Wincott in Colombia (scroll down to read the article)

Coming soon to The Archers...Adam Macy's cocoa farm in Colombia!

written by Andrew Wincott for Mail on Sunday Travel (31 March 2014)

Radio star Andrew Wincott is bewitched and bedazzled by a historic and colorful corner of South America

Oh dear! Really? Are you quite sure?' Such were the reactions of various acquaintances to my announcement that I was planning a trip to Colombia.

The fact that I have friends in Bogota didn't assuage their anxieties. And now even I started to imagine scenarios in which, having been kidnapped by some paramilitary renegades, I could possibly negotiate some sort of communication line down which I could record scenes for The Archers from my cell in Bogota. Perhaps Adam could have been on a trip researching cocoa farming, I reflected, and found himself deludedly diverted towards coca instead.

Such is the curious blurring between fiction and reality in The Archers that stranger things have happened.

Bogota is a dynamic city with a chaotic character all its own. At 8,500ft above sea level you would think the head-rush would be mandatory. The rush is all in the traffic: buses veer, bikes swerve, taxis vie for fares across choked lanes.

But in the tranquil historic neighbourhood of La Candelaria you escape to the city's Spanish colonial past. Amid the teeming hordes of students, travellers and local Bogotanos, the gold exhibits of the Museo D'Oro, such as the pre-Colombian gold raft sculpture from the Muisca era, are dazzling.

Alternatively one can enjoy the whimsical wit of Colombia's most famous artist, Botero. His porcine figures are found in a museum named after him and built around a charming 18th Century courtyard. Also housed here is part of Botero's personal art collection, including works by Monet, Renoir, Chagall, Miro, and Dali.

Taking in the view: Andrew at the Iglesia de Monserrate overlooking Bogota.

In the nearby Plaza de Bolivar I saw a llama sauntering by - they are used to give rides to giggling tourists. On one corner stands the Museo de la Independencia, housing artefacts and exhibits that fascinatingly illustrate the story of the 1810 Revolution: how the fight for independence began and how, some might contend, it is still being fought today.

Looking up from the plaza - high in the mountains to the east - you see the Iglesia de Monserrate, which is accessible within minutes by cable car. Here you find a sanctuary of tranquillity and spirituality, as though one has risen above the city while its secular urban unreality sprawls magnificently but chaotically across the plateau below.

If the tumult of Bogota becomes too much, a mere hour away lies Zipaquira and its cathedral, one of the most startling buildings in the world. With ingenuity, vision and audacity, a cavernous expanse 600ft below ground has been carved from a salt mine to form a space for worship.

Such is the combination of iconography, natural forms, colours, and carvings that you feel you're in a sodium-chloride art installation.

It's extraordinary to imagine that on Sundays and holy days 3,000 people come here to worship.

At Guatavita, the legend of El Dorado resonates from the pre-Colombian past. Cradled by crater walls is the lake on to which the Muisca tribe rowed their new cacique (king) on a raft before ritually immersing him, naked and covered in gold dust. In further homage, thousands of gold offerings were thrown into the lake by members of the tribe surrounding the shores.

Across the mountains, through the valleys, past polytunnels (Adam would have been pleased to note) the poncho - or ruana - wearing farmers tend the fields, ride horseback or stroll as though time has stopped. Being on the road is an experience in itself. Away from Bogota, down from the plateau and the temperate high ground, the temperature rises.

Roadside grills offer chorizos, chicken and cold beers to slake the thirst. Dogs slumber, sheltering in doorways to escape the heat while cats watch from the shadows.

If it's history you crave, about 90 miles from Bogota, in the Andes near Tunja, there is a tiny bridge over the Teatinos River, marking the site where the Battle of Boyaca was fought.

Here in August 1819 a decisive victory was won against the Spanish in the war for independence - with the help of the British - an event marked by imposing monuments to the generals Bolívar and Santander.

Soon you reach the white-washed walls, red-tiled roofs and cobblestone streets of Villa de Leyva, a preserved colonial town which, since 1954, has been a national monument.

The 17th Century architecture, featuring cool arcaded courtyards, fountains, and flower-festooned columns, is unspoilt. Dancing in the square and drinking aguardiente in the bars around here seem like timeless nocturnal pursuits.

Further afield, an hour's flight from Bogota on the shores of the Caribbean, lies the Unesco World Heritage site of Cartagena, a beautifully restored jewel of a walled Spanish city with perhaps the most impressive fortifications in Latin America, the Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas.

The stature of the walls and the tunnels beneath help the visitor understand why it was virtually impossible to defeat the Spanish here, and why they stayed until the 19th Century.

At night the sun-drenched Plaza de la Santisima Trinidad is transformed into a natural theatre. All life is here. Children race, dogs strut like horses, folk reflect and ruminate.

Locals and travellers mix over a beer bought from the shop across the square and a hot dog from a stand.

If you fancy a cocktail, perhaps a cuba libre, you can try to wake the old girl slumbering behind her stall to mix one.

Colombia is a country that defies expectations. It will bewitch and bedazzle you. The countryside is timeless and you'll find pure pleasure in the tranquillity and variety of the landscape and the charm of its people. If you're looking to escape from the greyness of the commonplace, the warmth, colour and natural beauty of Colombia elevate it to the dimension of another world. I shall certainly be going back.

Maybe that cocoa farm of Adam's wasn't such a bad idea after all.

#andrew wincott #the archers #adam macy #bg3 #raphael bg3 #bg3 raphael

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sherrifdoggo · 2 months ago

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Fake Brands, Why?

You may have noticed that every time I make something (board game or not), the brands on the things aren't real. The obvious answer to this would be "oh, sherrif's worried about trademark infringement",

no absolutely not i couldn't care less if coca-cola decided i should die, nor would they probably care if i put them in a free board game that isnt even done yet.

So why the fake brands then?

Because I think they're neat.

To clarify, obviously there's more thought put into it than "I just think they're neat".

If you know me, you know that all my life I've been obsessed with how Rockstar depicts the worlds of their games. They're always so much more realized than even worlds from world class RPGs.

Case and point, the brands in the world. If you exist in real life, you will inevitable be confronted with a brand. If you follow this brand you will notice that you can purchase products from this brand for money.

In real life this doesn't take any effort from god or allah or whoever made this place because a can of pepsi is made by a guy in a factory made by a brand made by a guy, without you noticing. But in a fictitious world, usually things like brands are usually glossed over because it's not worth the time to represent it.

So, in any other game you will see an advertisement on a wall and the advertisement will feature a brand on it. But then, if you dare follow the trail of the advertisement you will come to the sudden realization they do not sell "Brand" soda, but only just Nameless Cola.

This pisses me the fuck off so much dude, it's unbelievable.

So, in the Staten Island Universe. I have strived to make it as close to the capitalist hellscape we live in. That means something is made, then a brand must've made it. It can only be brandless if it's made by hand, or is natural.

But then, there's another issue. Laziness.

Sometimes a developer, a writer or whatever will make a brand for something, but doesn't have the time or patience to make a real brand for it. So the brand for said thing is now just a knock-off brand.

Of course most fictional brands are going to be knock-off brands of real brands, but would you buy a car from Dord Motors?

How about a soda from Cola-Cola?

How would've Cola-Cola taken the world by storm, made billions of dollars and hired those south-american death squads to put down rebellions if they have such a stupid, unmemorable name.

That's where my enjoyment of making fake brands is, it makes the world hundreds of times more believable if you can reasonably stretch your imagination to believe that a brand would've become as successful as is depicted.

Additionally, these fake brands can be tied to real history as much as you want. You can make them have done all the horrible shit they did in real life, and then so. You can invent new horrible things they did in your universe.

Maybe the Fairfield Motor Company didn't just make a rubber colony in Brazil where they forced the locals to live idealistic American lives in the middle of the amazon rainforest. Maybe those locals also practiced a lot of magic, which the CEO of Fairfield didn't like, so he banned the practice of magic in Fairfieldlandia.

Also said ban caused a riot when a child of one of the workers was injured by a venomous snake, necessitating magical intervention in the absence of medical supplies to treat the wound. Which then caused the "Police" to intervene and arrest the magic user for breaking the rules of the colony.

You get what i'm saying now?

No?

I could've just made it alternate history and said that Ford did all of that?

I could've but that wouldn't have been as fun, and I mean. The fake logo looks pretty cool, right?

Anyways here's a couple images of fake brands on things I made for Project Empire already, which I put up on my BlueSky a bit ago.

First, some 12 gauge shotgun shells.

And here's an Alta aPhone

#world building #fake brands #i just like making them ok #project empire

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spider-xan · 3 months ago

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That awful post by that G**d Om*ns fan about the glory of white settler American culture that was like [colonialism] [Manifest Destiny] [appropriation of Black American culture borne from slavery and Jim Crow] [literal Christian missionary who colonized Indigenous land with invasive species] [knitted sweaters] was apparently missing the sacred tradition of Coca Cola Christmas ads featuring CGI polar bears drinking genocide and murder squads soda.

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linolinoing · 9 months ago

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i'd like to give my two cents about this whole messed situation so please forgive me for my longass rant - i'm the first person that's disappointed with this single - bc of who it involves, but also because it's not an artistic direction that i'm liking (mediocre pop music, remixes, radioplay just for money and western validation)

i'm very aware skz are grownass adults who at least have an idea of what's going on in palestine, but despite that, and assuming the fact that they are not zionists and actually care about palestine at least a bit, tbh i don't think that even if they wanted to they could say something - i mean jype literally have forbidden chan to go live for a year bc of some twitter drama, and now felix hasn't done a live in over month since he apologized for showing coca cola and in the end they're kinda forced to tell stays to listen to the song cause that's literally part of their job

and sure they are probably genuinely happy with the collab, but that doesn't mean they agree with personal/political ideas of the artists they like or collaborating with, or that they do not care about palestine, or that they don't want to say something - there's still a legal contract and as much as skz are not slaves, they are definitely not free to say or do whatever they want and if chan can't get a tattoo why could he speak out about politics? (yes, genocide and settler colonialism shouldn't be politics but in our world they sadly are or they wouldn't exist in the first place)

i mean i've seen people saying that on instagram skz are free to post what they want but i honestly think that's not completely true bc no celebrity in the world is free to post or say whatever they want, celebrities literally have professionals to help them with their image (and even the ones who speak about political things they still have professionals behind them monitoring the situation) and with how they appear to the general public, so while for most stuff yes it's probably is a genuine act from skz, social medias and what the kids say can be forced and used as "distraction" or to "downplay" (we've seen multiple times the kids going live in the exact moment the fans were trending on twitter bc were disappointed and angry at the company's action)

we've seen how jype do not care about the kids health and reputation (they overwork skz, they did nothing when "fans" were threatening to show up at fansigns to literally harm the members or when trucks with insults were placed in front of the company) and especially how they only care about the money so i seriously think that since that company is seeing how most fans are streaming the song and how this song was literally only made for the usa and at the same time jype is seeing how a lot of fans are definitely not happy with this shit they're trying to to make seem skz are on the board with the song (whether they actually are or not), from posting selfies to saying positive stuff about the collab - that's literally marketing and for the company in this situation it's the best solution to keep earning the cash while trying to change fans' opinions who do not agree with this

i'm not trying to make any excuses for anyone here bc skz are not some children or hermits who do not have internet access to at least stays telling them to do better (and even in the impossibile case they do not, jype definitely knows) - but at the same time i think we forget how well crafted celebrities' actions and words especially during controversies can be. i mean i've only spoken from a greedy-company-who-only-want-money point of view to try to get a sense of what the fuck is happening - which is something that i obviously hate. so yeah sure seeing how fans (who atp don't care about people lives, even skz reputation or music and it's quality), jype and therefore skz are reacting and handling the situation (promoting the song than any comeback they made) is disappointing to say the least ffs

I'll add a cut to shorten it a bit for everyone's tl ⛷️

Don't apologize, I don't mind it all, you're welcome to rant anytime!

I think I've said this today already but I agree that this is a jype/rr doing and skz didn't pick these producers themselves, they're either work for rr or work with charlie, and I don't think skz knew how problematic puth is. I understand they can't openly say what they think and I don't expect them to, but I highly doubt anyone is forcing them to post selfies with puth or talk about him on bbl. I'm sure there are things they can't post but in this case it doesn't seem like anyone is making them post all that. As a fan it's just disheartening to see this situation unfold. I don't think they are bad people or that this collab says anything about their own values, but I don't want to completely absolve them of any responsibility yk

As for their artistic directon, I just hope it's a one off thing for this collab and for the actual upcoming album everything will go back to normal, I know now everyone releases millions of remixes to chart and its kind of rules of the game, but there are artists who do it creatively, like realising extending versions or skz with la4 rock version. Basically those types of remixes don't feel forced and insincere. Also this song sounds just like a puth song and nothing else, hopefully we won't see more of this on their actual album 🥱

#sorry idk If I'm making any sense it's late and i need to go to sleep 🥴#💬#oop never mind tumblr already shortened it 🫡

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xemthawt112 · 1 year ago

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A Review of History of fhe World in Six Glasses, I guess

just finished reading this book and have some thoughts so I figured I'd scream at the void.

This is actually the first non-graphic novel I've read in a year or so, and the first non fiction I've read in...longer. So it was a nice change of pace. My own attempt at wrangling my attention span aside, the book was a pretty nice read. The text presents rather informatively, while still not simply being dry. This book intends to present a path through history, and it reads as such.

As for the content of history in the book? Im...mixed. There's some interesting things in there (particularly the beer section was, while introductory, something I was unfamiliar with), but I was a little put off at the execution of the premise. To put it simply: it is called history of the world, but as one might expect, it's very much "History of the West". We go from Sumeria to Greece to Rome to early Colonial European powers (a jump for sure) and on to Britain and then America. It's....awfully disappointing, as with all the talk of "most impactful" it seems to draw from the same exceptionalism we see around us every day. There is reference to countries outside this sphere, like China, but it felt very much in the sense of a side player to the main character. (I wonder if China's story would have been included at all if it was necessary in telling Britain's story of tea.) South America is basically entirely ignored, with North America only getting mention once the British settlers arrive.

There's also this very...particular view of history, that being a linear progression of civilization from less to more civilized (coincidentally we get to coca cola, the most civilized thing at all). Readinf that the author was normally a tech reporter was...while not that stereotypical, did cast a certain light on things. As a consequence of that, a lot of views and assumptions feel that they go unchallenged. I'm not expecting a radical text here, but seeing a text talk positively about the expansion of Coca Cola and even neutrally about the East India Trade Company is...something.

All in all, still a good read I think. Just know what you're getting into, and don't expect anything new from a historical framing standpoint. And be mindful what skew your getting from the text, and use a grain of salt.

#The history of the world on six glasses #Reading #book review

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tilbageidanmark · 2 years ago

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Movies I watched this Week #114 (Year 3/Week 10):

Innocence Lost in Close, my 2nd sensitive drama by Belgian Lukas Dhont. Movingly and tenderly it details an intimate friendship - love, rather - between two 13-year-old boys. The script, style and direction are flawless and restrained, and the acting of the two amateur teens is pitch-perfect. 10/10.

I really should watch ‘Girl’, his debut film, again.

From the 5 Oscar nominees for Best International feature this weekend I’m missing only ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ by now. My favorite is still ‘The Quiet Girl’, with this ‘Close’ a close second.

🍿

3 from Portugal:

🍿 A landmark of Portuguese New Cinema and Paulo Rocha's underrated debut masterpiece The Green Years ('Os Verdes Anos'). A naive 19-year-old boy from the provinces come to Big City Lisbon of 1963, finds a job as a cobbler assistant, and falls in love with a pretty housemaid. Beautifully gentle and nostalgic, also leisurely-episodic and unrestrained - with a shocking finale. 7/10.

🍿 “...Everything I’m telling you is not reality, but tales...”

Tabu by Miguel Gomez, a black & white magical realist story of madness, obsession and colonialism. A heartbroken explorer commits suicide by jumping into a river infested with crocodiles. A kind middle-aged women tries to help her delusional neighbor who lives in the apartment next door, together with her black maid. A search for a mystery man who committed a grave sin many years ago and miles away. All those and more are mixed into a poetic metaphor of lost love and lost empire.

Mesmerizing and engrossing, melancholic and transcendental - The best film of the week!

(The only issue I had with the story is that it talks of the past in “Africa” instead of Mozambique, but maybe this is how they talk about it now, I don’t know)

🍿 Ice Merchants, a wordless, enigmatic story about loss which was Oscar nominated for this year’s animated short. It tells of a father and son who live alone in a cabin hanging on a side of a mountain thousands of meter above the ground. Every day they parachute in tandem down to the village below, to sell the ice they gather up there. And every time they jump down, they lose their hats.

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Allegro Non Troppo, my first by Italian animator Bruno Bozzetto, creator of the ‘Signor Rossi’ cartoon character. It’s a low-rent Italian ‘Fantasia’, a light-hearted feature that showcases psychedelic animations to 6 classic evergreens, including a dance of sugar molecules inside a bottle of Coca-Cola to the tune of Ravel’s Bolero, as well as pieces by Debussy, Dvořák, Sibelius, Stravinsky, and Vivaldi. It specifically asks to be be compared as a parody of the superior Disney original.

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2 by new French director Constance Meyer, both with Gérard Depardieu:

🍿 Another wonderful random discovery: Robust, a powerful debut feature by a young female director (who doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page). It’s a terrific story of two larger-than-life people: Depardieu as an aging, seriously-overweight and lonely superstar, disgusted with life and wishing to be dead. And a black, 22-year-old, 300-lbs. female wrestler who’s assigned to be his helper/bodyguard for a month, and who is not intimidated by his fame or reckless behavior. The two fantastic professionals develop an unlikely relationship without pity or allusions. The young no-bullshit security guard character (Déborah Lukumuena) is a revelation: she’s surprisingly well-rounded, highly-talented in her own right, strong, confident and sexual, with a skinny boyfriend she holds at arm’s length.

I loved its physicality, and will highly recommend it. The trailer. 9/10.

🍿 Mayer directed only 2 short films before ‘Robust’, both of them also with Depardieu: ‘Frank-Étienne Towards Grace’ (which I cannot find online) and Rhapsody from 2016. It’s an inexplicable poetic story of an old, heavy loner who lives in a small tower apartment, and takes care of a tiny baby the neighbor leaves with him every morning.

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Naked Normandy (2018), a light and charming French comedy about French mayor Francois Cluzet who has to convince his villagers to pose naked in a field for a famous American photographer. Toby Jones is obviously Spencer Tunick, and the field he wants to stage his photograph is obviously Windows XP ‘Bliss, “the most viewed photograph in history”. 6/10.

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My life as a zucchini, a stop-motion animated Swiss film that was Oscar-nominated in 2016. In Aardman Studio-style, it tells a sweet and sad story about a little boy who kills his alcoholic mom by accident, and who is sent to an orphanage with 6 other unfortunate kids. It was written by my favorite director Céline Sciamma. Heartfelt and compassionate. (Photo Above).

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2 with Dean Stockwell:

🍿 I haven’t seen much of Francis Ford Coppola’s last 30+ years (Except of Godfather 3, of course), so I sought his 1987 Gardens of Stone. Another polemic of his about the Vietnam War, it tells of the guards at the Arlington National Cemetery who perform the military kabuki mass-burying dead soldiers. The theater is beautiful, but the drama is a bit outdated. With peak Anjelica Huston and concert promoter Bill Graham (who had a flourishing film career at that time), James Earl Jones, and many others. 3/10.

🍿 I didn’t realize that Stockwell’s career "spanned seven decades” and that he started as a child actor, with his breakthrough role as a young boy in the musical Anchors aweigh. A terrible story of two naive sailors on a shore leave in Hollywood, with thin, virginal Frank Sinatra, and buddy Gene Kelly, both acting and behaving like two six-graders who just discover ‘Dames’. Even the singing and tap dancing numbers are third-grade. It’s notable for the scene when Gene Kelly appears with the animated Tom and Jerry, but this is the only watchable scene that is not dull. 2/10.

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Love letters from 1953, the first film directed by the actress Kinuyo Tanaka, who was the second woman to have a career as a film director in Japan. It’s a romance story about post-war Japan still bearing the scars of the occupation and assimilation. A former prisoner-of-war gets a job writing English-language love letters for females whose GI lovers went back to America. An interesting melodrama.

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After loving the John Cho thriller ‘Searching’ (I saw it 4 times last year!) I was not looking forward to the director’s new “standalone sequel” (because sequels!). The 'Screenlife’ genre where all events are shown on computer, smartphones and tablets is clever, and the team behind it have already produced 4-5 movies just like that. The best thing to say about the new version. Missing, is that it’s exactly the same as the surprise hit from 5 years ago. The only difference is that instead of a father looking for his missing daughter. it’s the daughter looking for her missing mother. So it’s strange, they decided to go that way, surely for viewers new to the set-up. On the other hand, for the old fans, it’s completely redundant. 5/10.

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2 new documentaries with 100% Tomato score:

🍿 Following last week’s discovery of Charles Burnett’s neglected black masterpiece ‘Killer of Sheep’, I was happy to dig into Is That Black Enough for You?!? Film critic Elvis Mitchell’s essay about the legacy of African-American film history from the silent era to its Golden Age of the 1970′s. Samples of hundreds of black movies that were lost, forgotten, censured and white-washed, left me with a big new list of movies to look forward to.

However, his encyclopedic knowledge of the topic was delivered too hurriedly and without digging deep into any particular point. The only overreaching impression is how inherently racist Hollywood’s Amerika had always been. 6/10.

🍿 Ron Howard’s portrait of big-time humanitarian / celebrity chef José Andrés, We feed people. Andrés established his non profit organization ‘World Central Kitchen’, which cooks for survivors after natural disasters. A mix of touching scenes of destruction, together with the usual TV-documentaries blandness. Not 100% for me.

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Another Oscar-nominated Chilean docudrama - with “only” 94% Tomato-score - The Mole Agent, has a wonderful premise: An 84-year-old man answers an employment ad that specifically asks for a very old candidate. His job is to infiltrate a Santiago nursing home, pose as an applicant resident there, and investigate undercover if there’s truth to the claims of abuse toward the mostly female residents. In the course of the 3 months he lives there, he uses clandestine recordings, micro camera pen and Google-type glasses to send daily reports to an off-site investigator.

I guess it “is” a documentary, in the sense that obviously the location and residents are real, but it’s better not to regard it as a documentary in the strict sense, because it’s obviously filmed with a supporting crew and with the approval from the nursing home.

The very human stories of the old ladies at the end of their lives is moving and fascinating. 8/10.

This is my 26th film in 2023 directed by a woman. I am excited about director Maite Alberdi’s new film ‘The Eternal Memory’.

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Following Elvis Mitchell’s advise (above), I started with Harry Belafonte’s brave 1959 Film Noir Odds Against Tomorrow. It’s an expertly-scripted plot by blacklisted Araham Polonsky, who was credited for the screenplay under another name. Crisp, tight and engaging classic about 3 small timers who try to rob a bank, ring leader Ed Begley, suave nightclub singer Belafonte, and racist ex-con SOB Robert Ryan who doesn’t want to take a job with a colored man. A terrific heist gone awry story with racial undertones. 8/10.

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I used to like Bo Widerberg since his ‘Elvira Madigan’ days. His 1984 The man from Majorca is a highly-enjoyable Nordic style police procedural with cover-ups and conspiracies galore. It is often compared to ‘The French Connection’. The lead is played by ‘Uncle Gunnar’ from ‘My life as a dog’. 7/10.

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After reading the new Atlantic’s portrait 'Schwarzenegger’s Last Act’, I watched Pumping Iron, the Reality TV documentary that put bodybuilding on the map. I can’t believe I was lifting weights too for about 2 years around that time. 3/10.

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Predestination, a bullshit Australian science-fiction story, complicated and stupid, unfolded as a “Barroom story”. Pre-Succession doppelganger Sarah Snook (one as a woman and one after a sex assignment surgery, where she looks like a young Leonardo DiCaprio) and horribly-playing Ethan Hawke ham it out. 2/10.

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There are Jews in the world, there are Buddhists There are Hindus and Mormons, and then There are those that follow Mohammed, but I've never been one of them...

The meaning of life, Monty Python’s final film, aged very well! Still surreal, irreverent, funny and full of extraordinary violence. Also with 4 Superb musical numbers: ‘Every sperm is sacred’, ‘The Galaxy Song’, ‘The Penis song’ and ‘Christmas in heaven’. And some genial scenes and situations: “Find the Fish”, "Live Organ Transplants", "Oh shit—it's Mr. Creosote!". Also the standalone swashbuckling introduction of ‘The Crimson Permanent Assurance' (with young Max Headroom!). 9/10.

“NOW! Sex, Sex, sex....”

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Throw-back to the art project:

Monty Python Adora.

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(My complete movie list is here)

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