#the ungovernable force movie

[ere-the-sun-rises]

I was under the impression that Tony paid for everything once SHIELD collapsed. SHIELD was certainly government funded, but I thought Tony was responsible for the new compound, which was he was the dominant force behind the Sokovia Accords and the cooperation efforts with the US and the UN. I also didn't consider the Avengers law enforcement, since a big MCU plotpoint is that they're extrajudicial and completely ungoverned.

Also, I thought the Justice League was allied with and partly funded by the UN? At least, in the pre-Crisis animated series/movies, they definitely were. (The DCMU is its own can of worms and definitely not cohesive enough to be comparable to the Avengers.) Bats talks about the UN working with the Watchtower. (Which I also thought B used the UN to do, since Bruce Wayne or Wayne Industries launching it independently would raise waaay to many eyebrows.)

My interpretation could be completely off, though. I do very much agree about Cap and Nat though - Nat at least makes sense, since she's an ex-Soviet asset anyway, why would she look out for anyone else? But Cap? Nah, he doesn't give a shit about anyone else (at least in the MCU - leaving Bucky behind proved that. Idk about his animated/comic appearances.)

One of my biggest pet peeves is the justice league being labelled as " The Avengers of DC" and its like. No? The avengers are law enforcement. The Justice League are volunteers

[ungovernable-films]

Get your own LIMITED EDITION The Ungovernable Force VHS now!!! They will sell out fast so order before it’s too late! REBLOG TO SAVE A LIFE! http://www.ungovernablefilms.com/

[grindhousecellar]

[jenosslut]

requested by : @morkeos

─

[08:42 PM]

you were seated uncomfortably on the bed as majestically crystal tears fell down your glossy eyes, staining your cheeks wet. your tongue ungovernably felt the taste of your slightly salty yet bitter teardrops, allowing a sour expression to play on your face in between the tears.

you snuggled deeper into the fluffy red blanket, letting out a few sniffles as you wiped your exasperatingly runny nose on a bunch of tissues, causing your nose to grow red at the friction.

just as your hand was about to reach the chopsticks placed right in front of you in order to stuff your mouth with noodles, you heard your shared room’s door open.

though, your head didn’t turn towards the door at the sound, no inquisitiveness peeking through you as the noodles you were currently busy with were way more important than whoever just entered the room.

“are you crying?” the agonizing tone of your boyfriend!jeno filled your ears, allowing your attention to finally switch onto him.

“what’s wrong?” your boyfriend asked once again, worry not leaving his tone as he slipped his jacket off of his body, rushing over to your figure.

you felt jeno’s figure wrap around your smaller one as your body ungovernably laid back, your head coming in contact with a pillow as a yelp out of surprise left your lips.

jeno snuggled his body into yours, his lips unintentionally coming in contact with your neck as he rested his body on yours.

his hold on your body tightened as you tried to get out of his grip, struggling as he was much stronger than you.

“jeno, you’re crushing me~” you sang in a cry-like tone as chuckles followed by.

“and i’ll keep crushing you until you tell me what’s wrong.” jeno replied, his words coming out muffled as his face was pressed deep onto your body.

“h-he died..” you hesitantly answered his question stuttering as your voice slightly shook.

“what? who died, baby?” jeno asked, eyebrows furrowing bewilderment.

“the male lead! he was sick then-“ you dismissed your words as chuckles rising from your boyfriend commenced to be heard clearly, an expression out of disbelief forming on your face.

“why are you laughing!” you shouted at jeno’s face, slapping his shoulder roughly as you tried to push his body off of your own.

though, jeno didn’t move an inch as your force had no effect on him. instead, he turned his head towards your laptop, finally coming into the realization of you watching a movie.

“what are you doing!” you shouted again in surprise as you felt jeno wrapping the fluffy blanket around the two of you, pulling you into his embrace afterwards.

“you took all the pillows so i’m using you as one.” jeno responded, placing soft butterfly kisses all over your body as he suffocated you with his cuddles.

you finally gave in, eyes softening at the adorable sight as you hugged back.

“i love you, jeno.” you whispered onto his neck as he was still busy prepping kisses.

“i love you too, love.” jeno responded as he laid his head on top for yours, drifting into dreamland..

[jamesalarcon]

In light of recent events...

Pairing: Percival Graves/Newt Scamander Word count: ~8k (chapters 2/3) Rating: More explicit than my average fic Summary: After nearly a year of rehabilitation, Graves returns to MACUSA, adamant on restoring his rightful position as Director of Magical Security and proving to his detractors that he is still the best man for the job. His newly-found, ungovernable ability to read minds is a distraction at best, especially when someone, somewhere is thinking wildly, inappropriate thoughts about him. (read on AO3)

A/N: I am neck deep in gramander hell, and I don’t even know how I got here 4 years after the release of the only relevant movie. But here I am, taking a crack at writing again. Further updates/gramander spam will be posted on my sideblog so I don’t force yet another fandom on everyone here

[thehorrorofbiopolitics-blog]

Part V: Children of Men

As Huang discusses, the genre of science fiction horror grounds viewers in an affective anxiety that binds them to the symbolic essence of society by creating a threat that exists as impossibly outside, and definitively inhuman. In effect, the affective anxiety of sci-fi horror serves to render as other that which threatens to leverage the fragility of the human subject. However, what changes when this monster, this Other, emerges from within the human subject themself? How might the affective anxiety that occupies the realm of speculative horror operate differently when the precarious destruction of the agential human subject manifests not as a Thing but a state of being? This section of our project attends to this provocation in the context of Alfonso Cuaron’s film Children of Men.

Based on P.D. James’ 1992 novel by the same name, Cuaron’s 2006 adaptation of Children of Men takes place in dystopian London in the year 2027. Two decades of species-wide infertility with no known cause has led humanity to spiral into relative chaos. As a televised piece of political propaganda shown on a city bus declares, “The world has collapsed [and] only Britain soldiers on,” thus revealing that the now heavily militarized Britain represents a final bastion for humanity. As such, society devolves into a state of exception wherein the state disregards law in favor of sovereign power. The main conflict of the film emerges from this hyper-militarization and state of exception as the thousands of refugees and undocumented immigrants who arrive at the city’s borders en-masse are brutalized by guards and locked in cages. This poses a distinct problem for the film’s main anti-hero, Theo Faron. At the request of his former wife, Julian Taylor, Theo hopes to safeguard a secretly pregnant, immigrant woman named Kee against the government and a predatory anarchist group--the Fishes--as she attempts to reach Tomorrow, a boat owned by the utopian Human Project whose main goal is to save humanity from extinction. Thus, the film’s protagonists must navigate a politically-charged nightmare world where infertility and military occupation underscore the precarity of all human life. In Cuaron’s dystopian vision of tomorrow, the horror of no-future is seemingly juxtaposed by the miracle of childbirth. Despite the potential limits of Cuaron’s imagined reproductive futurity, this project hopes to critically interrogate the spectre of birth as it operates within the affective realms of horror, precarity, and large-scale trauma. Through an analysis of gore, violence, and abject subjecthood, we hope to illuminate the affective threads that underscore the film’s distinctly biopolitical message.

The Endriago Subject

In Sayak Valencia’s Gore Capitalism, she defines endriago subjects as those who use necroempowerment (the use of violence to achieve status and power) to confront and change their circumstances, and subsequently, legitimize underground economies, which can eventually have an ever-growing influence. The Fish, an underground anarchist movement in Children of Men, and their revolutionary goals are clear examples of necropolitics and the endriago subject in that they have reinterpreted biopower and the capacity for upending it based significantly on the logic of a “warlike clash of forces,” (Valencia 211). The physical bodies of these dystopian dissidents and ungovernable individuals are now those which hold power over the individual body and over the general population as well. The Fish have been able to create a power parallel to the State without subscribing fully to the doctrine of the state, while they simultaneously dispute its power to subjugate groups of endriago subjects. If we are to analyze endriago subjects who participate in the criminal economy in accordance with the rules of the market – rather than how the media portrays them to the masses – they are, in actuality, perfectly legitimate entrepreneurs who strengthen the economy; “violence and criminal activities are no longer seen as an ethically dystopian path, but as strategies available to everyone; violence comes to be understood as a tool to acquire money that allows individuals to purchase both commercial good and social status,” (Valencia 74).

For the necropolitical, the body is essential because it serves as a critical commodity; the body’s care, preservation, freedom and general maintenance are sold to the public as products, thus transforming the body into a profit-making commodity. Through the clear vulnerability of human subjecthood and corporeality in Children of Men, the market has set out to capitalize on life itself through this idea of endangered corporeality, thus turning the body into a profitable commodity. This is seen in the way that Kee is treated by The Fish after Julian, her pacifist shepherd, dies. The new leaders of the Fish are intent on keeping Kee and her baby in their camp as a tool for their reach for power over the state. Thus, Kee’s pregnant body is no longer her own, but rather it is viewed as a political tool for refugee/Fish suffrage by those who are not a part of the elite. War and violence ensues around her as she attempts to break free from the Fish in order to make it to safety with The Human Project. She does not wish to serve as a symbol and is more focused on her well-being rather than be used for political gain. The human population, in the film, is constantly in close proximity to death, forcing humanity to renegotiate death’s role in the context of their society in order to force themselves (the endriago subjects) into the discourse, thus constantly perpetuating the gore and violence that takes place around them.

Gore

Gore as a structure of affect is seen clearly in Children of Men when Theo Faron’s estranged ex-wife Julian Taylor is brutally murdered. Julian, the non-violent leader of the Fish movement in the beginning of the film, represents the potential for a pacifist future--an imagined resistance that does not rely on the stacking up of bodies for political power. Her death in the movie ultimately takes place as she attempts to secretly transport Kee, a pregnant African refugee, to people she has made contact with at The Human Project in order to assure the safety of her and her unborn child. According to Julian’s plan,nce Kee was received by The Human Project she was poised to serve as a symbol of hope; her protection and the protection of her baby was to represent the antithesis of the violence and gore of the world around them. As they are driving to safety, however, Julian suddenly gets shot in the throat by a group of unnamed rebels that emerge suddenly out of the forest they are driving along. Her death is bloody and violent, and somehow, she is the only person in their car who ends up dead. The other characters in the scene, including Theo and other members of Julian’s coalition, witness this violence and are horrified. Covered in blood and broken glass, Julian’s cohort attempts to revive her to no avail. This death is an important moment in the film. As it occurs at the beginning of the film, Julian’s gory death represents the death of a pacifist futurity – which inherently signifies the end of the anti-violence movement in the Fish group. Later in the movie, it is shown that members of the Fish were the ones who organized the hit on Julian; once she is dead, a man named Luke – who was part of organizing the hit – is elected to take her place as the leader of the Fish. He states his reason for killing Julian being that he didn’t believe that the movement would be successful without the use of violence against the government and people in power – thus reaffirming the necropolitical order of things and reasserting women’s positions on the outskirts of gore capitalism and, mirroring the gender disparity that takes place within the formal state.

Violence as Control

The importance of systematic violence as a means of control within Children of Men is exhibited by the creation of camps and cages by the government as a means of biopower over already subjugated subjects. The issue of “homeland security” (Trimble 249) is used as a justification by the government to enact the violent militarization of the state whilst spreading national fear – regarding refugees immigrating the UK – which furthers the biopolitical power of the state and allows the state to deem whose life is worth saving while others are eventually thrown out of the country to fend for themselves. In the film, there is a certain level of indifference shown by those who are a part of the elite – and therefore the state – as represented by Theo when he walks past one of the cages full of immigrants. This is in part due to the way the mass media has clearly framed fugees, who are typically racialized by brown people (specifically Arab speaking people) which has made it exceedingly difficult for those who are privileged enough to be a part of the elite to perceive, accept and act in reality – or in other words it has made ally-ship seem counterproductive to national safety. Violence is a key part of contemporary capitalism which means that “both the media and the government (and its representatives) are controlled by corporate interests. Thus we find evidence of how the media is interconnected with the State and obeys direct orders from it in order to skew the information that is broadcast to the public, buttressing consumerist, acritical and silent imagos” (Valencia 242). The use of concentration camps in Children of Men highlights the use of pain/violence as a political tool and the commodification of the marginalized bodies in the deregulated neoliberal market.

Children of Men was released in 2006 and is supposed to take place in 2027. The near futurity of this film adds to its gore in that it instills a panic in the audience. Not only does it instill fear, but it leads the audience to think about preventative measures to keep a crisis like this from happening while placing continued importance and focus on fertility as a means of global power. Children of Men thus produces affective anxiety as a result of narrative trauma. The trauma depicted in the film occurs not interpersonally or individually, but at the level of the human population. The trauma of mass sterility and infertility requires the audience to confront the possibility of a futureless world. At one point early on in the film, Theo asks his cousin, a wealthy man who preserves damaged, yet historically relevant works of art, what keeps him going, since “one hundred years from now there won’t be any sad fuck to look at any of this.” To this, his cousin replies, “You know what it is, Theo--I just don’t think about it.” As demonstrated through this exchange, within this moment of mass trauma, past, present, and future become one as human infertility renders the past unmemorable, the present unlivable, and the future incomprehensible. Thus, this traumatic reckoning operates through affective anxiety that urges viewers to reconsider the normative teleological ordering of things that guarantees, through the figure of the child, a better tomorrow.

[floatsthruspace]

Isn't physical attraction one of the the ungovernable forces? You know, like gravity - that's what we like about it. Downhill, release the brakes, loosen your grip and then - whoosh!

Grigg Harris, The Jane Austen Book Club. 2007 Movie

[cynaram]

Why I bother with plot

Plot is hard for me.  The scenes that pop out of my head fully-formed are the ones about the relationship, or the set pieces: Cabal going through Leonie’s bag in The Rolling Fire; their wary conversation in Twiccian’s upstairs library; the scene in the cafe; the scene on the train.  In theory, I could just post shorts until the end of time and to hell with the rest, but... scenes put out tendrils. They want to be connected to something.  

Or, to be less sickeningly twee for a moment, I want to know what happens next, or before.  I want the cumulative emotional effect, with ups and downs and delays.  I need Leonie and Cabal to have something to bicker about.  I want to solve the problems I’m introducing.  

Even my smut gets sneaky plot tendencies, with problems and arcs beyond the current... scene.  I am currently staring at the sequel to The Professor (nsfw content at that link) and trying to figure out whether I want to abandon myself to the little nodules of plot that are forming (and therefore commit to actually trying to sort the awful little buggers out in future stories), or try to make it work as a series of shorts.

But mostly, I like how plot makes me sweat.  I like experimenting with it, learning how to make it fit together properly (and sometimes failing at that).  I also hate that bit, because it’s hard.  It forces me to write scenes I don’t find fun, and at least part of the time I find a way to make them fun, and then I feel amazing.  It makes me think of new scenes, sometimes even fun emotional ones, that need to happen to make the story work.  And it’s changing my brain.  I notice things about plots in movies or books I wouldn’t have seen three years ago.

Themes sprout up as I go: trust is both impossible and necessary; love is ungovernable; true evil is hard to find (except maybe in The Witchfinder), but fear, or even inattention, can be just as destructive.  I read it, and I find these ideas - not, I hasten to add, that they’re grand ideas or original, but they are there, and I didn’t insert them on purpose.  I ask myself if I believe them, and I think I do.  That’s the kind of stuff I don’t think I’d find out if I succumbed to my id and wrote eighty-three consecutive bed sharing fics instead.  

[l-in-c-future]

Ghost in the Shell (Japanese: 攻殻機動隊 Hepburn: Kōkaku Kidōtai?, "Mobile Armored Riot Police") is a Japanese media franchise originally published as a seinen manga series of the same name written and illustrated by Masamune Shirow. The manga, first serialized in 1989 under the subtitle of The Ghost in the Shell, and later published as its own tankōbon volumes by Kodansha, told the story of the fictional counter-cyberterrorist organization Public Security Section 9, led by protagonist Major Motoko Kusanagi, in the mid-21st century of Japan.

Animation studio Production I.G has produced several different anime adaptations of Ghost in the Shell, starting with the 1995 film of the same name, telling the story of Section 9's investigation of the Puppet Master. The television series Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex followed in 2002, telling an alternate story from the manga and first film, featuring Section 9's investigations of government corruption in the Laughing Man and Individual Eleven incidents. A sequel to the 1995 film, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, was released on 2004. 2013 saw the start of the Ghost in the Shell: Arise original video animation (OVA) series, consisting of four parts through mid-2014. The series was recompiled in early 2015 as a television series titled Ghost in the Shell: Arise - Alternative Architecture, airing with an additional two episodes (one part).[1] An animated feature film produced by most of the Arise staff, titled Ghost in the Shell: The New Movie, was released on June 20, 2015. A live-action American film of the same name was released on March 31, 2017.

Back to 1990s when the plot of the story was developed, it was based on a primary set in the mid-twenty-first century in the fictional Japanese city of Niihama, Niihama Prefecture (新浜県新浜市) otherwise known as New Port City, the manga and the many anime adaptations follow the members of Public Security Section 9, a special-operations task-force made up of former military officers and police detectives. Political intrigue and counter-terrorism operations are standard fare for Section 9, but the various actions of corrupt officials, companies, and cyber-criminals in each scenario are unique and require the diverse skills of Section 9's staff to prevent a series of incidents from escalating.

In this post-cyberpunk iteration of a possible future, computer technology has advanced to the point that many members of the public possess cyberbrains, technology that allows them to interface their biological brain with various networks. The level of cyberization varies from simple minimal interfaces to almost complete replacement of the brain with cybernetic parts, in cases of severe trauma. This can also be combined with various levels of prostheses, with a fully prosthetic body enabling a person to become a cyborg. The main character of Ghost in the Shell, Major Motoko Kusanagi, is such a cyborg, having had a terrible accident befall her as a child that ultimately required her to use a full-body prosthesis to house her cyberbrain. This high level of cyberization, however, opens the brain up to attacks from highly skilled hackers, with the most dangerous being those who will hack a person to bend to their whims.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Shell_(1995_film)

Putting the time clock forward, we are in the early of 21st century already. The 2017 life version movie story setting is in the near future, the vast majority of humans are augmented with cybernetics, enhancing various traits like vision, strength, and intelligence. Hanka Robotics, the world's leading developer of augmentative technology, establishes a secret project to develop a mechanical body, or "shell", that can integrate a human brain rather than an AI. A young woman named Mira Killian,[10] the sole survivor of a cyberterrorist attack, is chosen as the test subject after her body is apparently destroyed beyond repair. Over the objections of her designer, Dr. Ouelet, Hanka CEO Cutter decides to train Killian as a counter-terrorism operative.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Shell_(2017_film)

Philosophically, the comic book depicts the new world view almost subvert the human past for the "life" view in an upcoming man-machine interface era of new technology. It is almost like prophesizing a new psychological bedding for these cyborgs.   

Traditional science fictions usually ignore the negative effects brought by rapid technological developments. The emergence of cyberpunk is a type of self-correction to complement the loss of ecological balances resulted from technological developments. It is a kind of alarm to the so-called “science and technologies ethics”.

But what touches me is the societal setting of the fictional city in the story fictional Japanese city of Niihama was inspired by a ‘ghost’ place in my hometown Hong Kong-Kowloon walled city. 

Kowloon Walled City was a largely-ungoverned densely-populated settlement in Kowloon City in Hong Kong. Originally a Chinese military fort, the Walled City became an enclave after the New Territories were leased to Britain by China in 1898. With no government enforcement from the Chinese or the British aside from a few raids by the Hong Kong Police, the Walled City became a haven for crime and drugs. It was only during a 1959 trial for a murder that occurred within the Walled City that the Hong Kong government was ruled to have jurisdiction there. By this time, however, the Walled City was virtually ruled by the organised crime syndicates known as triads.

Its population increased dramatically following the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong during World War II. By 1987, the Walled City contained 33,000 residents within its 2.6-hectare (6.4-acre) borders. The highest density in the world.  The City also underwent massive construction during the 1960s, with developers building new modular structures above older ones. A few of the streets were illuminated by fluorescent lights, as sunlight rarely reached the lower levels due to the outstanding disregard to air rights within the city. It was a truly urban dark forest. 

The Walled City was still known for its high number of unlicensed doctors and dentists, who could operate there without threat of prosecution. Although the Walled City was for many years a hotbed of criminal activity, most residents were not involved in any crime and lived peacefully within its walls. Numerous small factories and businesses thrived inside the Walled City, and some residents formed groups to organise and improve daily life there. In summary, this ungoverned city has its own unique set of societal orders-informal and underground, you may call it forest rules, to govern how people live with each other. Before the Walled city was demolished, a group of Japanese artists and explorers were allowed to get inside to have a last exploration trip. From which, they documented in details in arts and literature what was the perception and image of this unique place in their minds. Probably, this inspired the subsequent creation of ghost in the shell comics, as people could see the trails of Kowloon Walled city throughout the comics artists’ work. 

Though the Kowloon Walled City had long gone, the life version of the movie still came back to the old pilgrimage place-HK-to recapture the feels from old districts. In a sense, the story tells the dark side of the future of a city, may be HK, or any other city that we can find similar images and phenomenon in other places as well. Beyond the high-end modernized sides of a ‘cosmopolitan city’, there are bustling streets decorated by colorful billboards and neon lights, there are traditional markets with hawkers’ stalls, dirty fire exit lanes at the back of many buildings, caged people (people living in cage size or coffin size ‘homes’ under the barest standard of living “standards”, if one can consider these are living standards at all.  There are a mixed of ethnic races in a city but surely not every race has equal treatments and equal residents’ rights (please search more about the predicament of ethnic minorities in HK-people who have no and never will have any identity even they live there for 4 generations). There is a feeling of a cross-societal borderless social disorder feeling.  A city that emits a mysterious and treacherous despair atmosphere where local citizens of the lowest social sector are forced to live in illegally built structures one overlapping with each other growing vertically as if some kind of “organic structures” (which were a typical feature of the Kowloon Walled City).

Despite that the urban ecological environment is unusually disordered, people are blind to the reality. They seem to get used to the chaos but continue to strife on every day with vigorous vitality. This has almost become a microcosm of the anti-utopian world. For this reason, Hong Kong is also a symbol of the future of the city and metaphor, which with the Central business area of the elegant high-rise buildings form a strong contrast and contradiction to the dark side of the society. Such huge contrast in the city’s landscape has enriched the drama tension. 

But going back to the technology side, Ghost in the shell is one of those science fictions that touch the topic of “humans” 2.0-  Nanobot implants could soon connect our brains to the internet and give us 'God-like' super-intelligence. Some technocrats suggest that human brains’ memories can be stored in the clouds in the future. A notable recent example is Elon Musk’s neutral link project with the ambition of linking human brains to computer chips under ‘medical’ research. (Well, if you don’t mind nakedly expose yourself completely transparent to anybody and your memories or thoughts being hacked or stolen by anybody.) According to traditional Japan’s animism, every material matter in this world has a spirit, including mobile phones, computers, internet programs and algorithms. Of course, then why not cyborgs also have ‘souls��? If they can have ‘souls’, then theoretically there may be mutation in the process of cybernetization.

Even though being a cyborg, Kusanagi doesn’t want to be defined by the cybernetic enterprise’s default setting her as a commodity, a product or even a weapon. She has her own thinkings and emotions. She will she was a human rather than a piece of assembled cold machine. She has her dreams and illusions, sometimes there are images of ‘wrongly set’ coming to her ‘mind’, memories of her former life (her human body was dead, buried and she went to visit her own grave with her mother). All these suggested that Kuze is a human, or at least the ghost of a human being living inside a machine body. Was it living inside a machine body or captured inside a humanless body? that is another philosophical aspect to rethink or debate.  But what the hacker 9 told her: those people (i.e. those cybernetics scientists and cybernetic technologies enterprises) did not give you life, they took away your original life. This became the key clue to decode the mystery surrounding Kuze.

Linking back to the inspiration of a dystopia city’s future in a cyborg era, I started to feel very sad for those people living in places where their freedom of thoughts are taken away by authoritarian governments (save the long talks of what happens to my hometown right now under increasing screwing up of political atmosphere and ruined integrity of governance........). It is in substance an order of orderless. A law of lawlessness in a dark urban jungle. The autocratic government wants to make their citizens as soulless and mindless people without acting on their free will. They want to make their puppet governments as their robot machines, programmed to do whatever they are ordered to do so, like Kuze, the cyborg obedience ‘police’. Precisely, they DO NOT give people lives, they TAKE AWAY their original lives. They do not regard human rights, DO NOT respect humanity values, the 1% dictating enterprises and the rulers are the ‘super-gods’ who rule over everybody.

But can they really take away human souls and human free will? It is not a story about the technological utopia and dis-utopia aspects, it is a story of THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY. Shall we give up our free will? May be just because we are ‘told’ to buy in ‘technological’ developments? Or we are coerced to become a mindless robot serving the dictatorship of ridiculous lawlessness?!

p.s.-if the animated version 1995 had prophesied anything about HK, a group of young kids holding yellow umbrellas running in the rain....

In the technological side, I always wonder whether the technocrats in our time now in the 21st century are just some super science fiction fans and they self-fulfilling the “prophecies” on the fantasies of the fictions, cartoons, comics. In the course, we become comically put as real life tested-subjects....whether we have our free will to decide... Do we have REALLY have the free will to decide whether we use iPhones, smart phones, i-pads, and ten thousands of tech products? Or just as Steve Jobs said, the society didn’t know what they need until they were TOLD so!!! 

[ljones41]

"LOVE & FRIENDSHIP" (2016) Review

"LOVE & FRIENDSHIP" (2016) Review I never thought any film or television production would find another story written by Jane Austen to adapt. Not really. The author only had six novels published. And I was never really aware of any other novels, novellas or short stories . . . until I learned about "LOVE & FRIENDSHIP", Whit Stillman's adaptation of Austen's 1794 epistolary novel, "Lady Susan". 

Set during the 1790s, "LOVE & FRIENDSHIP" began with the aristocratic and lovely young widow, Lady Susan Vernon, being forced to leave the Manwaring estate due to her dalliance with the married Lord Manwaring and the hysterical reaction to the affair by the latter's very wealthy wife. Lady Susan had been staying with the Manwarings in order to arrange a possible marriage to her adolescent daughter Frederica and the wealthy, yet brainless Sir James Martin. But after being forced to leave by Lady Manwaring, Lady Susan and her widowed companion, Mrs. Cross, head to Churchill, the country home of her brother-in-law, Charles Vernon and his wife, Catherine Vernon. While at Churchill, Lady Susan becomes acquainted with her sister-in-law's handsome younger brother, Reginald DeCourcy. Reginald becomes deeply attracted to Lady Susan, who views him as a potential husband or lover. She also continues her plans to ensure that Fredrica becomes Sir James' wife. "LOVE & FRIENDSHIP" offered at least two reunions for actress Kate Beckinsale. The movie marked her second foray into the world of Jane Austen. Some twenty years earlier, she had portrayed the lead in the 1996-97 adaptation of Jane Austen's 1815 novel, "Emma". Beckinsale also found herself reunited with director/writer Whit Stillman and her her co-star Chloë Sevigny. She had worked with both on the 1998 comedy-drama, "THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO". In the end, I must admit that I enjoyed "LOVE & FRIENDSHIP" very much. I would not regard it as one of my favorite Austen adaptations or one of its best. But I must admit that due to its unique protagonist and Whit Stillman's witty direction, I really enjoyed this film. However, there is one aspect of "LOVE & FRIENDSHIP" that I found confusing. And there is another that I found somewhat disappointing. For the likes of me, I do not understand why Stillman did not use the novel's original title for the movie. Instead, he borrowed the title, "LOVE & FRIENDSHIP", from another one of Austen's early works that had been written in 1790. Why Stillman had decided to use this title instead of the one from the 1794 novel upon which this movie was based . . . I have no idea. Frankly, I found it not only unnecessary, but also confusing. I was also confused by Lady Susan's movements in the film's third act. She seemed to travel back and forth between London and Churchill without any real reason. And if there were reasons for her constant traveling, they seemed to be presented with a blink of an eye, due to Stillman's unusual direction style. There were times when I found Stillman's pacing just a bit too fast. This led to my last problem with "LOVE & FRIENDSHIP" - namely its running time. I realize that the movie's literary source is a short novel written in epistolary form (usually, a series of letters or other documents). But a part of me felt slightly disappointed that "LOVE & FRIENDSHIP" could have possessed a longer running time. For me, 93 minutes is not long enough - especially for a lush Jane Austen cinematic adaptation. But as I had earlier pointed out, I still managed to enjoy "LOVE & FRIENDSHIP" very much. Unlike the other Austen stories familiar to me, this tale struck me as rather unusual. Most Austen movie or television adaptations were set between 1800 and 1820 - with the exception of 1995's "PRIDE AND PREJUDICE", which seemed to be set on the cusp of the 18th and 19th centuries. Eimer Ni Mhaoldomhnaigh's costume designs seemed to make it clear that "LOVE & FRIENDSHIP" is definitely set during the first half of the 1790s. But the most original aspect of "LOVE & FRIENDSHIP" was the story's protagonist - Lady Susan Vernon. Villainous protagonists are not exactly new in various movie and television protagonists throughout the years. But they barely exist in a Jane Austen story. The closest she has come to creating a villainous protagonist in the six novels familiar to millions was Emma Woodhouse in her 1815 novel, "Emma". But Emma proved to be more of a misguided protagonist forced to learn a lesson in the end. Lady Susan Vernon, on the other hand, is not a nice woman. She seemed to harbor a good deal of contempt toward others - including her own daughter, Frederica. Which means she is not a good parent. She is self-involved, a liar, a manipulator, a gold digger and quite possibly a borderline sociopath. Some have compared her to Mary Crawford from "Mansfield Park". However, I suspect Mary might be more of an anti-heroine than a villainess. Unlike Lady Susan, she is capable of warmth and compassion. I cannot say the same for this movie's leading lady. And yet . . . unlike Emma Woodhouse or Mary Crawford, Lady Susan did not learn a valuable lesson about her character or faced punishment for her sins. And like many other Austen productions, "LOVE & FRIENDSHIP" was filled with a great deal of wit. I suspect a good deal of it came from Stillman's own pen. Among my favorite lines - many of them from Lady Susan herself: *"Americans really have shown themselves to be a nation of ingrates, only by having children can we begin to understand such dynamic." *"That’s the parent’s lot! We bring these delightful creatures into the world—eagerly, happily—and then before long they are spying upon and judging us, rarely favourably. Having children is our fondest wish but, in doing so, we breed our acutest critics. It is a preposterous situation—but entirely of our own making." *"My dear Alicia, of what a mistake were you guilty in marrying a man of his age! just old enough to be formal, ungovernable, and to have the gout; too old to be agreeable, too young to die." *"He has offered you the one thing he has of value to give . . . his income." Speaking of Eimer Ni Mhaoldomhnaigh's costume designs, I noticed that they had failed to earn any Academy Award or Golden Globe nominations. Mhaoldomhnaigh did earn nominations from the Satellite Awards and the San Diego Film Critics Society. But they are not exactly regarded in the same sphere as the Oscars or Golden Globes. I did come across one blog - Frock Flicks - in which the writer felt that Mhaoldomhnaigh had failed to created historically accurate costumes. Well . . . historically accurate or not, I found them rather colorful and beautiful, as shown in the image below:

Another aspect of "LOVE & FRIENDSHIP" that I found colorful was Anna Rackard's production designs. I thought she did a wonderful job in re-creating the world of the Georgian Era of the 1790s in both London and in several landed estates. Both Mhaoldomhnaigh's costume designs and Rackard's production designs benefited from Richard Van Oosterhout's colorful cinematography. As for the cast . . . I find it mind boggling that none of the major cast members managed to acquire a major acting nomination. Especially three of the main leads. First of all, the movie featured some first-rate acting from the supporting cast, which included Stephen Fry, Jemma Redgrave, James Fleet, Xavier Samuel, Emma Greenwell and Morfydd Clark. But there were three performances that I found truly outstanding. Tom Bennett gave a hilarious performance as the dimwitted baronet, Sir James Martin. His character reminded of the numerous Austen characters who would ramble on, spouting some of the most inane comments. But thanks to Bennett's skillful performance, Sir James proved to be the most inane and hilarious character ever created by Austen. Chloë Sevigny, who had co-starred with Beckinsale in "THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO", gave a very charming and subtle performance as Lady Susan's American-born confident, Mrs. Alicia Johnson. Thanks to Sevigny's performance, her Alicia proved to be just as unscrupulous as Lady Susan, but a bit more subtle and much wiser - as the final act would eventually prove. But the star of the movie proved to be Kate Beckinsale, who an outstanding performance as the witty, yet calculating Lady Susan Vernon. Beckinsale's Lady Susan was not only deliciously bitchy, but also stylish and skillful in the way she pursued her goal that I could not help but cheer her on . . . despite the manner in which she treated others, especially her daughter. To this day, I still cannot understand how Bennett, Sevigny and especially Beckinsale managed to garner major nominations for their performances. As I had earlier pointed out, I do not regard "LOVE & FRIENDSHIP" as one of the best Austen productions I have ever seen. I had a few problems with the movie's pacing and some of the narrative in the third act. The humor featured in "LOVE & FRIENDSHIP" did not leave me laughing on the floor with laughter. But Whit Stillman's delicious screenplay and direction had me smiling continuously throughout the film and sitting on the edge of my seat, anticipating Lady Susan's final fate. However, it was the excellent performances of the cast, led by the superb Kate Beckinsale, that truly sold me on the movie in the end.

[ungovernable-films]

HOLY FUCK!!! 100 copies of The Ungovernable Force movie have been released! You can pre order yours here: http://www.brinkvision.com/filmdetails/108/the-ungovernable-force-blu-ray--limited-edition-100-copies- Thanks to everyone that was apart of making this crazy fucking movie, and all the bands that allowed us to use their music! We couldn't of done it without you! Now share the FUCK out of this!!!

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: A Showing of Art World Solidarity on Inauguration Day

The #J20 Art Strike outside the Whitney Museum of American Art (all photos courtesy Noah Fischer)

A plan to parade missile launchers through the capital; a plagiarized Potemkin village of a trophy cake, sliced by two homophobes sharing the same sword; presidential rhetoric apparently drawn from Wrestlemania broadcasts, Batman movies, and Charles Lindbergh speeches — such moments from the recent US presidential inauguration somehow seemed both surreal and all-too-real. Within these unbelievable, unbelievably toxic conditions, many felt obliged to refuse any semblance of normality, thinking that to present even the appearance of consent would be to grant the Trumpist regime the legitimacy it so blatantly lacks. Such was the logic behind the call for the #J20 Art Strike, which was criticized by some as elitist or impracticable, but was intended to be interpreted broadly as an incitement to creative resistance. The objective was not to compel others into making a superficially radical gesture, but rather to help mobilize various arts communities toward a joint struggle against the normalization and legitimation of an unjust, hostile regime.

A similarly urgent sense of purpose also motivated the collective Occupy Museums, which organized a public speak-out as part of the Whitney Museum’s alternative programming on January 20th. The event was free (given the Whitney’s decision to implement pay-what-you-wish admission), and was timed to take place at the same time as the inauguration, thus functioning as a clear gesture of non-compliance. Like the art strike, the speak-out framed the day as a chance to break out of one’s everyday routine and to institute different orders of time, space, experience, and community. As some speakers remarked, many people felt a strong need to be together, to think and speak and plan together, and to do so in a place without a TV or a computer.

It was as if everyone knew what was about to happen and agreed that hate-watching the sham pageantry of the inaugural wouldn’t change anything, and would likely only make things feel worse. Instead, those present decided to commit themselves to a different kind of event, one grounded in acknowledging the coexistence of many intense and difficult emotions. This was as true of the speakers — a highly diverse group of about 30 artists, activists, arts professionals, and critics — as it was of the audience, which included a number of walk-ins, and ranged from students and organizers to tenured professors and Whitney staffers.

If I say that the event was unlike anything I’ve been a part of, I do so not to exaggerate but to try to render a feeling that I experienced strongly but have yet to fully understand. (I was one of the invited speakers, and am writing here from the standpoint of a participant-observer.) I hope that others who were lucky enough to be there feel similarly; I know that at least some do. There was a heightened attentiveness and receptivity in the room, and a palpable energy circulating between the speakers and one’s neighbors. There was also, at least for myself, the sense of a singular, highly charged moment. Perhaps that derived from the ominous sense that a terrible history was being made; it could also have stemmed from the fraught tension between the rage, disbelief, and powerlessness people brought into the room and the refuge and even enjoyment they found there. People were laughing, crying, laughing to keep from crying. At some moments it felt like a wake for the lost promise of the Obama years; at others, like an Occupy assembly or a Quaker meeting, or like the formation of the culture ministry of a government in exile.

There is plenty to say about the three dozen presentations, much more than this space allows for. Presenters were invited to speak about one relevant “value,” and reflected on such principles as inclusiveness, agency, accessibility, and solidarity. They did so in forms that ranged from anecdotes, meditations, and manifestos to poems, karaoke, and improv performances. Dread Scott produced a purpose-built “conceptual artwork”: a sign printed with the text “BY READING THIS, YOU AGREE TO OVERTHROW DICTATORS.” The presenters varied widely in their tone and style. Some spoke bravely from a place of vulnerability; others with the assurance and poise of practiced performers.

Dread Scott holds up his sign among crowds outside the Whitney Museum of American Art

Among the many memorable moments from those three hours are two that speak to this powerful variety of ideas, attitudes, and positions. The writer Pamela Sneed read a poem that moved through histories of oppression, citing Trayvon Martin, Steve Biko, and the Warsaw Ghetto rebellion. She rhythmically built her delivery with shouts, incantations, and hushed pauses, reaching a climax of almost unbearable intensity, her voice nearly breaking as she closed with the phrase “always uprising!” Immediately afterward, the artist Baseera Khan spoke softly but incisively about the tension between American, Islamic, and South Asian identities, and about the ambivalence that can leave one longing for inclusion, but fearful of it. She closed by sharing a moving recitation of a Muslim prayer, a simple, everyday act of devotion that has become highly politicized, even fraught. These two presentations exemplified the kind of relationship that any democracy worthy of that name must foster and protect — one between individuals who are incommensurable, but simultaneously interdependent and equal.

Speakers not only described the values we associate with democracy and resistance; they realized or enacted them, such that the event itself assumed a meaning greater than the sum of its parts. Far from serving as an excuse for self-pity or left melancholy, it functioned as an effective counter-inaugural: a ceremony marking the beginning of a wider commitment to shared struggle, and a chance to begin to think together about how best to operate within these new parameters of aesthetic and political practice. It was generally assumed that art cannot divorce itself from Trumpism, no matter how hard artists like Richard Prince might wish to do so. Rather, as the artist and activist Chitra Ganesh incisively pointed out, the same forces that brought Trump to power exist within the supposedly “sacrosanct” or autonomous precincts of art.

This means that the important question is not What sort of art should we make? or Will Trump somehow be good for art? or What should celebrities do? Instead, we should ask ourselves how to act in multiple capacities: first, as stakeholders in a democracy who oppose the ascendancy of an authoritarian, militaristic neo-fascism, regardless of our nationality or immigration status; second, as members of specific communities, whether local, institutional, or global; and third, as people whose affiliations with art endow us with particular abilities, privileges, and obligations. We need to understand what everyone can do and what we are best positioned to do; then we need to do these things. Most immediately, this means working together to combat the increased dangers that now threaten those who have been targeted by the new regime’s white suprematism, xenophobia, misogyny, homophobia, ableism, and nativism. Looking further into the future, it means grasping these new power relations in a way that allows us to effectively alter our strategies and tactics, and doing so in a way that successfully builds on the precedent of earlier aesthetico-political projects, while simultaneously coordinating new initiatives with ongoing ones.

The legacies of left cultural activism were poignantly manifested in talks by Martha Rosler, whose principled defiance of authoritarianism dates back to the Nixon era, and by Avram Finkelstein, who recounted how he learned to silkscreen from a classmate who wanted help duplicating posters from the French protests of May 1968, and how that laid the foundation for his later work with ACT-UP. These continuities gesture toward a broader and enduring history, one that stubbornly refuses to end. As Finkelstein emphatically put it, “no political action is futile, ever.”

Martha Rosler reads

A number of presentations offered concrete, perceptive insights regarding the tactics that cultural resistance might use in the months to come. One recurring theme was the strategic value of institutions like the Whitney, which are now potentially under threat, whether through federal defunding or the alt-right philistinism of Breitbart-incited e-harassment. Megan Heuer, Noah Fischer, and Mariam Ghani each spoke to this concern, which has recently inspired efforts to organize a national network of art institutions dedicated to the defense of democratic values. Another concern was the need for a particular kind of free speech, one that becomes necessary when democratic institutions are in crisis. As theorized by Michel Foucault, this requires a different order of commitment from the speaker, a kind of radical transparency or vulnerability. The artist and Whitney staff member Madison Zalopany thoughtfully broached this topic in her presentation, which critically questioned the ways that truth-telling depends on platforms and resources that are less accessible to people who lack certain privileges or fail to conform to normative standards.

A third tactic can be described by the rare but increasingly common term “ungovernability,” which might be understood as an effort to block the exercise and legitimation of state power wherever it is manifest; this might take the form of boycotts, strikes, and noncompliance, but also of symbolic negation (as in art) or the production of other values, desires, and spaces. Zoe Leonard’s text “I Want a President” can be read as a paean to ungovernability, as was clear in a compelling performance by the scholar Tavia Nyong’o, who read from a recent adaptation of Leonard’s text produced in a workshop as part of a public art project.

Simone Leigh reads

One question that wasn’t raised explicitly at the Whitney was how the ongoing crisis will impact the ways in which we make, view, and write or think about art. This was surely because so many people feel that art can wait, at least for now, but that the same isn’t true of the rights, lives, and dignity of those now threatened. While this is impossible to deny, the event nevertheless suggested potential paths to follow when the time is right. Speaking out against the exclusionary structures that traverse the art world, Chitra Ganesh noted that art is able to communicate with “a complexity that reality can’t take.” Not only does such complexity resist whatever forces might try to silence or reduce it; under the right conditions, it can also force reality itself to change. With this said, perhaps the most powerful takeaway from the speak-out was the way it exemplified a certain kind of collective labor. The individual presentations were coordinated but autonomous — interdependent in a way that acknowledged their own vulnerabilities as analogous but by no means identical. In this sense, they embodied the sort of mutual connection that we are likely to need moving forward: a solidarity that is impassioned, resilient, self-critical, fearless, and resolute.

The post A Showing of Art World Solidarity on Inauguration Day appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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[ungovernable-films]

Sick fucking review up for GAY JESUS and THE UNGOVERNABLE FORCE! Go read that shit and watch the links!

http://b-isforbest.net/2017/02/14/return-of-gory-guts-and-goofiness-an-octuple-review-of-murder-for-pleasure-violent-shit-1-4-0-violent-shit-the-movie-gay-jesus-the-ungovernable-force/

[ungovernable-films]

Sick new review of THE UNGOVERNABLE FORCE MOVIE! Read and share! "The only way I can adequately describe the experience of THE UNGOVERNABLE FORCE is; picture if John Waters had Sid Vicious as a muse rather than Divine, then decided to make flicks for Troma. Yup; fucking fantastic, right?!! You bet your ass it is!"

[ungovernable-films]

Check out this sick interview with the creator of MURDER CITY CARNIVALE OF CINEMA! He talks about how The Ungovernable Force movie inspired the festival!