I learned almost nothing about South America studying History at University. I knew nothing of Chavez. This documentary triggered memories of my time in Buenos Aires. The first time I became aware of Chavez was through a friend who was doing a piece on Chavez in some rockstar leftist media print. I don't remember which one but I remember thinking at the time "damn this guy is kind of a baller." If the topic was brought up or even if the topic was not brought up he would shoehorn it into the conversation and rant and rave about how great Chavez was. I remember thinking "hmmmm, interesting." Then, the next time I saw him he showed up to futbol wearing a bright red shirt with a giant Mao face on the front and Brand New Red Nike cleats with a $200+ price tag. "Hmmmmmmmmm, interesting....." It wasn't even like he was a great soccer player that played all the time or was used to the best equipment. He was horrible and rarely played with us. At any rate, he was a fun comrade to share food and discourse with before he went off to Venezuela and I never saw him again.
Taxicab drivers were my next source of discourse. Oftentimes they would ask me if I like George W. Bush and replying no I don't they would go H.A.M. Buenos Aires taxicab drivers are not a fan of George W. Bush or the U.S.A. What was more interesting was talking to them about Chavez. Keep in mind Chavez didn't just help the poor in Venezuela he also helped subsidize oil and electricity among other things in Argentina.
I mixed this discourse with more in depth, lengthy conversations with Argentinian intellectuals. I came away from this with a pretty positive outlook on Chavez.
Yet, I was living a more or less debauched life in Buenos Aires.
I remember a night where we were all out at the nicest French restaurant in Argentina. Martonas was compulsively buying $400 bottles of wine for the table. Straate and regista8 were discussing how to beat durrrr heads up at $500/$1000 blind "Texas" (Swedish code for No Limit Texas Hold 'Em). Myself and a comrade were discussing a run for presidency in 2020 (we both turn 35 in 2019). We would run under The Peoples' Pirate Party. An anarchist movement. The biggest danger is that we would go sailing and drink a bunch of rum ad infinitum and not get anything done. Which was foreshadowing at the time because we were drunk drunks whose alcoholism would only escalate in the future. This comrade would dry up and is currently getting a PhD in International Policy and has already done some great work in seed saving in Native American communities, social cohesion in Latin America, and extensive work in Bangladesh, India and Indonesia. I was invited to go to his wedding but couldn't go because I was too broke. We haven't spoken since.
But, I get this idea to rekindle all these connections. My therapist says I should start my own movement because I am perhaps too non-conformist for already existing hierarchies.
I remember a comrade and myself lived in a swank part of Palermo in a luxury apartment. Our landlord would show up in ostentatious designer clothing and jewelry and talk about his constant trips to Miami and Paris. Meanwhile, there were homeless people sleeping in the nearby parks getting beaten to death by police. I remember finding out how much our cleaning lady actually made and it was depressing. You know how some people clean up a bit before the cleaning lady comes? Yeah, we didn't do that. She also took our laundry to a laundromat and picked it up for us. It was an efficiency thing. She was part of the machine so I could win $2 million in a year. Many people in Buenos Aires were starving and would not have any electricity if it weren't for Chavez.
I love South America. I would love to take a "Motorcycle Diaries" esque tour around the continent. It is clear the U.S.A. does not have the peoples' best interest at heart but rather bullshit "national security interests" in mind. Aka more clams, bread, cheese for the wealthy elite.
I was speaking to my mom about the documentary above. She is a moderate liberal. My sister and I are constantly at her to wake up and stop being such a liberal baby boomer bitch. There is evidence that she listens to us. My dad on the other hand is a Fox News watching, Trump supporting, former Large Multinational Business Executive One Percenter.
Anyways, my dad strolls downstairs obviously hearing the conversation and goes "Have you been reading about Venezuela Rich?" "Yes." "Crazy stuff eh?" "Yes"
"I have been to Venezuela many times. Lovely place. There was an Argentinian owned company Techint that owned a steel mill in Venezuela. It was one of the biggest and best run steel mills in the world. Not only that but they had an abundance of alumina and iron ore and obviously oil. It was one of our biggest accounts. Then, not the guy there now but the other guy." "Chavez." "Yes. Chavez. He decided to nationalize the steel mill and put it in government control and within three weeks they blew it up. Not with bombs or anything like that but they did not know how to run it and all the electric furnaces blew up. So, in three weeks it went from one of the best ran steel mills in the world to shut down all because of Chavez. The "Chavez" ran steel mill also owed [insert large multinational based in Brussels, Belgium] millions upon millions of dollars in which there was never any payment." Then he dropped the mic and did the dishes.
My first instinct is to think, "Fuck that. Who cares? The world doesn't need more resource extraction, steel, pollution, and labor exploitation. But, not all steel is earmarked towards cars, skyscrapers, and unrighteous walls. Much of it goes towards infrastructure. Another part of me thinks Chavez is gangster for welching on a bunch of undead French zombie large multinational owners. Undead French zombies that I would like to break into their homes and jizz in their milk and pee in their Vueve Clicquot champagne. Although there is a self-hating aspect to this because I love Vueve Clicquot champagne and probably drank more of it than any of these fucking undead assholes combined.
Anyways, I think my dad's anecdote is part of a fuller narrative that was not included in the above documentary. I was going to look further into this but many of the sources were in Spanish and I am on like a 2 day bender of Social Justice research and tbh can't be bothered with it at the moment. I don't have all the answers man. I don't have all the answers. I am listening to Orbital - The Box - Part II on repeat which means I am at least a bit manic. At least I am not driving 120 mph weaving in and out of traffic in a 50 mph zone practicing to be a secret agent.
Here is another good one:
I remember being at a running store I used to be a regular at due to a tri-weekly running group. I was all high from the sun and the caffeine and the run and the conversation and decided it was time to ask out the owner of the store who was the most attractive woman I had come across in Bumfuck, Indiana. I asked her out on a run the next morning. She said she had to open up the store. I said "oh, ok", shrugged, said "see ya" walked out of the store, walked by a food drive for kids, went to my car, peeled off a hundo from the hundo stash I had in the car. I always kept piles of hundos around. A habit I acquired from poker. Walked back to the food drive. Placed the hundo on the table. Didn't say anything. Didn't select anything from the assortment of baked goods. Walked back to my car. Played Caribou - Sun - Altrice's "Only What You Gave Me" Remix as loud as it would go. Lowered some dark sunglasses over my eyes and literally said "Deal With It" out loud. Treated the ride home as if I were trying to beat my record in Mario Kart 64 Time Trials. Changed my mind. Headed directly to the nearby forest park with the nature parkour obstacle course running trail with even more fervor. Went on to complete a near perfect nature parkour obstacle course run putting myself in real physical danger in the process. The adrenalin only increased my focus and fervor. Walking back encountered a tan, powerful, stunningly gorgeous platinum haired Russian in silver leggings and sports bra who was doing a balance beam routine on a large log over a large rocky creek. I thought this woman was my soulmate and was instantly enraptured. I stopped and watched. Her charisma in that moment was too much. I moved ahead slowly shaking my head. I had thought I had encountered unprecedented beauty and that life was worth living. I relaxed. I enjoyed the foliage and the flowers and the remainder of my hike through unencumbered Nature. I don't remember what happened next but I probably drank myself into a stupor that night.
Hmmmm. That was rather cathartic. I think it's time to make sure I take my Lithium and unwind a bit more with a nice stream of Contrapoints videos.
No one is perfect and therefore no system can be perfect. Not that Venezuela has a socialist economy, or that socialist economies are automatically inefficient, but I'll take some factories "blowing up" or a lack of efficiency over human trafficking. Cuba has a high Human Development Index, there is virtually no homelessness there, 85% of Cubans own their homes and pay no property taxes or mortgage interest. It was the first and only nation in the world in 2006 which met the WWF's definition of sustainable development. Anyway, let's keep this discussion for elsewhere, this is the movie thread.
fuck I should just sell some of my Pokemon cards, if no one stakes that is what I will have to do - lostaccount
Out on blu-ray/on torrent websites. Very good documentary. The Obama Flint stuff has turned my stomach.
"Filmmaker Michael Moore predicted that Donald Trump would become the 45th president of the United States. Traveling across the country, Moore interviews American citizens to get a sense of the social, economic and political impact of Trump's victory. Moore also takes an in-depth look at voting, the Electoral College, the government agenda, the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., and the water crisis in his hometown of Flint, Mich."
fuck I should just sell some of my Pokemon cards, if no one stakes that is what I will have to do - lostaccount
Last edit: 08/02/2019 22:09
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DaveDavit United States. Mar 11 2019 17:02. Posts 4
Solid time-killer with a good cast and dark/funky story as usual (from the makers of Bone Tomahawk and Brawl on cell block 99) I wasn't as blown away as I was with those two movies but it still feels the same and that's why you watch this movie. 7.5/10 . All the randomness, chaos and dark humor that is real life, sprinkled with some violence for good measure.
^^ seconded 1000%.
I might get flamed for this but this can potentially turn out to be the best Joker ever. Both men and women love the emotional response the trailer provides so this can potentially get awards as there is less focus on the superhero and horror bs nowadays. This is something both comicbook nerds and casual fans can enjoy
On April 05 2019 00:10 whammbot wrote:
^^ seconded 1000%.
I might get flamed for this but this can potentially turn out to be the best Joker ever. Both men and women love the emotional response the trailer provides so this can potentially get awards as there is less focus on the superhero and horror bs nowadays. This is something both comicbook nerds and casual fans can enjoy
Ledger's performance as the Joker was amazing, but I think Phoenix is probably a better actor and this movie is exclusivly about the joker so he has way more screentime to impress us and I hope he will.
That trailer looks more like "Il Pagliacci" than The Joker lol
It's very well made as usual for Noé but I don't like musical films at all (except The Wizard of Oz). It was hard to sit through after the first half and I felt like there was nothing new cinematography-wise coming from Enter the Void. It felt too chaotic for its own sake. I love the bookshelves TV scenes though, so many good books in there and of course he put Cioran.
I watched Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse yesterday, it was really good. Watching this next:
fuck I should just sell some of my Pokemon cards, if no one stakes that is what I will have to do - lostaccount
It surprises me that "foreigners" can enjoy that movie.
I liked it because it portrayed very precisely the relationship maid-family of the time, its easy to exagerate to prove a point but the thing with the lights (the maid turning off all the lights, yet the wife asks the maids to turn off their lights at 9pm, she doesn't care about lights, its just control of the maid), or the fact that the family hugs her and actually love her yet they couldn't tell her last name in the hospital.
This was a different experience in the 1st world that it went from hard racism/maids to maids being unaffordable except for really rich people and racial tensions were and are very high, the 3rd world has experienced a softer form of classism and this movie portraits it well.
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iakim322 United States. May 30 2019 09:35. Posts 1335
On April 05 2019 00:10 whammbot wrote:
^^ seconded 1000%.
I might get flamed for this but this can potentially turn out to be the best Joker ever. Both men and women love the emotional response the trailer provides so this can potentially get awards as there is less focus on the superhero and horror bs nowadays. This is something both comicbook nerds and casual fans can enjoy
Ledger's performance as the Joker was amazing, but I think Phoenix is probably a better actor and this movie is exclusivly about the joker so he has way more screentime to impress us and I hope he will.
That trailer looks more like "Il Pagliacci" than The Joker lol
'Better actor' is pretty subjective. Certain actors just do certain things/roles better. Phoenix is one of the best actors of our generation. But I think if Heath had more time, he could have been there as well
I liked the start/feel of the trailer. But then it kind of meandered a bit, and I didn't get much of a menacing feel that I was expecting by the end. Hopefully the movie ramps it up in the latter half and they just haven't shown much yet
On May 30 2019 05:23 Loco wrote:
It's very well made as usual for Noé but I don't like musical films at all (except The Wizard of Oz). It was hard to sit through after the first half and I felt like there was nothing new cinematography-wise coming from Enter the Void. It felt too chaotic for its own sake. I love the bookshelves TV scenes though, so many good books in there and of course he put Cioran.
I watched Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse yesterday, it was really good. Watching this next:
Yeah, second half was meh for sure. It helps that I love Thomas Banghalter and Daft Punk and Aphex-Twin, etc.
I had a workmate urge me to watch Spider-Man: Into the Spidey-Verse and was pleasantly pleased with it.
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United States. Jan 29 2019 22:54. Posts 8987
