edited by Jonathan Doyle

Mafioso (The Criterion Collection, 3.18.2008) Nino Badalamenti is a supervisor in a car manufacturing plant who hasn't taken a vacation in over two years. On his way out the door to visit his beloved childhood hometown of Sicily -- with his blonde wife and daughters -- Nino is handed a package by his boss and asked to deliver it to a powerful and influential Sicilian gangster named Don Vincenzo. Once in Sicily, Nino has a hoot seeing friends and family, but his wife has trouble fitting in and is unfairly dismissed as a snob by Nino's family. Even more worrisome, Nino finds himself entangled in an intricate web of secret mafioso dealings and is eventually sent on an unexpectedly... elaborate errand. (continued)

Upcoming

July 2

Hancock

July 3

The Whackness

July 4

Diminished Capacity

Gonzo: The Life and Work of Hunter S. Thompson

Holding Trevor

Kabluey

We are Together

July 9

Full Battle Rattle

July 11

A Man Named Pearl

August

Eight Miles High

Garden Party

Harold

Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Journey to the Center of the Earth

Meet Dave

Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired

The Stone Angel

July 18

A Very British Gangster

Before I Forget

The Dark Knight

The Doorman

Felon

Lou Reed's Berlin

Transsiberian

July 22

Two Tickets to Paradise

July 23

Boy A

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Many people have written in and asked if I've seen Dylan Avery and Korey Rowe's Loose Change (2nd edition), a documentary that lays out a lot of suspicious maybes, intriguing indications, and clues of different shapes, weights and sizes to support a premise that neocons in the U.S. government orchestrated the 9/11 attacks for their own political benefit. A lot of readers think it's at least a disturbing piece (smart, disciplined, well-ordered), and probably the most famous member of this club is Charlie Sheen. Anyway, I've seen it and thought about it, and I know a lot of bright people who seem genuinely jazzed about it, but I just don't accept -- okay, won't accept -- the notion that this kind of demonic, cold-blooded Machiavellian plotting could emanate from the Bushies. Evil is necessarily a matter of dedication and passion, but deep down it's most often about selfishness and greed and the willingess to look the other way. Like Louis Malle, I think evil is banal. It can be advanced by bureaucratic diligence and systematic planning (i.e., Nazi concentration camps or the Khymer Rouge slaughter of the mid '70s), but I have never believed in evil manifested through the application of daring super-schemes requiring the utmost secrecy at the highest levels of government among a cabal of black-hearted right-wing fuckheads. The perpetrators of evil acts are almost never as brilliant as this documentary asserts. And I don't believe that upper-level neocons are in possession of the necessary monstrous, heartless, Ernst Stavro Blofeld mentality to arrange for a slaughter of this magnititude, no matter how much their friends in the defense industry have benefitted, or how greatly the general neocon faction in the government would have benefitted. There are more than a few interesting claims and puzzling unexplained occurences brought up by this film, but with all due respect to Sheen and others who feel it just might be on to something, I have to respectfully pass. I just don't buy it for the reasons stated. I guess I'm more of an Adam Curtis/The Power of Nightmares type of guy. But Avery and Rowe are smart guys, and it's cool that they've turned as many heads as they have thus far.

Oh, and by the way:<< previous | next >>Hollywood Elsewhere's technical ally Jim

Posted by Jeffrey Wells on March 29, 2006 at 08:08 PM

comment #1