dagblog - Comments for "Has Anyone Seen the President?"

A bit of background on

PeraclesPlease — Tue, 13 Feb 2018 09:12:47 +0000

A bit of background on Natural Born Killers and the Stone/Tarantino relationship (scroll up from this link)

I liked Pulp Fiction much

PeraclesPlease — Tue, 13 Feb 2018 08:28:24 +0000

I liked Pulp Fiction much better rewatching it 20 years later. True Romance less, mainly cause it's so graphic it's uncomfortable (unlike PF), though still some fine acting, never much cared for Reservoir Dogs, nor Kill Bill (side from the Uma Thurman/Darryl Hannah face-off - pun intended, never saw Django, liked Dusk to Dawn at the time though might not now). U-Turn comes off like a less bloody Tarantino movie even though it's Oliver Stone.

oops your comment made me

artappraiser — Tue, 13 Feb 2018 06:35:26 +0000

In reply to Bigz is like a Ukrainian

oops your comment made me reread that part and I see I remembered wrong--said Congo immigrant--so a mea culpa, set it straight:

Bigz hails from Uganda. A few years ago he ran for Ugandan political office, and was beaten and jailed. When he learned that the Ugandan regime planned to kill him, he sought, and was granted, political asylum in the U.S. In Washington he set out to make a living tending people’s gardens. He’d knocked on Bannon’s door, and Bannon had hired him to clean up the small patches of green in front of his house. Apparently Bannon liked him so much that he brought him inside to — well, what Bigz does remains unclear to me. The garden’s dead.

I can't play with Tarantino banter, sorry, of the directed I've only seen Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction and each only once..And not liking them that much, finding them boring despite the violence, not that impressed even though others I respect were. I remember just seeing this geek video store guy's fantasy of what's outrageous blaring at me the whole time. But just now I just looked up filmography, a few of the things where he was a writer but not directing, I am surprised, I really liked, like Natural Born Killers. Can't stomach the full-blown stuff like Kill Bill or Django, though, can't even stand the trailers or more than a few minutes on cable. To me that stuff, his "vision", is like teen guy shit that ends up with competitive Tide Pod eating.

Bigz is like a Ukrainian

PeraclesPlease — Tue, 13 Feb 2018 05:59:53 +0000

In reply to P.S. A good example, I think

Bigz is like a Ukrainian bodyguard in another Tarantino film, True Romance. Also thought of Patricia Arquette in one of the goriest revenge scenes ever - totally gory, yet it seems strangely believable in light of Terri's horrible experience. Who are we?

This was fascinating to me.

CVille Dem — Tue, 13 Feb 2018 01:46:01 +0000

In reply to Has Anyone Seen the President?

This was fascinating to me. Both for the small insights into trump, but mostly for the picture of Bannon, who really does seem to get people. He played trump like a violin, and also our country. I learned a lot from this reporter’s observationsl and quotes.

P.S. A good example, I think

artappraiser — Tue, 13 Feb 2018 00:58:02 +0000

In reply to Lewis is a great writer on

P.S. A good example, I think of the quality of his writing, like the best 19th century realist writers that I happen to love. In the Bannon story, he throws in all the stuff about the house assistant Bigz, just casually describing what Bigz does and says, and how he eventually finds out this is an immigrant from the Congo who is in charge of the house for Bannon and acts more like a security guard with power than a gardener or housekeeper. He doesn't blatantly point out the incongruity or hypocrisy, we are left to deduce that ourselves from his description. Another example is that he stresses how during the SOTU Bannon wants the other people there to turn off Fox and turn on CNN....we are left to interpret what that means for ourselves. Just reportin' the "facts". (Not really, very skillful and sensitive person editing what he saw.)

Lewis is a great writer on

artappraiser — Tue, 13 Feb 2018 00:48:53 +0000

In reply to This was fascinating to me.

Lewis is a great writer on sub-cultures. Just like Proust viewing the 19th century, he does that with his topics. He did that well with the Bannon section, describing the house and everything. I also liked what he did here describing the White House press briefing room and the press briefing. He made his name writing on what is known as Wall St. inside and out, in the Clinton years he did some great columns for the NYObserver, i.e., the Goldman Sachs type guy is like this vs. Salomon Bros. are like that, with the fed-up skeptic analysis layered on top.

He learned all that by going into trading when he figured he couldn't make a living with his art history PHD after a stint with a major art dealer. But finally made money with best seller books on topic.