Will Not Listen Anymore

Conditions: Storms ahead

The Black

The US has warned Russia that any moves to annex Crimea would close the door to diplomacy.

US Secretary of State John Kerry told Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov that Crimea is part of Ukraine and Moscow should avoid military escalation.

Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama has been discussing the deepening crisis with world leaders.

- bbc.com

If it were anyone else, if it were literally any other country than the United States of America, then the rhetoric about Russia not putting the moves on the Crimea would at least have some weight behind them. But it’s not. It’s America, fresh from illegally bombing its way across the middle east in a bid to feel better about itself, now has the gall to stand there and demand Russia stand down? They are demanding Russia obey international law and respect the rights of another sovereign state? What does America know about international law? What does America know about sovereign rights? Every time I hear these politicians bullshitting into a camera all I see is hypocrisy in a suit.



Film Review: I, Frankenstein

Technically this is a sequel to the first Frankenstein film (any one will do). It’s also, oddly, kind of a lot like the Van Helsing movie, only with Franky’s monster himself now wearing the pimp hat. And now played by Aaron Eckhart, suitably scarred up for the role. I, Frankenstein picks up the tale at a graveyard where Dr Frankenstein is getting buried by his monster. He’s interrupted by demons who try to grab him, and then gargoyle-angels show up to protect him. Once the dust settles the monster is told by the queen gargoyle that there’s a war going on between the demons and the angels, and that the demons want the monster (named Adam) in order to understand how to re-animate the dead – which is a thing they’re into. They tell him to pick a side, he picks his own and goes off to be by himself for couple of hundred years.

I think that this is so the film can actually be set in more conventional times, complete with scientists and cellphones and whatnot. The monster comes back to civilisation for some reason, and the fight’s back on. At around this point the plot gets a little lost. He wants to destroy the journal that explains how he works, but it’s the only link he has to his father. He veers back and forth between being caught by both sides and ends up protecting a cute blond scientist who is working for the evil demon (Bill Nighy, natch). Also, the gargoyle queen decides to have him killed as well – because he has no soul.

And unfortunately, neither does this film. It looks terrific, and most of the action sequences are pretty great, but in the end we don’t really care about Nighy’s use-science-to-animate-dead-and-take-over-world evil plot. And ironically, Eckhart is kind of a blank slate. That does make sense because apparently Dr Frankenstein neglected to stitch a soul in amongst the limbs and organs, but the problem is that a main protagonist without a soul is like chips without anything to dip them in. It’s all just a little too bland and simple. Not enough drama, with a silly plot. Frankenstein’s monster has come a long way over the decades, but turning him into a Neo-like figure and dropping him into the middle of an action film is kind of stupid. It’s dead. Two sticks out of five.



- Peace out