Sep 242023
 
 September 24, 2023  Posted by at 12:33 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,


Otto Dix The Triumph of Death 1934

 

 

I don’t think we ever had a movie review before, and this is not really one either. Dr. D. sent me this yesterday, and now you can all go find out what it means. It feels to me like he has Keanu Reeves solve all of world politics. But then, I only saw some bits of John Wick 1, and I’m afraid I stopped there. So what do I know, really?

 

 

Dr. D. :

For a change of pace, let’s do a light off-the-cuff movie review of John Wick 4. Now being no expert, I don’t keep very close track of the plot or the names, but with a spoiler alert, here’s how this exciting and deadly action movie goes.

Johnny, a retired Mafia killer, has gotten into trouble in Wick 1, where his former Mafia boss’s idiot drug-addled son is so offensive that he has to come out of retirement to oppose them. After the many turns of Wick 2 and 3, and finds himself “Excummunicado”. That is, his bad behavior in taking just revenge means he is wanted dead by all the other mafias, headed by a mysterious “High Table”, a secret and untouchable collective of old European money.

In revenge for not bringing Johnny to heel and controlling or eliminating him, the designated authority of the High Table, the young Marquis, attacks downtown NY, leveling their prime location and casino there called “The Continental”, murdering the NY Concierge, and leaving the NY Manager alive as a warning to others.

The young Marquis of old Europe then enlists China, a blind assassin who is indifferent to the job, but capable of killing rebellious Johnny, but only through deadly blackmail of killing his progeny, his young and protected daughter.

Asked why he destroyed his own focus and financial center in NY, the Marquis says he must destroy the very “idea” of rebellion, by destroying everything it touches worldwide. He is advised by London, his agent and advisor, on the problems of destroying your own paying assets simply to make a point, but is dismissed.

Johnny then travels to Japan, where he has loyal friends willing to advise or even possibly help him. However, the very act of coordinating puts Japan under massive attack and they are also destroyed. As his last act, Japan authorizes Johnny to kill everyone involved without quarter. The hungry China is also there eating noodles and concludes the attack on Japan near a watery pool, but leaving Japan’s young daughter intact.

We also find that The Tracker, a beer-drinking American everyman and his dog, have been following Johnny’s every move and is biding his time for action. He is disregarded by Europe as an irrelevant Mr. Nobody, beyond consideration or engagement, a deplorable.

Johnny returns to hiding among the Street People, the Bowery King, and is contacted by NY who tells him he can end the persecution by toppling the High Table. If he kills the Marquis himself, he will merely be replaced by another. But if he can Topple the Table or force them to negotiate, he can make terms for lasting peace. This is done via a seldom-used direct war, in personal combat. The constant possibility and risk of such a direct and personal war is the only thing holding nation’s mafias in check. So Johnny must fight Old Europe directly, one-to-one.

However there is no premise for doing this. To get a basis for single combat, Europe vs Johnny, he needs a seat, a “ticket” from a nation’s mafia to make such a challenge. He cannot be on the outside, a stateless free agent. But there is such a one who wants to take revenge in Russia.

Johnny meets the Russian mafia in Germany, who immediately shoot and hang him out of revenge and distrust. She says she cannot forgive the killing of her father once, when she then had to bow subservience to Old Europe for years. Johnny argues they now have a common enemy and should take out the Marquis and the Table instead of each other. Russia reluctantly agrees but only if Johnny can prove himself. To do so, he must take out all Germany, and hand her his gold as token.

They then arrange this ruse that Johnny shall be delivered as prisoner and slave to massive, muscular Germany. On arrival in his office, they find China already knows and is waiting. The Tracker is also there, and so we have all three sitting down together in Germany, all wanting to kill rebel Johnny, either for threats, or or money, or for German dominance and credibility. Germany then reveals he deals off the bottom of the deck and cheats at everything.

In the ensuing battle, Johnny attacks Germany in a way he doesn’t expect, cutting at his arteries, and after an endless and pounding exchange, he delivers Germany’s gold teeth to Russia.

Johnny is then authorized as an agent and alliance with Russia, to then attack Old Europe in single combat.

NY delivers the challenge to the hotheaded young Marquis, however encouraging him that if he should kill Johnny, the young Marquis would most certainly be lauded as master and take over everything. Also should Johnny win this combat, then NY will be rebuilt and reinstated at Europe’s expense, thus NY’s interest in the matter. If Europe wins, however, NY will be killed. This is agreed as they depart under the painting of the “Liberty Guiding” by Eugène Delacroix and comment Sic Semper Tyrannis.

In the meeting of terms under the London moderator and arbiter, they arrange combat with pistols at dawn at Sacré-Cœur, the Sacred Heart. Instead of fighting Johnny himself, however, Europe nominates China instead, who again is forced to agree, but likes it even less.

Europe’s Eurotrash soldier then warns the Marquis that in the bodyguard’s opinion, this is a bad idea, as to be seen not fighting for yourself makes you appear weak, is a greater risk, and even winning may not transfer power to him. The Marquis clearly seems to feel he cannot beat Johnny in open combat and continues on the smart and clever route, as it will all be over soon anyway, with the rebellious Johnny erased.

The Marquis then continues to cheat, increasing the money paid for Johnny to amazing heights of $26M. This brings out every scoundrel and hit man worldwide, who then attack Johnny in the public square, under the Arc de Triomphe in France. Hour after hour they attempt to take him out, before and so the direct combat cannot occur. Man after man, attempt after attempt, they fail.

However, the American Everyman is interfering indifferently, saving Johnny’s life repeatedly as he wants the prize for himself: peace and a decent retirement. At the same time, and at the last minute, China then arranges to insure the combat of Old Europe vs the newly authorized Johnny – agent of the Russian Mafia – occurs as agreed, all overseen by London as referee. They climb the last 222 steps of the Rue Foyatier, taking out the last Eurotrash soldier in the process.

Everyman, while intending to kill rebel Johnny, was not offered enough by Europe, repaid a quid pro quo, and was too much delayed to kill Johnny before the open combat and therefore opens a beer and is a mere spectator to the duel from a nearby bench, his exhausting work complete.

At last the open combat of Europe vs rebel Johnny begins, pistols at down at last, with China as his proxy. They shoot each other mercilessly, but no one falls, and they proceed to the third round at 10 paces, impossible to miss. As they are both shot a third time, Johnny falls and Europe interferes to make the coup de grace on the “idea of rebellion” himself. Johnny however, although shot has only been appearing weak. He had arranged with China and not shot his pistol at all, having ammunition in reserve. With the help of NY distractions, he shoots and kills Europe, ending the matter and bringing the situation back to peace.

London concurs and frees both NY and China from their obligations. Russia is victorious and the High Table is brought to heel.

However as a soldier and a killer, Johnny is no longer needed and dies on the steps nearby, thinking of his Lady, and is buried in the last scene as “Faithful Husband.”

So, highly stylized and pretty cool movie, eh? Well, we now return to our regularly scheduled program that’s filled with boring finance and geopolitical wrangling instead.

 

 

 

 

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Home Forums Review – John Wick 4 (Dr. D.)

Viewing 11 posts - 1 through 11 (of 11 total)
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  • #143625

    Otto Dix The Triumph of Death 1934     I don’t think we ever had a movie review before, and this is not really one either. Dr. D. sent me th
    [See the full post at: Review – John Wick 4 (Dr. D.)]

    #143628

    Okay. So I cheated and read wikiP’s plot summary. The movie prognosticates?
    But who is Russia? Koji’s daughter?

    #143636
    thomasjkenney
    Participant

    Otto Dix: The Painter is the Eyes of the World

    I haven’t seen this yet, but will track it down. Years ago I’d seen another docu, and his work was featured among others. The image in today’s post is kinda mild relatively, but seems to slyly parody the bland Nazi ‘state approved’ styles of the time.

    Here’s a weird one:
    Otto Dix Triptych

    For V. Arnold re: art, many of his works are quite tender. You might enjoy a dig through his stuff.

    #143641
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Technically, it’s the Western or Belorussian Mafia he used to work for and he meets in Germany, not the Eastern or Official half. That may come from the original movie: the Gangsters had to be SOMETHING, you know?

    Koji’s daughter is young Japan.

    #143644
    jb-hb
    Participant

    Interesting. I’ve been thinking about this sort of thing, in a way, for awhile now.

    What if there was a war going on everywhere, but you still had to pay rent, work a job, and everyone else is just going about their business anyway?

    In any mob movie, there’s combatants – mobsters, enemy mobsters, the cops – and civilians – all the normies. The mob and the cops are always on a war footing. Everyone including the civilians know how it works, what’s going on. It is not hard to convert the plot of a mob movie into a WW2 movie or ancient warfare and vice versa. The state of war is known, understood, and maintained/maintainable under current conditions.

    People forget that Night of the Living Dead is NOT a zombie apocalypse movie. The main – minor – challenges the morning after are finding the zombies and how to dispose of their bodies. The sheriff forms a posse and one gets the impression they will have the zombie problem licked in just a few days.

    I appreciate the attempt to make a slow-start apocalypse movie, where normal life must be survived at the same time as apocalypse. The attempts usually fail. Fear The Walking Dead. The Strain.

    The 1978 Invasion of the Bodysnatchers is so creepy and operates on such a high level because it masters this. It manages to suspend the teetering apocalypse/normal life overlap, essentially until the last scene in which it is finally and completely shattered.

    For those who adopt a war footing, normal life has been ended. All those things you had going on, were working towards, your hopes, your plans. Forget them all. The 2020’s have been one long desperate cling to normality. OK I will genuflect to and repeat your increasingly whacko ideas, wear a humiliating pointless muzzle, take the injection, repeat your pro war slogans, whatever, just PLEASE let’s not lose normality. We will bend it practically into its opposite rather than break it.

    John Wick IS War. He is War wanting to be dormant, to rest, to have peace. Assholes who think they are genius and badass, who do not truly understand what they are getting themselves into, who think they can have an advantage by dropping the norms that (they assume) gullible weaklings adhere to fuck around and find out. I’m sure our own current uber-assholes believe THEY are super-badass in much the same way.

    They fail to understand the social contract. That EVERY peon they scorn as “weak” for trying to maintain the social contract descends from brutes who, when it came to it, strangled, smashed their head in with a rock, face to face, successfully, when the other side proved themselves rabid dogs unable to play by rules. The pigs in Animal Farm when the dogs realize they are superflous.

    Rush – Lock & Key

    On the international scale, Russia has been living the 1978 Invasion of the Bodysnatchers for decades. They’ve had to live in “normality” overlapping with deadly-serious outright war. And it continues – fighting massive battles against someone who is still your energy customer, who is backed by people OPENLY saying they are at war WHILE behaving as if there is no war. Why COULDN’T Russia have normality?

    And at the micro level. Aware of the harm of the jabs, the massive anti-free speech activities, lies, propaganda, etc surrounding them,. The hundreds of food plants being burnt down, the awful full-spectrum efforts to crushingly demoralize the individual and end all public interpersonal ties, all human culture. On and on. Knowing there’s a war and realizing you, little insignificant you, are NOT too small, too petty a concern for for them, in their mean-spiritedness, in their petty spite, to pause and stomp on. Meanwhile people go to their job, go to the movies, shop for groceries.

    John D MacDonald, possibly the best pulp fiction author ever, wrote The Executioners – known to most through the movie adaptation Cape Fear. Some normal, nice people, have go go to war while the rest of the world cares not at all. All those Jack London stories about nice family dogs having to learn to live in a wolf pack, finding the wolf within.

    A favorite book series of mine is John D MacDonald’s Travis McGee series. From The Long Lavender Look:

    “I was going to stop playing it their way. They had this big poker table working, and they had let me take the empty chair, provided I played my cards face up on the table and played by their rules. If I was naughty, they would deal me out of the next hand.

    “No more earnest efforts to please. No more defensive play. No more letting the house man deal. As of now, it was intensely personal, time to kick over the table, scatter the chips, break out my own deck, deal my own game — without explaining the rules.

    The handle they use on you is your wistful need to pick up your life again right where it was interrupted, to be allowed to go in peace. When you decide that you do not give a damn about your own continuity, then you can even win a hand, and sometimes you can break the house.

    “I went roaring out of there, and on the way south on Cattleman’s road, I found myself bumping the heel of my sore hand against the rim of the wheel , and humming a tuneless hymn of anticipation”

    The Man Who Wanted to be Left Alone
    The most terrifying force of death,
    Comes from the men who wanted to be left alone.

    Just leave me alone.

    They try, so very hard,
    To mind their own business.

    Just leave me alone
    I just want to provide for those I love.

    They resist every impulse to fight back.
    They swallow their ego and walk away.
    They make allowances for the pride of others.
    Despite themselves, they trust in the plan…

    Plan A: Live and Let Live
    Plan B: Reasonable Discourse
    Plan C: Overwhelming force. Maximum speed and aggression. Extreme prejudice.

    With their resistance comes forced and permanent change.

    And so the man, who wanted to be left alone, finally takes up arms!
    Some with their words. Others with their fists.

    And then there are those who take up the armaments of Heaven and Hell, Deed and Word, who employ infinite creativity and scouring flame to raze all their enemies until they are but charred memories lost in the abyss!

    I just wanted to be left alone.

    With the fires of Heaven and Hell comes a permanent change.
    The life they knew is gone.
    The world they fought for is dead.
    They know – that the fight itself has stolen from them everything they ever would have fought for.
    Their lives, as they have lived them, are over.

    I just wanted to be left alone.

    When the men who wanted to be left alone fight back-
    It is a form of suicide.
    The man who was, is no more.
    The man who loved,
    The man who built,
    The man who obeyed,
    The man who trusted,
    That man is dead!

    I just wanted to be left alone.

    When the men who just wanted to be left alone take up violence, they fight with unrestrained vengeance against those who forced their hand!
    They fight with raw hate.
    They fight with brutality.
    They fight by any means available to them.
    And they fight without mercy.

    I just wanted to be left alone.

    The Great Manipulators who pushed them to this-
    Who thought themselves so clever-
    Who were merely play-acting at terror and politics-
    What will they say when TRUE TERROR arrives on their doorsteps?

    I just wanted to be left alone.
    To live my life in peace. But you wouldn’t allow it.
    Go ahead; cry, scream, beg for mercy.
    My ears are deaf.
    Only your agony will baptize me into hearing again.

    I am the man who just wanted to be left alone.
    And soon you’ll wish that you had.

    #143645
    Dr. D
    Participant

    They were discussing: “Don’t call people sheep. Not only does it not win them over which is bad strategy, but they are not sheep: They are domesticated wolves. There’s a difference. Shut the food off, remove the comfort, and the wolf nature will come out. Immediately.”

    Or as John Wick 1 says, “Do I look CIVILIZED to you?”

    John Oliver’s $8 Million was just the casino paying a guy who pulls three bars and won a hand. He said, “F— it, no. 9 years of 16h minimum wage shifts and like Jean Val Jean, I’m past all that. Keep your d—m money. You should have left me alone. Now I can’t be bought.” Just like the Marquis should have just paid everyman whatever he wanted. Keep the peace, give him his due, keep him out of the fight. But for a lousy $10M you just couldn’t, could you?

    And now you’re going to find out what it really costs.

    #143646
    Dr. D
    Participant

    #143647
    oxymoron
    Participant

    Jb
    Watching that clip at the end of your thoughts was crazy for me. There is no going back to what we had. I have begun speaking out with my music and I know somewhere in me it will do fuck all. I am preparing for a fight. I am doing it with hard work and planning and I am doing it with a single minded purpose. Setting up food systems, water systems, social networks, labour, tools, economic fallbacks, teaching my kids to laugh but still to work and be able to be of use. Making huge piles of hardwood fully dry stacked firewood, passive food dehydration, dental work, exercise, research, fire-prevention.
    The energy descent, the fourth turning, the psy-ops, the Mafia-backed control of governments world-wide are pushing us all. May you go well my good friend – may you all go well.

    The first people to go to shit are those surplus to the system – the last to go are those outside the system.

    #143648
    Celticbiker
    Participant

    Koshertheatre, get the goyim used to what is coming, like Star Trek when you were a kid. Fuck these assholes and their “programming”. Fuck em/

    #143649
    oxymoron
    Participant

    major up coming movie release titles suggest the public are craving seeing their repressed emotions as projections on a dark screen. The social mood is evolving…

    sympathy for the devil
    Dead man’s hand
    butcher’s crossing
    the burial
    boudica:queen of war
    the kill room
    The killer
    The retirement plan (about an assassin who just wants to live in peace but war comes for him)
    one day as a lion
    napoleon

    #143700
    The Markster
    Participant

    Wouldn’t it be crazy if life was as action-packed and glamorous as the movies. Instead of slow poisoning deaths, dead and unloved auto-oriented sprawl, and garden variety greed, incompetence and corruption we could all be super heroes and go on a murderous rampage to make it all better.

    Made the mistake of taking in whatever version of this trash came out earlier this year or last but ended up walking out halfway through for the gratuitous violence. Same disgust and walkout as with Pulp Fiction so many years ago. If this kind of dark, violent garbage is what the cool kids are watching these days, I’d rather be uncool.

    This is not culture. It is a sickness and a disease begging for attention with no skills or value beyond destruction and death and psychodrama. Kind of like Emperor Obama and the senile, bumbling, child-sniffing pervert sitting on the throne in his name. A long hot shower is in order.

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