The Sociopolitics of OITNB Season 4 (Spoilers, duh!)

Last shot of the season. Perhaps the most gut-wrenching ending ever. If you're like me, you choose to believe that Poussey's New York adventure was a beautiful limbo that she'll live forever. 

Unless you've been in a cave or are pathetic human being (yeah I said it) you've binged the 4th season by now of the Netflix juggernaut Orange is the New Black. I've been waiting to write about it for a while because unlike most, I care about not spoiling shit for people. As the show usually ends on a cliffhanger, I thought people would be more careful about that, especially because this season was perhaps the most gut-wrenching and as Kate Mulgrew (Galina Reznikov) said on Good Morning America 'excruciating' season to film. And that's coming from a cast member who knew...imagine how it was for us. 

Class structure and institutionalized racism take front and center seats this season, where Litchfield becomes a microcosm of the hypocrisy we live in 

I'd like to talk about something I at first considered to be Easter eggs of socio-politics, but lets face it; they were front and center this season. Let's backtrack to a few of them. Some of my favorite ones that were so hilarious and painful at the same time were amazing as commentary about the world that has completely gone to shit, from the mind of Jenji Kohan. When we finally find out why Suzanne 'Crazy Eyes' Warren is serving time at Litchfield, we start with her working merrily at a Costco-type warehouse. There's a receipt she checks and it goes something like this 'mayonnaise, orange juice, ASSAULT WEAPON' ok have a nice day!' 

Chapman has to suffer some serious consequences for inadvertently creating a prison gang full of white supremacists. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and in prison, they will brand a swastika on you without hesitation. 

Sensitive topic? Most definitely, but poking a stick at how ridiculous it is that people can purchase assault rifles in this country is brilliant commentary, especially considering what just happened in Orlando. It's about time SOMEONE addressed it, because it's clearly being overlooked (save for the congress filibuster). Something else that sticks in your craw like an uncomfortable zit that's in the weird part of your back was when a CO mentions that she knows about 'extraction techniques'...yeah, she's a torturer, a lot of them are. The Abu Graib parallel was so apparent this season; like when a CO asks Blanca to stand on a table which she does for days. I think someone even says that its 'a bit Abu Graib' but let's face it; the new CO's are former vets with shiny faces that used to be torturers...thanks Bush Regime. 

We see institutionalized racism so much during this season. The fact that a huge conglomerate of new inmates that are stuffed into Litchfield are all from the DR basically gives credence to the fact that the system has been doing that for years. For every white person locked up, there's 10 people of color. Think about that, don't want to? Ok. 

CO Coates tries to explain to his rape victim that he didn't see it that way. Guess what, doesn't matter. And you have to wear that rape badge the rest of your life. And rightfully so.

Well anyway, if you're a girl especially, you followed the whole Stanford rape fiasco, where a dipshit judge gave a Stanford swim star 6 months for a violent rape where there were witnesses? 3 months with good behavior? How shitty is that sweaty turd to swallow? Rape is rape, and that's something that couldn't be clearer. Remember last season when Pennsatucky (Taryn Manning) was brutally raped by CO Coates? We didn't see it coming, in fact I'm sure some of us hopeless romantics thought that they might actually get together a la Daya and CO Bennett, and then he rapes her. Horrifying. In this season, it's made apparent that CO Coates like for real didn't understand that what he did was rape. Rape is rape bro. He's not an idiot, probably a bit on the dumb side, but I'm sorry, he's a rapist. Just as Big Boo (Lea DeLaria) said; there's no forgiving that. Pennsatucky eventually does forgives him, but to her, and to basically everyone with a pulse, he'll always be a rapist, dumb or not. 

A peaceful protest is met with abhorrent violence. It doesn't just happen in the world of fiction people. 

On to the next and most excruciating thing ever, of all time...not just on OINTB. When Poussey Washington (Samira Wiley), an audience favorite gets killed. What starts out as a peaceful stick-it-to-the-man protest where the entire prison population stand up on their tables in the cafeteria, Dead Poets Society style, demanding that the captain (Piscatella) resign. CO Piscatella is a misogynist, sadist, and all around monster. Instead of doing the rational thing which would be oh I don't know, anything except for what he ends up doing, he brings the close of the season to the most egregious end imaginable. He calls in the rest of the staff to forcefully take down the inmates. CO Bailey, a boyish dimwit that looks like he wouldn't hurt a fly, ends up being responsible for the worst thing to happen on that show to date. Mirroring the Black Lives Matter movement, he accidentally murders Poussey by jamming his knee into her back, effectively cutting off air to her lungs. That was a scene that stays with you like whatever scene from whatever film still makes you cry just by thinking about it. It was cataclysmic, especially because most of the cast didn't even know what was going to happen until they shot it. 

Poussey's death scene. I still can't get it out of my head and probably won't for a while. It's not just that she was a 'fan favorite'; this was an indictment of every single time a person of color was murdered in cold blood and the perpetrator got away with it in the end. 

Taystee (Danielle Brooks), Poussey's BFF, who works as the secretary to prison warden Caputo, overhears his statement to the public where he decides not to reprimand CO Bailey. Outraged, she launches a full on protest at Litchfield. 'They didn't even say her name!' she screams, rallying the rest of the inmates to follow her. The greatest injustice just happened, and all the higher-ups can think about is how to play it to the media. If that's not a full-on retrospect on the truth, I don't know what is. Her greatest line, which I believe sums up the gravity of the situation, is when Caputo says he's sorry for her loss, to which she retorts; 'I'm tired of people calling it my loss like it was my 100-year-old granny that croaked instead of cold-blooded murder'. There you go folks. There ain't no justice in the world, and especially now that the world is basically on fire. And as long as people in positions of power are only concerned with is how to spin it to make themselves look good in the face of a horrific injustice, innocent people will continue to die, and the disenfranchised will continue to suffer. Was that too dark? Well, it's supposed to be. Here's to Jenji and her chrome-plated balls for addressing all of it so blatantly and with such pathos that it broke all of our hearts. This is what makes Orange is the New Black more than just a fun binge-watching session on Netflix. The towering statements it makes are brilliant, and they are not crammed down the audience's throat because someone on that team studied literally devices. I have respect for a lot of what the show brings to the front, but what I respect the most is how unapologetic and brutally honest it is. Time and time again, that's the art that stands head and shoulders above the rest, that touches the heart, and doesn't care if it hurts, because it's supposed to. 

Trailer for Season 4 below: 

No I Haven't Read the Fucking Book

'This special effect was way better in the book'

Seriously ya'll, there are certain books that I refuse to read because they are either 'Children's Books' or 'Young Adult Books' or 'Stupid'. But you know what? I'll still make it out to the theater and watch Hunger Games: Catching Fire (whistling noise). Not to blow my own horn or anything but I tend to gravitate towards books that Stanley Kubrick once turned into a film in fact, my favorite book of all time was turned into a film by Kubrick...I'll give you a hint, the author's Russian. I mean I gave The Hobbit a glance through while stoned in high school, and once at the Columbia Bookstore I actually picked up a copy of 'Twilight' before screaming and running out of the store like a mad woman, after which, taking a series of cold showers. But that shit doesn't wash off people. That's why I was hesitant to pick up the 'epic' books that The Hunger Games are based on. First of all, it gets so much criticism for basically being an amalgam of all kinds of shit, specifically the film Battle Royale (2000). 

I found it to have a little touch of Ayn Rand dystopianism, a dash of Shirley Jackson's 'The Lottery', and basically every gladiator film that's ever been out since the camera was invented. But I finally watched it, I did, and though every extra of Panem looks like they're late for a Lady Gaga concert, and the narrative was somewhat fuddled I enjoyed myself. J-Law strikes again.

And I am looking forward to the sequel. And no I won't be reading the second book before I watch it so there. You know what I like about some movies? No reading involved. And you know what I hate? The phrase 'the book was so much better than the movie you guys', tell me you haven't wanted to punch the lights out of that pretentious assmunch. 

Aesthetically the marketing is fabulous, it appeals to the serious fashion crowd, and we know they don't read shit...unless you count Vogue...which I do.

You can see that the story is very 'Young Adult' and clearly not the model of post-modern dystopia and communist allegory we all know and love as literate individuals who once took an English class (O, Captain, my Captain), but hey, it's a children's book for fuck's sake. Girls that are no older than 15 will dress up like Katniss Everdeen for Halloween. Girls over 20 will go for 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo', which I HAVE read (oh holy shit). 

The worst example of film or literature ever. Like ever. Also the best example of accidental marketing.

So basically what I'm saying is that some books are not worth reading, just watch the effing movie and get off on Peeta and Katniss having moments of awkward teenage love as they try to not kill each other. Don't read the motherfucking 'Notebook', in fact, don't read anything by Nicholas Sparks nor watch any movies that his books are based on. Just get your popcorn on and hush up screaming teenagers sitting next to you when you shamelessly as an adult over 25 buy your ticket to Catching Fire (2013) rather than something actually thought provoking like 12 Years a Slave (2013), also based on a book and a really good one, but let's face it how many of you are going to watch 12 Years a Slave and exclaim that you know all about Solomon Northup, slavery in America, and the Civil War. A lot of you, and I will be super annoyed. So let's put on our Katniss pins, do the three finger salute, and just have a little bit of illiterate fun while we still don't get judged for it.

Trailer below.

A Royal Affair Reminds Us That Romance Is Indeed Dead

American poster for the film

 I seriously cannot believe it's taken me so long to watch A Royal Affair (2012) but it's been sitting quietly in my Netflix queue until the other day when I was driving up Sunset Blvd. and saw Madds Mikkelsen in a very ill-fitting pair of suede pants (yes, suede in May) walking down the street towards The Coffee Bean. I've heard pieces about it here and there, most of them good, but no one saying it's pretty damn close to a perfect movie, which it completely is. 

An affair begins in shadows. How's that for pretentious?

It is a Danish historical drama that made the rounds at some important festivals last year and even landed a nomination for Best Foreign Language Film at last years Oscars, shamefully it didn't win.

It tells the true story of a British princess betrothed to a psychotic and somewhat slow-in-the-head Danish king and is forced to relinquish all over her customs, language, and family and move to Denmark to begin a bizarre life with a bizarre man. Although The Princess Caroline Mathilde (Alicia Vikander) is unbelievably beautiful, like right out of a Botticelli painting beautiful,  the king does not enjoy 'visiting her bed chamber' if ya know what I mean, because he'd rather get wasty-pants and do it with some nasty hooker, his words...no seriously. But it's in Danish so it doesn't sound so trashy. 

The requisite naked-in-a-copper-bathtub scene, every period piece has one, it's in the rule books somewhere.

Time passes, and the king (Mikkel Følsgaard) grows more more and more despondent and insane due to what his trusted advisers believe to be 'excessive masturbation', so they audition doctors from far and wide to be the king's personal physician. Out of the few that make the rounds is a strangely attractive and mysterious small-town idealist and cheerleader for the incoming Enlightenment movement of Rousseau, Voltaire, and John Locke (and others that character names from Lost were based on) doctor named Johann Struensee (Madds Mikkelsen). It's beyond obvious that sooner or later this young impressionable now-queen and idealist doctor will begin a passionate love affair as she has a secret gateway to her bed chamber, and no that's not code for anything, that's actually in the film. I mean, he's the only one who doesn't wear powdered wigs and rouge, with those ridiculous white silk stalkings they thought looked so fly back in the 18th century. 

Madds has that rugged primal manliness...thing that you just can't put your finger on, you just know it's there, although you'd like to put your finger on it.

It's a bit obvious the queen is in need of some real man-lovin' and he's more than obliged to give it to her, but you know what? They end up falling in love, and everything falls apart as it does when love gets in the way of really steamy caressing and intercourse set to classical music. But as a historical drama it works brilliantly. It tells the actual love story and the tragedy of it, although totally inevitably, in such a passionate way that you still fall for it, and by the end of it are wiping away tears saying how you would totally give up all your worldly possessions and live in exile as she's eventually forced to if you could have a love affair like that, but you won't because it's 2013, and shit like internet dating exists. 

I swear 18th century costumes make any plot line sexier. That's also on the books.

It's brilliantly shot, and executed, and as a film is almost pitch perfect in narrative, aesthetic, and every other possible detail. Every time I see a costume that astounds me I immediately thought 'take that Sofia Coppola!' and that's always a good thing. This is a film that gets it right, and really reminds us that true love and romance did in fact exist at one point, where people sacrificed everything for it, and it's not like Grey's Anatomy at all out there, you just would have had to have lived 200 years ago, when there was no indoor plumbing. So you take the good with the bad. But seriously, watch this film. It's streaming on Netflix. I don't want any excuses.

Trailer below: 

Road Rage: A Persnickety Analysis of: On The Road

 This film screened earlier today in the competition at Cannes, and I for one found it one of the worst things that's ever happened in the world of Cinema, that's ever. John Ford, Orson Welles, and D.W. Griffith should like form a ghostly coalition of the willing and beat Walter Salles to a bloody pulp. If I could punch this film in the face I would do it. But instead, I'm making a corn husk doll of Kristen Stewart and punching that in the face. It's healing some of the wounds.

First thing's first. Do not adapt Kerouac in the 21st century. Why the hell did you wait so long to where it's not even remotely relevant anymore. Who in their right minds could give two fucks about some hipster without a job meandering around, having pretentiously mediocre thoughts about the uselessness of existence whilst drinking and smoking a lot. Because, that's all the film is! I understand that that's what Kerouac wrote about, but it's considered 'unadaptable' for a reason. You can't just do that to your film audience i.e. have nothing happen for two and a half hours whilst people philosophize about said nothing in the voice over. Kerouac is dead folks. Oh and by the way, he died because his liver exploded from drinking so much. 

This brings me to my second point; it's a pet peeve of mine when people are shown CONSTANTLY drinking and doing drugs, but no one ever seems to get high or drunk, it's like I know you're in your early 20's but if you ingest that much Benzedrine and that much Vodka at the same time, I'm dropping your comatose ass off at the emergency room and making a quick getaway.

Neal Cassady on the left with Jack Kerouac on the right, the inspirations behind Dean and Sal in On the Road. Did I mention both died before they were 35? from alcoholism? Oh I did? well doesn't hurt repeating.

Point three. No one in our generation, who's never 'burned burned burned with the fire of a Roman candle' but plays 'Draw Something', talks to Siri like she's an actual person, and blogs blogs blogs all day long gives two fucks about the beat generation. That shit burn burn burned out real fast, and it's not even nostalgic anymore. It's taking us to a place none of us want to be, and around people none of us would be friends with. You're not watching it thinking 'oh these people are really unique and interesting, they have thoughts man, ya dig?' You're sitting there, thinking; 'wow, they are all dirty and useless. Grow up and get a fucking job...and where exactly do they get the money for all this weed?'

'Oh look at me with my silk blouse rocking out to spontaneous jazz medleys. I am soooooo of the period and don't stick out at all'

Point four. Casting. What the fuck were you thinking? Garrett Hedlund as Dean Moriarty? He looks like the moron jock from every 80's movie. Sam Riley as Sal Paradise (who is just an avatar for Kerouac himself) gets a pass. But Kristen fucking Stewart as child bride Marylou? Are. You. Kidding. Me. She stands out like Winona Ryder in a period costume drama, like totally. She's so not 'of that generation' that it makes me infuriated that everyone is taking her seriously just because she does half of the movie naked. I respectfully disagree! This is worse than Keira Knightley pretending to be a Russian intellectual who likes to get spanked in A Dangerous Method (2011). Ya should have made it back in the early 90's when people still gave two shits about Neal Cassady, Jack Karouac, and reading in general, cast Brad Pitt as Dean, Ethan Hawke as Sal, and Juliette Lewis as Marylou. Sidney Lumet should have directed. Side note, that British dude who's Sienna Miller's baby daddy as Carlo Marx? So bad that it went past good and back to bad again.    

Tom Sturrige as Carlo Marx in one of the many ambiguous posters made for the film, caption reads 'we're alive?' harkening back to a question this motherfucker brings up constantly because he's on too much Benzedrine to disassociate reality from sleepy time. So the answer to your question you pretentious fuck is 'yes...but that can change. go buy a gun'.

Also, stop peppering films with big stars that just want to prove that they read Kerouac and are thereby intellectuals like Steve Buscemi and Viggo Mortensen. You guys are established stars you do not need to associate with such garbage. Also, again, why exactly are you naked? 

If you want to walk out of a movie this year and be like 'hmm, I didn't give any fucks the whole time' then this is a film you should see. I kept rolling my eyes so much I think they started making a noise. Bright spot at the end of the dark tunnel lined with human excrement is that the films about beatniks genre might not be violently dead from massive head wounds which I personally inflict on it quite yet. Kill Your Darlings (2013) with Daniel Radcliffe as Allan Ginsburg actually seems pretty promising. I anxiously await for it to cure the cancer that I got watching this.

Basically, this sums it up beautifully:

"Many have speculated that 'On the Road,' Jack Kerouac's seminal beat novel, is unadaptable for the screen, and Walter Salles' game attempt suggests that this may indeed be the case. Despite its pretty cast and sun-ripened colours, the film quickly settles into a tedious looping rhythm of Sal Paradise (Sam Riley) experiencing some kind of beatnik debauchery with co-wanderers Dean Moriarty (Garrett Hedlund) and Marylou (Kristen Stewart), before retiring to a shady corner and scribbling wildly in a notebook. Neither the journey nor the destination seems to matter a jot." — Robbie Collin, The Telegraph

Read the full article here: Cannes 2012 Review of On The Road

Here's another really interesting article called Kerouac retold as 'Bro-Retry'
Every Sentence of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, Retold for Bros

Which is basically what this film is. It's a dumb-it-down bro-mance road movie. And it's long as fuck. No pun intended.  

I realize that all I'm doing is making you watch it more, so fine. Here's the trailer. I hope you enjoy contemplating murder-suicide for two and a half hours. 

Spotlight On: Fifty Shades of Grey

Every once in a while I make an exception around here and talk about politics, or music, or in this case, the greatest American novel since 'The Grapes of Wrath'. Of course I'm talking about the book that has taken this nation by storm in a sweep of controversy that was originally based on Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series called 'Fifty Shades of Grey'. Two volumes have followed, the last installment of which was just published in January of this year and just a few weeks ago topped, that's right, topped the New York Times Bestseller List. 

Collectively we as a nation kind of went 'oh yeah, books, you mean we can read these? words that make pictures in your head? will it fit on my iphone?' and then we got wind of what it was about and everyone was in faux shock and awe. Like we've never knew that such things as erotic S&M novels even existed much less become the viral juggernaut of erotic fan fiction.  

I've been writing erotic fan fiction for years, what's so new around here? Granted, I never based it off 'Twilight', it was more like 'Lord of the Rings'. Merry and Pippin were secret lovers, Merry was pushed into an arranged hobbit marriage with some frumpy jolly girl and would engage in kinky rendezvous with Pippin underneath the moonlight behind the hobbit bridge...did I just share too much? 

I think what the general public has the biggest problem with is that the author is female. Like women don't fantasize about BDSM activity in the extremities and get off on it, wake up America. 

In this day and age, it still had major publishing restrictions, but thanks to the internet has become a viral sensation due to blog word-of-mouth, and it's virtually unstoppable. Focus Features just optioned the rights on the 26th, and casting is in the works. 

It is a no-holds-barred sexual fantasy about a college student and a stubborn billionaire who fall in love and engage in anal bead and handcuff play...among other things. This girl E.L. James is no Mark Twain, but it's an amazing read. Something you do with the door closed and the phone off with the roommate out for the night. Boys, it's not really for you, I hope this makes everyone realize that what we as women perceive as erotica and are aroused by is rudimentarily different. It's rather empowering actually. It's taking the BDSM subtext of 'Twilight' and making it ecstatically blatant. Put down 'The Hunger Games' and indulge yourself. You know you want it.

For some reason, I can't post this video directly to my blog, so check it out here: It's everything you need to know.

Fifty Shades of Grey on CBS - March 26, 2012

Still from The Story of O (1975) based on the iconic BDSM novel of the same name originally published in 1954.

For more guilty and subversive pleasure Netflix is streaming The Story of O, a 1975 film based on the seminal (perhaps bad choice of words) erotic BDSM novel about a Parisian fashion photographer who signs a contract to be a mysterious millionaire's submissive and gets thrusted (again wrong choice of words) into an elite club of sorts of rich gentlemen who keep her and others as their consensual sex slaves. It's a very '70's' movie I'll just tell you that right now, where the actors' lower body doesn't move, but they convulse they're heads around like they're in the middle of a major seizure. It's very glossy, surreal, and over-the-top. It's fantastic. It's kind of like that high-class British porn that people make fun of, ironically the film is French with English dubs. 


Or, you can be old-school and read the works of The Marqius de Sade, particularly 'Justine' which is my favorite.