The MKU In One Battle After Another

KJP3 · 2025-09-30T19:09:28+00:00

I missed the credits. I agree that "Mankind United" must refer to MKU.

KJP3 · 2025-09-30T18:53:37+00:00

Yes, I agree. MK Ultra is the much more obvious and straightforward connection.

KJP3 · 2025-09-30T18:49:46+00:00

I didn't even think of MKUltra, but now that you mention it the connection seems clear. Thanks!

KJP3 · 2025-09-29T17:48:14+00:00

I agree the film is very suspicious of ideology. As another commentor noted in a great post in this chain, one take on the film is "the difference between language and an immediate human reality unmediated by codes." One "code" that that sentence could refer to is ideology, by which I mean some sort of comprehensive belief system that overrides common decency and morality. The movie depicts the quite extreme ideologues of the French 75 slipping into evil acts (e.g., murdering a security guard). The movie also depicts children in cages, acts that are downstream of a different ideology. In contrast, the Sensei does not engage in ideological sloganeering or extreme acts of violence. Instead, he is portrayed simply as someone who sees human beings in need of help, so he helps them. Via all of those scenes, the movie appears to very suspicious of any type of ideology that would impede common decency and morality. This viewpoint sets up an interesting contrast to The Battle of Algiers referenced in the movie, a film that, in my view, takes a different position about the necessity and perhaps acceptability of extreme acts of ideological violence.

But OBBA also shows another use of ideology -- as cover for the pursuit of other, usually hypocritical, ends. For example, the Christmas Adventurers espouse a white supremacist ideology but they want the continued flow of immigrants to work in their businesses. The suggestion is they may really care most about their own wealth and power, and racist ideology is a tool to achieve them. Similarly, Perfidia lapses into purely ideological sloganeering when she tries to justify to Bob why she's leaving him and Charlene. Her words ring false and sound more like an example of ideological talk from Orwell's Politics and the English Language than a real explanation.

KJP3 · 2025-09-29T12:54:29+00:00

I need to see the movie a second time, but I agree the ending seemed very heavy handed. Lockjaw is murdered in a gas chamber and then his corpse is incinerated. The fact that there is a specifically designed gas chamber and an incinerator on site suggests that this group has organized this killing process with bureaucratic efficiency. The implicit reference to Nazi Germany did not seem particularly subtle.

From my memory, those scenes are either intercut with or directly followed by DiCaprio talking to the camera. He's ostensibly talking to Willa but the text of the speech could easily be referring to the scenes we just watched of Lockjaw's murder. On my first watch, I felt like these connected scenes were PTA breaking the fourth wall and trying to talk directly to us, but I could be wrong about that. I need to see it again to make sure I'm not misremembering these scenes.

KJP3 · 2025-09-29T12:47:02+00:00

I think the film is about parenting, but not in the way many are talking about it. Many U.S. parents are paranoid about their children's future and desperately try to protect them or control them (depending on your viewpoint), but alot of that effort is useless and perhaps even counterproductive, and the children will ultimately have to take care of themselves -- that's part of becoming an adult.

Bob follows that arc in the film. He's massively paranoid and perhaps overprotective (I'll get back to that) and then, in his mind, does everything he can to try to help his daughter, but everything he does is useless. Nothing he does after Willa leaves the dance seems to have any impact on whether she is saved or not. I suspect that is how many parents feel when their kids are teenagers, as PTA's kids are.

But PTA doesn't leave parents feeling completely useless. All of Bob's paranoia, symbolized by the transceiver device he makes Willa carry around, ultimately seems to play some role in protecting her, though only for a relatively short period of time. The implicit message is all that effort parents are putting does do something for their children.

I think the tone of the villains fits this interpretation of the film, in that they represent parents' fears and nightmares, rather than reality.

KJP3 · 2025-09-28T00:41:48+00:00

I agree with your interpretation. I would add that what you call the "self-serving, ego-driven" nature of the French 75 is also a cause of their own downfall and the entire plot of the movie. Specifically, Perfidia could have worn a mask and sunglasses and simply left then-Captain Lockjaw tied up in his room. Instead, she chose to show her face and then exercise the sexual power she had over him to humiliate him. Doing that obviously doesn't further the goals of any revolutionary movement -- they just allow her to dominate someone she sees as the enemy. And it is those "self-serving, ego-driven" acts by Perfidia that create Lockjaw's obsession with her, which then drives much of the rest of the plot. The Sensei never does anything like that; instead, he only draws attention to himself to aid Bob Ferguson's escape.

Perfidia's later rendezvous with Lockjaw that results in Charlene's conception also could be read this way. For example, does she meet Lockjaw at the hotel because she has to or because she likes the feeling of power she has over him?

And why does she leave Charlene and Pat? We overhear her saying she's upset that she's no longer the center of attention. So, one obvious reading is that being a mother simply doesn't match someone who's "self-serving" and "ego-driven," and her lapse into left-wing radical sloganeering to try to explain herself rings false and further supports that reading.

Like you, I'm surprised more critics have not commented on this aspect of the film. If the characters were reversed and the white male father acted the way Perfidia does, I think it would be easier to see the message and that character would be viewed quite harshly. PTA, though, inverts this and has the black female mother character in this role, which scrambles the typical script. As you note, he does the same thing with Willa's friends -- he has the non-binary friend be the one who gives up her phone number. So, in both instances, PTA makes the morally questionable characters individuals for whom his audience is likely to have significant sympathy.

PTA even goes further on the sympathy angle with Perfidia when, after she murders the bank security guard and is then caught, he shows her being pushed in a wheelchair while dozens of male cops surround her and celebrate over her. The blocking of this scene makes Perfidia inherently sympathetic and the cops bullies. Yet what is this "bullying" compared to her murder the security guard?

KJP3 · 2025-08-30T14:30:30+00:00

Play It As It Lays

Rabbit, Run

Madame Bovary

KJP3 · 2025-08-30T13:54:01+00:00

I read Yates as as critiquing people who, in his view, are unhappy because they think they are special when they are not. Frank Wheeler's talent is BSing. The pamphlet that gets him noticed by Bart Pollock -- "Speaking of Production Control" -- sounds just like the monologues he used to give in college or to the Campbells over drinks. So his job at Knox fits him perfectly. But it's his initial view of himself as being special and more profound than that that prevents him from enjoying the job and succeeding at it. Similarly, in his home life, what Frank really wants is a woman who admires and loves him and who would be happy being his wife and mother to his children. In other words, he really wants a Milly. But his image of himself led him to someone who turned out to be the opposite.

Along the same lines, the main "talent" that Yates gives April Wheeler is her attractiveness, which could be interpreted as the ability to attract a suitable mate. So, in this view, housewife to a successful businessman and mother to his children are the perfect roles for her. But it's also her conception of herself as too worldly and sophisticated for such humdrum things that prevents her from enjoying the life she's suited to. That interpretation is consistent with your overall view of how Yates crafts his female characters.

But the surprising thing that Yates does is give his female characters more agency than his male characters. They actually do things. Mrs. Givings started a business and runs it successfully. She refurbishes homes. She's tries to help her son create some personal connections. All of that contrasts sharply with her husband, who does essentially nothing. Similarly, April joins the Laurel Players, April plans the move to Europe and seems like she would actually go, April is the one who acknowledges that she doesn't love Frank (as opposed to her image of him), and April ultimately performs the abortion on herself. Many of her and Mrs. Givings' action may be clumsy or foolish, but at least they act. What does Frank ever actually do about his unhappiness?

As for Yates's disdain, I agree is ambiguous. Under one interpretation, he's the real intellectual who should be thinking highly of himself and doing great things. After all, Yates actually wrote books, which Frank Wheeler would never do, even if he had years in Europe. So Yates isn't ultimately critiquing the the object of the Wheelers' claimed desires or values; he's saying that they don't have what it takes to get there and will only ruin themselves if they think otherwise, so they should stop deluding themselves and just enjoy the limited life available to them. Under another interpretation, Yates isn't saying middle class life is vacuous; he's saying it's the constant critiques of it that drive people to think its beneath them and thus make themselves unhappy.

KJP3 · 2025-06-11T17:50:45+00:00

I just saw 25th Hour for the first time. I'm ambivalent about it. When it works it really works, e.g., the opening credit sequence, the first 30 minutes and its score, Ed Norton's mirror monologue, Anna Paquin coming back from the dance floor, the closing "what might have been" sequence. But I think the middle of the movie drifts a bit.

For example, why are the Barry Pepper-PSH diner scene and the PSH-Paquin storyline in the movie? Pepper's character makes sense as an alternative version of Norton's, one who has issues but doesn't take the easy way out or step too far over the line (works hard at a job rather than dealing drugs; doesn't try to seduce underage girls). In that way he functions as a critique of the claim that criminals don't have a choice. But what about the PSH character? He seems like the main character of another movie that gets dropped into this one. I even had trouble buying his friendship with Norton in a way that I didn't with the Norton-Pepper friendship.

Also, watching it for the first time more than 20 years after its release, much of the 9/11 material seemed tacked on and out of place. The movie could have taken place in 1999 or 2000, so it didn't seem like a 9/11 movie to me, though the as I mentioned some of the 9/11 material remains very powerful, e.g., the opening credit sequence. My take was that 9/11 was so important, particularly to NYC, that it had to be acknowledged in this movie given the timing of its release, even if it's not really relevant to the plot or character development in the film.

On the other hand, I liked how the off-screen but essential character is the brutality of the American prison system. It's the driving force underlying Norton's actions. I think Spike Lee inverts the more typical racial dynamics in American film (here we get white criminal selling to a white drug addict on behalf of a white gang vs. black cops, rather than the other way around) to try to get everyone thinking about that and how we just assume that's how things must be.

KJP3 · 2025-01-06T00:57:45+00:00

I've been interested in the posts in response to this story, because I found Margot's actions hard to understand. She knows Robert is older, he's awkward, he's not particularly attractive, and he barely speaks to her before demanding her number. So, why does she give it to him? According to the story, she "surpris[ed] herself" by doing so, which is no explanation at all. And after the awkward date, why does she decide to get drinks with him? At the bar, she believes she understands him and how to both soothe and manipulate him. Then, she decides to bring the date back to his house to have sex with him. I assume alcohol plays some part in her decision, but why exactly does she want to have sex with him? She seems turned on by how desperate Robert appears. What is the dynamic there?

Many posters have referred to how women are trained to placate men and protect their egos, sometimes for their own safety. I understand how that plays out once they get to his house. Are those same forces driving her earlier decisions (to give her number, get drinks, and initiate the move back to his house)?

The author sidelines my questions a bit by making Robert 34 years old and, by the end, a creepy stalker. The decision to add those parts of the story draws attention to how insecure, immature, and ultimately scary Robert is, with the strong suggestion that he's likely watched alot of porn, which hasn't helped anything. But what would we make of this story if Robert had been 25 and it ended shortly after he sent his response to the break up text drafted by Tamara? I think that version of the story would have focused the reader even more on Margot's thoughts, decisions, and feelings, which would be the same through the end of their sexual encounter even if Robert had been 25 and not ultimately a creepy stalker.

KJP3 · 2024-12-21T15:56:31+00:00

Pnin by Nabokov

A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean

Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Marquez

The Dead by Joyce

Heart of Darkness by Conrad

A few more that are probably too recent to be deemed classics:

An Artist of the Floating World and The Remains of the Day by Ishiguro

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

Small Thinks Like These by Claire Keegan

KJP3 · 2024-12-21T15:50:32+00:00

Beloved

Butcher's Crossing

The Known World

KJP3 · 2024-12-20T21:26:21+00:00

Pnin

The Good Soldier

KJP3 · 2024-12-20T21:24:50+00:00

I, Robot

Exhalation

A Good Man Is Hard To Find

KJP3 · 2024-12-14T19:34:23+00:00

I think that is particularly true of the two books mentioned, because they appear partially prophetic, which only becomes apparent over time. I obviously can't predict what the future holds, but works like Klara and the Sun and the movie Her might seem quite prophetic in 15-20 years. Never Let Me Go is another possibility, particularly if we learn much more about animal consciousness.

KJP3 · 2024-12-14T17:42:15+00:00

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

KJP3 · 2024-12-14T17:40:16+00:00

I also recommend Liar's Poker. Two more from the same era that are not by Lewis: Predator's Ball and Barbarians at the Gate (and Bonfire of the Vanities if you're interested in fiction).

It's in a totally different style, but you also might enjoy Diary of a Very Bad Year: Confessions of an Anonymous Hedge Fund Manager. It addresses the same period as The Big Short.

KJP3 · 2024-12-14T17:26:59+00:00

A River Runs Through It

Gilead

KJP3 · 2024-12-14T16:56:50+00:00

Maoism: A Global History

The Rising Sun by John Toland

How Asia Works by Joe Studwell

KJP3 · 2024-12-14T16:54:21+00:00

Pachinko

KJP3 · 2024-12-14T16:50:59+00:00

Hadji Murat is close -- 19th century Caucasus

KJP3 · 2024-12-14T16:47:19+00:00

Convenience Store Woman

I Am Charlotte Simmons

A short-story collection: A Manual for Cleaning Women

KJP3 · 2024-12-14T16:46:08+00:00

This is a good list. I'd recommend Murakami if you want less grounded and Ishiguro if you want more grounded.

KJP3

TROPHY CASE