My Parents were slightly different

Our parents cooked, for three hours. They did pizza, pasta, Italian foods, waffles, hamburger soup, Tomato soup, Pelmeni, pasta, chicken alfredo, Spaghetti, Fedelini, Capellini, Agnolotti, Cannelloni, Lazonia, Beef Stroganoff, soul food (mashed potatoes/beef or turkey/pees/squash), beef stew, hamburger soup, omelets, stuffing.

They weren’t afraid to discipline me. For the most part. They weren’t afraid of looking like a “bad parent” at the mall. They weren’t afraid of telling us we were out of line and punishing us accordingly

They weren’t parenting philosophy zealots. My parents went to my beacon relay meets track and field meets and cross country. I was into videogames, cross-country and track and field in 1999. I was a decent racer, placing 3rd or 4th on many beacon relays. I believe his parents would never see him at track and field.

Our family knew the value of money. Probably not that well, but no new vehicles for certain. We mostly bought computers and videogames, due to my 1990s culture. Even today, they didn't spend money on a new TV very 4 years! My parents updated TVs every six years. They didn't buy the most expensive cameras (entry-level SLRs). They used that money for a fifth wheeler and college education. Degrees are forever. My parents are heavy Sturgeon's Law followers. They buy everything on sale and aren't as materialistic as younger americans. We lived in a nuclear family.

Stupid trends in the 1990s

5.
1.

Cargo pants look great any decade, because it is standard military uniform for the public. It has wide usage in the Army. Bell Jeans are stupid

4. 2. Teal

An excuse not going green or blue.

 

3. Sitcoms with low IMDB scores

Shows like Home Improvement with tired plots and obvious and usually mediocre jokes. 90s network TV was full of schlock like Friends. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia never would have aired 15 years ago. Now there is battlestar Galatica, Wired, 24, South Park,

2. Tribal Tattoos



These things actually come from New Zealand natives or such. They are very popular due to their neutrality. The star and Eagle tattoos are supposed to be better.

1. Vanilla Ice

Stupid rap.

The Searchers review

I love a good western. It is the quintessential American genre. A portrait of ourselves at both our most noble and most despicable. A genre of selfless heroes and terrible villains. A showcase of the American landscape, as seen by the men and women who first braved to cross it - full of wonder and awe.

There is no better western than The Searchers.

Sixty years ago this year, The Searchers made its debut and forever changed the western - even though it was tepidly received upon its initial release. Today it is revered by casual filmgoers, critics, and filmmakers alike as one of the most important films of all time. It is one of director John Ford's best films and arguably star John Wayne's best performance of his career.

The film follows a former Confederate soldier, Ethan Edwards (John Wayne), and his kinsman, Martin Pauley (Jeffrey Hunter), as they brave obstacles (natural and unnatural) and the slow passage of time to attempt to find a member of their family kidnapped by the Comanche Indians. The journey becomes an unhealthy obsession, as Ethan's quest to find his niece, Debbie, slowly devolves into vengeance-fueled madness.

The Searchers has influenced many filmmakers in the six decades since its debut. Legendary director Martin Scorsese has often cited The Searchers as one of his favorites and has talked extensively about the film. Its staying power is derived from its themes and characterizations. The film has a lot to say about thematic concepts that are just as relevant to today's world.

The Picturesque West of John Ford

With each of his films I see, John Ford becomes, more and more, one of my favorite directors. His instincts on camera placement, movement, and focus are amazing. Ford really cemented his place in cinema history as being the vision of the west that most movie audiences picture in their minds.

The Searchers was filmed almost entirely in Monument Valley, located in both Arizona and Utah. It was a favorite filming location of Ford's, as it became a background to many of his films. When modern moviegoers think of the west, it is most likely via Monument Valley and Ford's lens. In fact, the most modern western film (that I've seen) to utilize Monument Valley was the most recent version of The Lone Ranger in 2013.

Women-in-The-SearchersThere is really no bad shot in The Searchers. Each frame could be hung up as a painting. The stoic buttes, the sandy monoliths of Monument Valley, stand as a constant in the backgrounds, displaying God's awesome artistry of the land. The greenery of the valley floor gives those wide shots splotches of mixed colors that are appealing. And that sky - most of the shots are almost two-thirds deep blue with wispy clouds. Simply beautiful.

But the scenery does more than look pretty. Through the eyes of Ford, the land evokes emotion that transfers to the audience. Both the Edwards and Jorgensen homesteads are solitary, almost enveloped by the valley. There are no towns visited as part of the story, just lonely outposts of civilization. Not only does this invoke feelings of the hard-scrabble life of the frontier and the rugged individualism of the American West; there is also a loneliness to it that carries itself through the entire picture, creating a visual theme.

The visuals of The Searchers also offer a sort of poetry, the most famous being the first and last shots of the film. The movie opens and closes, literally, with a door. This provides the audience with a window into the expansive wilderness and a way back into the sanctity of the home.

The Western Grows Up

john-fordBeing a "pioneer" of the western film genre, John Ford was there at its very beginning. His early films reflected a more simple, romantic look at the wild west. In movies like Ford's Stagecoach (1939), the heroes were gruff but had hearts of gold and the villainous Native Americans were one-dimensional. The world was very black and white.

By the time The Searchers came along, Ford was venturing into new territory. The western was now turning shades of grey. There was more honesty to the stories and more layers to the characters. It was a gradual turn, though. Part of Ford's brilliance with this film is his use of common western tropes of the time and giving them a new twist to ease into the darker nature of the story.

The music, written by celebrated composer Max Steiner, is a classic example of a typical western trope. Steiner was known for his sweeping, epic scores to films like King Kong, Casablanca, and Gone with the Wind. The score of The Searchers is no different - using epic phrasing and leitmotifs to make the viewer feel at home in a western. It was an aural framework into which Ford could weave his story.

Steiner's score is also littered with popular tunes of the Civil War era (the film takes place three years after the war's end) like "Bonnie Blue Flag" and "Lorena." "Lorena" is especially poignant, as it was very popular on both sides of the conflict, reminding the men of loved ones and home.

roy-rogers-e-sons-of-the-pioneers-otimaThe presence of The Sons of the Pioneers to the musical makeup of The Searchers is not to be taken lightly. The Sons of the Pioneers were very popular for their cheery, harmonious country singing, and are most famous as a supporting group for Roy Rogers - probably one of the most famous romanticized, "old school" cowboys ever. To include them was also a nod to what had come before, creating a melodic irony in the title song.

But Ford's biggest trope turnaround was that of the western leading man. With Ethan Edwards, Ford gave star John Wayne one of his most complex characters, and probably his best performance. Ford knew how to use the Duke better than any other director. Just as James Cameron did with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ford utilized Wayne's strengths as an actor to maximum effect. Anyone who believes John Wayne was not much of an actor has clearly never really studied The Searchers.

Ford actually made John Wayne a star back in 1939 with Stagecoach. There the Duke was the prototypical western hero - an outlaw, but an honorable one. It was a reflection of the simpler times mentioned above. Wayne's swagger and charisma soon catapulted him into iconic status. Now people around the world would think of the Duke when they pictured the rugged American cowboy. In The Searchers, Ford uses Wayne's heroic persona to catch the audience off guard - making the emotional impact of events taking place much more resonant. The normally fearless Duke is brought to his knees many times at the off-screen sight and recollection of his raped and murdered kin.

Martin Scorsese recalled that seeing Wayne visibly distraught made him imagine what was offscreen had to be absolutely horrible, more so than anything that could have actually been shown onscreen. Indeed the imagination can be much more terrifying.

Relating the notion of changing tropes to Ethan, it's interesting that the dynamic between Ethan and Martin is a role reversal - the older, wiser man usually imparts good judgement and humility on to the brash and haughty younger man in the typical western. In The Searchers, however, the younger Martin is the one with common sense and reminds Ethan of his humanity.

Searching for Vengeance

"What makes a man wander? What makes a man roam? What makes a man leave his bed and board, and turn his back on home?"

The Ethan Edwards character himself is a personification of John Ford's "new old west." He is a deeply flawed man consumed by vengeance and hatred - the center of the film's moral questions.

At the beginning of the film's search, Ethan's motives for finding Debbie are harder to decipher. We assume that his intentions are noble as a bi-product of seeing the form of John Wayne. But as the search goes on, it becomes clearer that he is on a quest to wreak vengeance on the Comanche, simply for being Comanche. In Ethan's mind, being Comanche is not being human.

Ethan's hatred of the Comanche extends even beyond death. Early in the film, Ethan and his posse stumble upon a dead Comanche from the raid that killed his brother Aaron and his family.

As Scorsese has pointed out, Ethan is not content to let the dead Comanche rest in peace. He must make sure this dead Indian wanders and suffers forever. The satisfaction in his face as he shoots out the dead man's eyes is disturbing, and Ethan's comrades, particularly Reverend Clayton, don't take too kindly to it.

The name he gives Martin at the end of that scene ("blankethead") is also a manifestation of his racism. Martin is part Native American, and Ethan spends most of the film denying Martin as his kin - despite being raised by Ethan's brother as a son.

With Ethan's demeanor, Ford wrestles with the truth that both the settlers and Native Americans could be both noble and cruel - a fact of our own sin nature. There is no "noble savage" here, nor is there a wholesome settler, either. Even the settler women like Laurie Jorgensen (Vera Miles) exhibit racist tendencies, like when she told Martin that Debbie's mother would have wanted Ethan to kill Debbie after she had been with the Comanche for so long.

Granted that the Comanche, particularly the chief Scar, are indeed awful in their treatment of the settlers, and there is no justification for the violence against the women and children. However, both Scar and Ethan share their penchant for revenge. Scar's entire reason for raiding the Edwards homestead and murdering Ethan's kin was vengeance for the deaths of his sons. It's a terrible cycle of violence that will not end until one or both of them are dead.

John-Wayne-in-The-Searchers"A man will search his heart and soul, go searchin' way out there. His peace of mind he know's he'll find. But where, of Lord, Lord where?"

Ethan's quest for hate and revenge is one of the finest cinematic examples of what such feelings to do one's soul, as well as the physical consequences.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) review

One of the things I love about the Western genre is that it is the only genre to which America can really hold claim. There were of course, non-American efforts in this genre; I myself after all have long championed the films of Sergio Leone and several other Spaghetti Western filmmakers. But at its very core, the genre is American and therefore speaks to America and the American experience in a way no other genre really can. Such is the case with The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, a film that may rank in my estimation to be the very best American Western ever made and a film that speaks profoundly on many subjects, most notably the tendency to mythicize the American Old West, both in history, but particularly on film and also on the very nature on the rise of the liberal American order. The film is also astonishingly well-made and stands as a monument to John Ford and the Western genre he helped create, but at the same time is able to look back honestly at both and see a good deal of mythmaking. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance tells the story of Ranson Stoddard (Jimmy Stewart), a United States Senator who returns to the town of Shinbone in a unnamed Western state to attend the funeral of Tom Doniphon (John Wayne), a local rancher.

The local media is intrigued as to why such a prominent man is traveling so far to attend the funeral of what they see as an unimportant rancher. In flashback however, Ranson tells the story of back when he was a young lawyer from back east and Shinbone was a small dot of a town in a United States territory, rather than in a state. He comes to the town to discover that it is under the grip of a ruthless outlaw named Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin) and his gang. Ranson wants Liberty Valance to be arrested, but Tom reminds him that unlike in the East, in small towns in the territories, the law is useless and thus a man must learn to defend himself, and advises Ranson to bring a gun. It is an idea that Ranson balks at, seeing that law, order, and education must prevail against frontier violence, though he does eventually comply. And living up to these values, Ranson opens up a school to increase the education standards of the town and even begins to work to get statehood for the territory. While working to gain statehood, Liberty Valance and his gang begin to become even more ruthless, an event that cumulates in one night when Liberty Valance begins to threaten Ranson and Ranson shoots him in self-defense. But as it turns out, it was not Ranson, but Tom to shot Liberty. Tom though opts to tell no one, save for Ranson himself, and advises him to do the same. Ranson thus can be known as "The man who shot Liberty Valance" and using his newfound fame, is the overwhelming favorite to be shoes for the delegation for statehood, which he is eventually able to use as a jumping off point for a long career in the United States Senate. The movie then flashes forward in time, where, upon learning the truth, the local media rips up the story and refuses to publish it, because, as the newspaper man says, "This is the West sir, when legend become fact, print the legend."

As just purely an exercise in filmmaking, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is remarkable. The acting is great, from both the leads and the supporting cast. John Ford's signature directorial style is very pronounced in this, and the film just simply looks great. The film also boasts a highly intelligent script from James Warner Bellah and Willis Goldbeck. It has all the elements therefore, of a film that is at least good on a technical level. But there is more going on here than this, and because if this, the film is able to become something more, transcending into the best Western ever made by an American and what might be not only the best statement on the nature of the Western both as a genre and the place of the Old West in American history, but it also serves as a critique of liberal naivety and of Great Man Theory.

What stands out immediately about The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is how it is shot. You see, the film is shot in black and white, something that was very rare for a major director such as Ford working with major actors to do in 1962. By shooting the film in black and white, Ford harkens back to an earlier film he made with Wayne, Stagecoach from 1939. Now in addition to being one of the great Westerns, Stagecoach is historically important as it was not only the film to put Wayne on the map as a major star, it was also the film that transformed the Western into an art, as before the genre was considered a cheap and disreputable genre made for the entertainment of the masses. With Stagecoach and his other films, Ford was able to more than any other single man, even the great Howard Hawks, to codify how Americans viewed the Old West. With The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance however, Ford takes a look at the myth he helped create and conclude that yes, it is a myth as the actual history of the Old West is far more complicated. It is also interesting to note that this film was made in 1962, just as the Western genre was going through some significant changes. After being an easy way to print money for years, the genre was beginning to decline in popularity, at least in the Unites States. And while the genre would enjoy a resurgence in popularity in the coming years, the genre would look far different. Two years later, a young Italian director named Sergio Leone would make A Fistful of Dollars, a film that would reimagine the Western hero in far more cynical amoral terms. The other Spaghetti Westerns would largely follow suit, and these films along with the homegrown Revisionist Westerns of the same period would completely uproot the genre from its John Ford/ John Wayne foundation and establish a far bleaker view of the American West. The film also, though perhaps unintentionally represents the end of the old era and beginning of the new era through its casting. On one side, the film stars Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne, two of the biggest stars of the old Hollywood, and on the other side is Lee Marvin, a major star to be in the 1960's and 1970's and would represent a new kind of Action star by eschewing the more traditional morality of Stewart and Wayne. Much like a lot of other aspects of the culture, the American film industry was at a crossroads in 1962 and this film perfectly captures that moment.

Connecting to this, the film also examines how the Old West works in the context of American culture and American history. As mentioned before, the Western is the only genre Americans can really claim as their own and as such the Old West as well plays an important role in American identity. But that version of the Old West that Americans have latched onto, a view that was even more pronounced in 1962 than in 2016 where the atrocities that were committed in the Old West are now more widely known. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance though understands this to be a myth, but it does not stop here. For many movies, the idea of the American Old West as seen in films such as Stagecoach would be conflated with the idea that the myth is false and has no value. But perhaps because it was directed by a man who helped to establish that myth, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance does not do this, instead it understands that while the myth of the American Old West is not literally true, it is profoundly true in that it gave the young American nation an identity and gave generations of people morals to which they could inspire. Just as Ranson Stoddard did not really kill Liberty Valance, so to was most of what made up the myth of the American West did not really happen, but Stoddard's supposed act inspired his neighbors to move forward towards statehood and the myth of the American Old West served to give America a firm foundation in the world. This is not to say that the atrocities against the native, American Indian population among other things should be whitewashed, far from it and recognizing this is also an important part of maturity, but it does mean that this myth, like all great myths has a value that cannot be tossed out just because it is not literally true of the heroes of this myth did not live up to the morals we would have liked them too, the myth is far too important to do that.

And connecting to this, the film also serves as a critique of liberal nativity and recognizes that as much as it does not want to admit it, the liberal order has been made by illiberal events. For Ranson Stoddard, men like Liberty Valance can be beat by law and order and education is an important tool that by itself can enact positive social change. For Tom however, the reality of life in a town such as Shinbone men like Liberty Valance must be challenged with frontier violence and education is limited in its ability to enact positive social change. In a very real way then, Ranson represents the emerging liberal order in the West with its focus on progress, law, and education while Tom represents the older value system of Spartan living and a resistance, or at very least apprehension to change. And indeed at the end of the film, Ranson's view wins out as the town becomes better educated, becomes part of a state, and also enjoys all the material and social progress associated with the emerging Western United States. But while all of these things are good, this is ultimately based on an illiberal event, the extrajudicial killing of Liberty Valance. Thus as much as liberals may not want to admit it, the world view that they have championed, has been made possible by a series of illiberal events and thus the pure focus on education will not do. But here is the rub, in many respects, it is good for people to believe in these things, it is good for the vast majority of the population to see education as a positive good and to put the punishment of criminals in the hands of the legal system rather than dish out punishment on their own.

Seinfield | 9.0

I caught a few episodes of Seinfeld over it's final two seasons run on public channel, and made it a point to catch a lot more of Jerry and friends during it's reruns. I found it very amusing on first viewings, but as time wore on, I began to like it more and more, and to eagerly borrow taped episodes from friends, and to hunt for re-runs on syndicated channels.

Of the two comedy TV series in the history of television, I would choose both Seinfeld and Monty Python as the cultural landmarks of the medium. In Seinfeld, there is not a trace of sentimentality and glib moralizing that plagues the American sitcom genre. Characters do not hug each other on Christmas, fall in love, wax on and on about family and friends, there is no faux-cathartic season ender so favored by the writers of, say, "Friends".

Instead, we have the narcissistic Jerry, constantly mining the minutiae of everyday detail for every bit of situational comedy; we have the hyper-aggressive Elaine, whose strings of breakups with boyfriends are as impressive as her petty neuroses leading up to the breakups themselves; the ultimate schlub-loser George, who lies to every single woman he dates, sells faulty equipment to the handicapped and muscles off women and children when fleeing an apartment fire; and the impossibly inventive physical comedy of the entrepreneur cum schmooze Kramer.

Over and over again, week in and week out, the quartet discuss trivialities with unbridled zeal, as the non-descript narrative pings from one mundane setting to another. Seldom has such wit been generated by such gargantually pointless human endeavors. That is where the brilliance of Seinfeld lies, in the ability to go to the most bizarre ends to fulfill the potential of a less than hopeful comedic premise; and the endless, pointlessly smug and nihilistic banter that almost invariably escalates into some of TV's classic lines, such as when George shouts triumphantly after winning an argument that "there is no bigger loser than me!".