Open thread 11/16/22
Was Christopher Lloyd’s character in “Back to the Future” meant to be a comic version of this Mad Scientist? “Metropolis,” circa 1927:
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
Was Christopher Lloyd’s character in “Back to the Future” meant to be a comic version of this Mad Scientist? “Metropolis,” circa 1927:
I never noticed it before, but Fritz Lang was obviously inspired by Madonna.
Truly a director ahead of his time.
(Thanks for enabling that connection to be made…)
And a bit of Irwin Corey.
I always viewed his character as a reincarnation of Jim Ignatowski.
Donald J. Trump in 2020 and 2024 is the price paid (and to be paid) for Donald J. Trump in 2016. Too early to decide the benefit/cost. Only time will tell. Sigh.
If Steven Spielberg didn’t rip off Doc Brown from this movie; I’ll at least point out how much the robot looks like the original concept art for C3PO. Alas, that’s not really news.
I believe that there’s just too many swing voters who will just never vote for Trump no matter how awful the alternatives may be. They may vote for some other Republican, but not Trump.
Did Einstein grow into that wild-haired look?
Great analogy from Victor Davis Hanson in today’s, New York Post: ( https://nypost.com/2022/11/15/will-trump-ride-off-into-the-sunset-or-play-the-broken-hero/?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=NYPOpinionTwitter&utm_medium=SocialFlow )
Nice music added to the Metropolis scene.
I suspect that the “thermal bandages” costume for the Leeloo character in The Fifth Element is an homage to the metal bands in Metropolis. (At 1:55)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gy9vAdZvLh8
When I first saw Fritz Lang’s “The Big Heat” I didn’t care for it much, probably because I was thinking of “The Big Sleep.” The latter has a complex mystery of a plot, the Lang film doesn’t at all. But the character development in The Big Heat is terrific. It’s one of my favorites now.
The VDH article is quite good. As always, VDH puts everything into a historical context. He reminds us of the nature of heroic, but tragic figures that date back to Greece. Human nature remains the same, and the Greeks had a lot to teach on the subject. Too bad it’s now considered a racist topic in schools and higher ed.
Dumbing down education is all part of the plan.
i would say dolores from west world, is the direct descendant of maria, I caught metropolis on the october bloc of tcm, knowing evan rachel wood’s haunted back story, one can see why she is the avenging angel in the series,
the late donald kagan showed me how thucydides excused all of pericles foibles and foisted the disastrous course of the pelopennese on cleon and alcibiades,
trapped inside platos cave
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/target-suffers-400-million-losses-organized-crime-gangs-loot-stores
Well, Alcibiades was a bit flexible in who he served. Things didn’t work out too well for his Syracuse campaign.
ridley scott turned blade runner into a noir because ‘electric sleep’ was literally unfilmable, sean young in her veronica lake get up, perhaps claire trevor, was in ‘the more human than human’ vein, now in 2022, were certainly in the converse,
you have ostensible people who cannot reason, cannot discern their own self interests, nor that of their neighbors, that has to be some form of devolution,
I wonder if history will be kinder to Trump than our contempory viewpoints. Has history been kinder to Andrew Jackson than people of his time were?
they despise jefferson who recognized liberty, what do you think,
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/11/16/nolte-nbc-report-says-body-cam-footage-contradicts-doj-narrative-in-paul-pelosi-case/
oh sorry about that,
https://www.westernjournal.com/right-wapo-quietly-admits-truth-trumps-documents-election/?ff_source=site&ff_medium=aggregator10&ff_campaign=can
“Republicans have been quick to point fingers at former President Donald Trump for the particularly poor performance of Republicans in the Senate races.”
“Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, however, has specifically named Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell as the reason for Republican failure to win the upper chamber.”
“According to The Daily Caller, Cruz unapologetically stated on Monday’s episode of his podcast “Verdict with Ted Cruz” that McConnell’s “indefensible” abandonment of Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters is what kept Republicans from recapturing the Senate.”
https://www.westernjournal.com/cruz-lays-blame-senate-stumble-feet-1-man-isnt-trump-mad-cant-even-see-straight/#insticator-commenting
Newt Gingrich on Laura Ingrahm’s show last night also blamed McConnell for the poor midterm perfomance.
and yet only 10 senators voted against, failure theatre writ large,
“Newt Gingrich on Laura Ingrahm’s show last night also blamed McConnell for the poor midterm perfomance.”
And yet McConnell retains his GOP leadership…vote 37 y, 10n. The uniparty wins again.
How does one fight against both the Democrats and the GOPe? A solid wall of corruption. Again, we aren’t voting our way out of this. But I have no idea of how to tackle this problem that is destroying the country.
physicsguy:
I don’t buy this “uniparty” thing. There are plenty of conservative GOP senators who want McConnell out. However – and this is important – they don’t constitute a majority. If they did, and (this is also important) there was someone willing to take the leadership role, McConnell would be out. Apparently Scott volunteered to be the latter, but McConnell’s supporters were more numerous because, as I said, conservatives are not the majority on the GOP side of the Senate.
The party is not unitary however, much less united with the left. I have gotten very tired of people saying it is and I think it’s also counterproductive to keep saying it. However, McConnell and his supporters are certainly closer to the left than the conservatives are. The way to change that is to vote for conservatives. The problem is that it doesn’t happen to the extent necessary to get enough conservatives in there to get rid of someone like McConnell. This is in part, of course, because of money, but it’s not solely money. But McConnell has the power and the money, which makes him hard to unseat.
The vote counts may be corrupt, but money matters too. Most GOP Senate candidates who lost were out spent by a lot. It matters in getting the message out and countering smears. We’re getting a government bought by big money interests.
There are at least 70 million people in this country that support the GOP. If each sent only$10 dollars to the national GOP, that would be $700 million for Republican campaigns. If the average was $100 per person, it would be enough to nearly match the Democrats. It’s claimed the Democrats spent over $10 billion on this election.
Also, the money needs to be spent where it can make a difference. Clearly, McConnell opted to spend money where it didn’t matter. McConnell’s not all bad. He has helped us get a lot of conservative judges on the courts and he blocked Garland’s appointment – a worthy feat. IMO, he’s too much rooted in the past, and willing to accept being the “loyal opposition.” Kentuckians need to replace him when the time comes. Will that happen? I have no idea.
MAGA, just like the Tea Party was, is a voting bloc in the Republican Party. The Party itself is still influenced/controlled by the donors, and McConnell knows where the money is.
We could start our own party, ala Reform Party, but we know how that ends. That was suggested many times in 2015. MAGA is trying to assume control of the Republican Party– and the old guard isn’t having any of that.
McConnell hoped to defeat as many MAGA candidates as possible– some defeated themselves, and some were insulted (not good candidates) and some were starved of dollars.
The GOPe is OK with conservatives fighting for social issues– but they don’t like nationalistic populism.
I thought there would be more than 10, but that just shows what an uphill battle MAGA supporters face.
The issues have changed, but the fight goes on since the time of Goldwater.
DHS Secretary Mayorkas told Congress that the border is secure and they’re working to make it more secure.
How could he tell such a boldfaced lie?
Because secure means something entirely different to someone who doesn’t believe in borders. Someone in Congress should ask him what his definition of secure is.
TommyJay: “I suspect that the “thermal bandages” costume for the Leeloo character in The Fifth Element is an homage to the metal bands in Metropolis.” That is exactly what I thought. The set for entire reconstruction of LeeLoo scene from that movie, really. Love that movie. The Metropolis scene presented by Neo is quite fantastic, especially given the year it was filmed. And the music is wonderful.
he does an overview,
https://davidmvining.com/2022/10/15/fritz-lang-a-retrospective/
“Was Christopher Lloyd’s character in “Back to the Future” meant to be a comic version of this Mad Scientist? “Metropolis,” circa 1927?
Not sure about Chris Lloyd, but it’s real clear that John Fetterman – the newly elected dem Senator from PA., – is in fact the comic version of Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein.
no frankenstein was a wellmeaning sort
wasnt it someone here, that said one of feynman’s colleagues was the model for doc brown,
lol
https://twitter.com/robbystarbuck/status/1593009496947060736?cxt=HHwWgMDT1dDswJssAAAA
Justice is done in Waukesha, WI. The Christmas parade killer is sentenced to six consecutive life terms, with no possibility of parole, and other consecutive sentences as well. He will never leave prison.
https://thepostmillennial.com/breaking-darrell-brooks-given-6-consecutive-life-sentences-for-waukesha-christmas-parade-massacre
Kate, that’s interesting. By my figuring, that means he’ll be in prison for 1,224 years and 3 months… that’s after his first six lifetimes have elapsed.
Well, according to the article, the judge said she knew the extra sentences for non-fatal charges were superfluous, but he deserved every single year of it.
wasnt it someone here, that said one of feynman’s colleagues was the model for doc brown,
That was me mentioning Jack Sarfatti, who has been long-haired, bearded and hippie-ish, but not quite wild-haired.
I wouldn’t call Sarfatti a colleague of Feynman except to the extent they were theoretical physicists in California. I’m sure their paths crossed a few times. Feynman wasn’t above consorting with fringier figures such as Dr. John Lilly, famous for his research with dolphin communication, sensory deprivation tanks and LSD.
Sarfatti is a good model for Doc Brown. Here’s a recent YouTube wherein Sarfatti makes a Doc Brownish claim:
____________________________
Theoretical physicist Jack Sarfatti believes that if we construct the optimal metamaterials, TicTac UFOs can be easily reverse-engineered within our lifetime.
–“Metamaterials & TicTac UFO Construction • Jack Sarfatti”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0wLOTSZ8h0
____________________________
I’m in!
Trump for Secretary of State
“…Sondland (Ambassador to the EU) broke character by saying something nice about the man who he plotted to overthrow as president.
The former ambassador said, “Whether you like or don’t like President Trump, he fundamentally changed the way that diplomacy is conducted at the presidential level. He cut out a lot of the process.
“He would pick up the phone all the time and call a foreign leader and just riff with them the way you ‘What are you doing? What’s going on? What can we work on together? What can I do for you? And, more importantly, what are you going to do for us?’
“It really upset the bureaucracy because they didn’t have a role in that — ‘The president called who? Said what? Why weren’t we involved? Why didn’t we do a briefing on that?’ He broke all of the norms, and now I think you’re going to see presidents on both sides of the aisle taking a page from that playbook.””
How could President Trump just call these folks? Because he knew a lot of them before he became president.
https://donsurber.blogspot.com/2022/11/trump-changed-diplomacy-for-better.html#more
Here’s a site which provides a cite for the Sarfatti-Doc Brown claim:
_________________________
Jack was the basis of the memorable time-travelling Dr. Emmett Brown in the Back to the Future trilogy. He is also working on the connection of the warp drive physics of flying saucers to the new cosmology observations of anti-gravity “dark energy”
https://www.altpropulsion.com/people/jack-sarfatti/
I just started “Metropolis” a few nights ago. How I miss the old B&W films.
I was derailed from “Metropolis” by watching “The Train” (1964) directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Burt Lancaster. It’s the end of WW II. The Nazis are about to be driven out of Paris. so they decide to ship modern masterpiece paintings out of France to Germany … except our plucky Resistance heroes are determined to keep the art train in France.
‘
Great story and I was sure noticing Lancaster’s athletic ability to scale walls, climb buildings and run like hell as necessary.
But what really stood out was the striking B&W cinematography. Those amazing stark compositions, the big foreground-background faces, the beads of sweat detail.
“The Train” is one of the last great B&W films, aside from “Young Frankenstein,” which BTW drew liberally from “Metropolis” and the Frankenstein movies (also influenced by “Metropolis.”)
Neo: You use the term uniparty in a novel way. The usual definition are those parts of both the Democrats and Republicans whose only true allegiance is to the DC Swamp, and play act for the base to get votes and donations.
So it’s very strange to complain that someone is talking about McConnell and his followers as uniparty… only to explain that no, really, they’re uniparty.
Or maybe I’m the one who’s always misunderstood the term, and I’ve consequently misread the folks using it.
Boobah:
I don’t think the way I use it is novel at all. I’ve seen person after person, sometimes here but especially elsewhere, writing that there’s no difference between the Republicans and Democrats because they are a UNIPARTY. One party, the same party under the skin, with the same aims, Republicans in cahoots with Democrats, Republicans not wanting to win, etc. etc.. It is almost always said about the party, not about individuals. Yes, some people criticize McConnell – I have certainly criticized him. But that is criticism for him as an individual, or for people like Graham or certain others labeled RINOs or members of the GOPe as opposed to the rest of the GOP, the more conservative wing like Cruz.
A uniparty is a party, not a section of a party, and the uniparty is DemocratsRepublicans combined into one. Very often people who call it a uniparty say that they refuse to vote for that reason.
I don’t know what you’ve been reading, but that’s what I’ve been reading for close to two decades.
Nor do I think someone like McConnell is exactly like a Democrat, in league with Democrats entirely. He is into money and influence and his own power, and isn’t especially conservative, but he’s not a leftist. Not even he is a member of a uniparty.
I will point out that this look has been a standard trope for “Mad Scientists” for decades.
Think of the old Frankenstein movie, as well as Gene Wilder shouting, “It’s ALIVE!! IT’S ALIVE!!!” in Young Frankenstein.
We don’t seem to be unified on the definition of the Uniparty, so can we just go back to labeling some GOP members of the Congress “Republican In Name Only”?
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/11/16/112-senate-republicans-vote-with-democrats-for-far-left-respect-for-marriage-act/
The respect is for LGBTQ+ marriages, in case you were wondering.
“The 12 Republicans who voted for the bill include Sens. Roy Blunt (R-MO), Richard Burr (R-NC), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Susan Collins (R-ME), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Rob Portman (R-OH), Mitt Romney (R-UT), Dan Sullivan (R-AK), Thom Tillis (R-NC), and Todd Young (R-IN).”
Forgot this paragraph from the Breitbart post:
“The advancement of RFMA is yet another instance of Senate Republicans providing the votes needed to pass overreaching Democrat legislation, which includes broad-sweeping bills concerning gun control and infrastructure.”
Maybe Trump got on the phone to other leaders of nations – bypassing the State Dept – because he knows those that populate the bureaucracy are useless, they are simply failures.
They exist and strive to travel, stay in fancy hotels, hobnob with other useless bureaucrats of other nations, enjoy fancy meals, etc. , all the while accomplishing not one F’n thing, other than earning credits towards their pensions.
If 85% of all Federal agencies were abolished, no one would miss them. In fact, life would be a lot less complicated for everyone.
AesopFan, we just replaced the retiring Richard Burr with an actual conservative, Ted Budd, so there’s one. Tillis infuriates me regularly. We need to find a conservative who can beat him next time. He was challenged the last time, but found something so nasty in the guy’s past that he managed to strangle the campaign. We voted for him in the general election because the Dem was much worse than Tillis; even then, Tillis only won because of the Dem’s sex scandal.