About the Documentary: “The Assassin and Mrs. Paine”

I just finished watching the 2022 documentary, "The Assassin and Mrs. Paine," at the suggestion 0f Matt Orfalea.

I also recommend this well-crafted documentary. That said, every time I revisit the facts around Kennedy's assassination it feels like a kick in the stomach. The bits and pieces that we know do not add up to the official narrative. And, as mentioned in the film, why is the U.S. government still withholding thousands of records from the public, even though the release of all remaining documents should have been made public  in 2017 under a 1992 law? It's been more than 60 years since the murder of a U.S. President, yet one or more people still have significant political power, as well as the incentive and the ability, to keep this compelling information from the public. The official narrative has dozens of holes you could drive a truck through. This film carefully explores many of those holes, suggesting disturbing answers along the way.

My gut tells me that sweet old Ruth Paine knows a hell of a lot more than she's currently admitting. If so, however, why was she willing to sit and talk with the film-maker at length in 2022? Because she is still on the clock? Because it is her job to maintain the narrative (for the same reasons that thousands of records remain secret?). Or was she duped many years ago and needs to maintain the narrative for self-preservation?  Maybe many of us would prefer that the murder be committed by one madman rather than acknowledge that a coup of the U.S. government happened in plain daylight, given a enormous assist by the Warren Commission, one member being Allen Dulles, who Kennedy fired as CIA Director in 1961 following the failed Bay of Pigs  mission. As Philadelphia lawyer Vince Salandria, an fervent critic of the official narrative stated, You can’t close the circle without the Paines. There is no way they can be innocent. No way.”

At the end of the film, he added:

There is no mystery here. It’s all self-evident. It was a coup. It was designed to be a false mystery and the debate would be eternal and why it [killing JFK] was done – forgotten. To commit yourself to the truth here, you are changing your real identity from a citizen of a democracy to a subject of a military empire. A big step.

Here's one other mini-spoiler: One woman who was interviewed in the film said that right after Kennedy was assassinated, she called her sister, a fifth grade teacher in Texas. Her sister told her that immediately after the class learned that Kennedy was assassinated, the students cheered because they considered Kennedy to be a communist. I had never heard anything like this before.

Continue ReadingAbout the Documentary: “The Assassin and Mrs. Paine”

Worst movie of all time?

For many years, I was under the impression that the 1959 film, "Plan 9 from Outer Space," was the worst movie of all time.  It is very good at being bad: But I was just introduced to "Turkish Star Wars," a move with Spanish subtitles. I don't know anything about whether this movie ever hit the big screen anywhere, but it is quite entertaining for its many failures. It's difficult to think of any aspect of film-making that this movie doesn't fail at.  From Wikipedia:

Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam (The Man Who Saved the World) is a 1982 Turkish science fantasy adventure film also known as Turkish Star Warsbecause of its notorious use of unauthorized footage from Star Wars and other movies worked into the film.

Upon its initial release, the film was panned by critics for its incoherent storyline, poor performances, and use of stock footage and music from other films.

Despite this (or possibly due to this), the film has gained a significant cult following over the years. Louis Proyect of Rec Arts Movie Reviews called the film "classic midnight movie fun."[2] Phil Hall of Film Threat gave the film a perfect 5 stars, calling it "jaw-droppingly insane ... a film that makes criticism moot."

Here is "Turkish Star Wars" in its entirety:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4441&v=arpH88Mx3z4

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Invisible war victims

Glenn Greenwald writes the following as part of his article on an upcoming film titled "Dirty Wars."

The most propagandistic aspect of the US War on Terror has been, and remains, that its victims are rendered invisible and voiceless. They are almost never named by newspapers. They and their surviving family members are virtually never heard from on television. The Bush and Obama DOJs have collaborated with federal judges to ensure that even those who everyone admits are completely innocent have no access to American courts and thus no means of having their stories heard or their rights vindicated. Radical secrecy theories and escalating attacks on whistleblowers push these victims further into the dark. It is the ultimate tactic of Othering: concealing their humanity, enabling their dehumanization, by simply relegating them to nonexistence.
The following excerpt is from the website of "Dirty Wars."
As [Investigative Reporter] Scahill digs deeper into the activities of JSOC, he is pulled into a world of covert operations unknown to the public and carried out across the globe by men who do not exist on paper and will never appear before Congress. In military jargon, JSOC teams “find, fix, and finish” their targets, who are selected through a secret process. No target is off limits for the “kill list,” including U.S. citizens. Drawn into the stories and lives of the people he meets along the way, Scahill is forced to confront the painful consequences of a war spinning out of control, as well as his own role as a journalist.

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Creating a film in two days

The 48-Hour Film Project is a challenge to make a 4 to 7 minute film in only 48 hours, including writing the script, shooting the scenes and all editing the film, including the creation of a musical score. Very ambitious and intense. The competing teams each submit films which are viewed and graded by judges. In 2011, a friend of mine, Jon Abrahams, was part of the team that won not only the local competition, but the international competition, with a film called "In Captivity." His team's film was featured in this Youtube introduction to the 2012 competition. Also featured here is an interview of Jon. This looks like a blast--I'd love to try it someday.

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Same and different people

A friend of mine sometimes mentioned a thought that he considered disturbing: If you could rise up high enough into the air, human beings would all started looking the same, like a bunch of ants. One consequence of this perspective is that particular humans would seem expendable and replaceable. Personally, I vacillated between thinking that human animals are exquisitely different from each other or disturbingly the same. Along came Donald Brown to convince me that we are deluded to think that people are meaningfully different from each other. Last night my wife and I watched an unusual video that, to me, reinforced this idea that humans everywhere are largely the same. The video is title "Life in a Day," and it was produced by National Geographic. Imagine 4,500 hours of video all all shot on the same day, edited down to 94 minutes. Here is a description of the project at the site where you can view the entire video:

Director Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland) and producer Ridley Scott (Alien, Gladiator) team up to offer this candid snapshot of a single day on planet Earth. Compiled from over 80,000 YouTube submissions by contributors in 192 countries, Life in a Day presents a microcosmic view of our daily experiences as a global society. From the mundane to the profound, everything has its place as we spend 90 minutes gaining greater insight into the lives of people who may be more like us than we ever suspected, despite the fact that we're separated by incredible distances.
This is a compelling video that I recommend. It reminded me that most of what I think of as "happening" are the images and sounds I personally experience. For the most part, I don't know what in the world is going on. While I live my life, and it seem important to me, 7 billion other people are living lives that they consider equally important. The video is a terrific reminder that we are each only a tiny part of a much bigger whole.

Continue ReadingSame and different people