When Comic Book Super-Heroes Saved Us From Edge City, Batman To The Rescue- The Scum Also Rises-Christian Bale’s Dark Knight Rises-(2012) –A Film Review

When Comic Book Super-Heroes Saved Us From Edge City, Batman To The Rescue- The Scum Also Rises-Christian Bale’s Dark Knight Rises-(2012) –A Film Review

DVD Review 

By Leslie Dumont

Dark Knight Rises, starring Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Gary Oldman, 2012      

[I noted in a recent thumbs down film review of Joan Crawford and Clark Gable’s 1933 Dancing Girl which really turned out to be just a freebie chance to get a lot of stuff off my shoulders since the film itself took about thirty seconds to pan about what had been going on around this publication in the short time I have been here. Here as a result of it turns out a serious decision by new site manager Greg Green to change things around, to get young women, younger everything if not yet more widespread racial and ethnic diversity which the times and American social demographics cry out writing major pieces rather than the old standard stringer role that went on here for years. I have heard, mostly around the water cooler and mostly from Seth Garth who has become something of a mentor to me, that some of the older white writers have not been happy with this new regime, especially one Sam Lowell who I am now locking horns with over what is really the direction of the publication.

Frankly Greg has been all over the place trying new ideas, some working and some even to a novice like me just out of journalism grad school kind of crazy. I will give an example because it directly affects how I wound up doing this review of one of the endless DC Comics Batman sagas that has hit the cinemas. Greg, trying to assert his authority as new site manager, after what appears to have been an all-out bloodless blood-bath to remove former chief Allan Jackson who I really want to talk more about since it turned out he was “resurrected” or according to Seth who was involved in radical politics back in the 1960s with Allan “rehabilitated” to do the successful encore of The Roots Is The Toots series had the “bright” idea to have the older writers broaden their horizons by reviewing various Marvel/DC Comic films. That set of assignments set up a firestorm among the older guys who could not possibility sit through such fare much less understand why hard-working parents are forced to refinance their homes to get tickets, deadly soda and inane popcorn for their loving off-spring under penalty of insurrection-or worse.         

I freely admit I hope that the thing would fizzle giving me a chance to do my thing with fresher eyes and with a less draconian view of such films since they were a staple of one of my journalism classes- The Rise of The Blockbuster. As such thing were bound to do the older writers got squirrelly about things and so Will Bradley, Maura Mason, Lenny Grace and I think a couple of others, younger writers all got the assignments. But that is not the end of the story although I have already detailed my “dispute” with Sam Lowell in that last review mentioned above when he connived to get a prestige assignment away from me and under Seth Garth’s guidance and mentorship screamed to high heavens and got a couple of series of my own including the superhero comics work. Work that I will like Sam did to me on that prestige series rewrite what others have written in the interest of completeness. Since this one got lost in the turnover I will start with the last saga of the Dark Knight trilogy. Sarah Lemoyne]     

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There is a lot the average reader of film reviews, probably reviews of any kind at least professional reviews about what goes on behind the scenes in the selection, assignment and use of the editorial fist. Some of it is generic to any organization but other things are subject to the whims of whoever is in charge. The play of say the New York Review of Books which goes for high-brow twisting reviews is very different from the cloisters of the American Film Gazette which in its long history has reviewed virtually every Hollywood and foreign film ever made in its nearly seventy-five year existence. That who is in charge, who is in charge here is my first point and for a reason having nothing to do with this yet another super-hero comic book come to cinema Dark Knight Rises which frankly I thought had been abandoned once the site manager, the guy who shapes and gives out the assignments here, heard loud and clear from us peon writers that the mass audience for this stuff does not, I emphasize, does not read film reviews in exotic flower publications filled with plenty of other stuff they could care less about.

Greg Green, the guy who shapes the contours of what gets into the public prints here after a grueling internal battle in 2017 before I signed on thought, I believe in order to quell the disquiet after that battle, to solidify his new position and create his own brand, or maybe all of the above that reviewers should feel free, without recrimination, to what old leftie the wizened and somewhat senile Sam Lowell has called “fire on the party headquarters” meaning a reviewer can, if she or he so chooses, go beyond the scope of the review and let readers get an insight glimpse of what goes on in section of the publishing world. I have taken that liberty here and without recrimination since it has seen the light of day. More ominous thought, my second point stab, is why after all of the anguish and gnashing of teeth by serious writers here are we going back to reviewing this kids’ stuff, this comic book madness. That is where the whims and whatever other fluff is going on in an editor’s head comes into play. Greg although he acquiesced ready did believe that action-packed films, above all comic book super-heroes were the wave of the future.

He suffered in silence for a while apparently but once Black Panther came out and he saw the gross ticket receipts he did a big backslide. He called it “in the interest of completeness,” meaning that we collectively had not reviewed every possible film in the genre. So here I am, woe is me, doing hard time going on and on about what mind-numbing stuff I have to review. I had to laugh when in a recent review of one of the million 007 James Bond films, another Greg Green pet project, Seth Garth brought back to memory the old days in the industry when we got paid by the word and he, I, would when we were lowly stringers trying not to starve “pad” our reviews with plenty of stuff which had not much to do with the film and hope to not get edited too badly. Now I have to write this extraneous stuff for a flat fee. And I do so here.     

This Superman, no, Batman long drawn out film is the long- expected sequel to the first one in this series. Stay with me on this since Batman like his buddy Superman has had various reincarnations depending on a generation’s take on what will play, or at least some half-baked Hollywood screenwriter’s idea of what will play, beyond the bang-bang action a minute pace expected of these things. In the first film Batman had taken the sword over the death of some do-gooder D.A. who harbored evil thoughts although he had nothing to do with that good guy turned bad guy’s demise. Except it allowed him, Bruce Wayne, Batman’s alter ego, to hibernate in some isolated splendor out on mansion row and not worry about scumbags and creeps returning to fair Gotham (the sky line of which looked amazing like, ah, New York City), to wreak havoc and turn the place into a cesspool of drugs, prostitution, gambling, shady deals and endless corruption-again. A thankless task.  

Maybe someday we will reduce the scumbag and creep population to manageable size but for now every crazy monomaniac with some dough and manpower sees such places as Western Civilization urban areas as fair game, as merely a subject for spoils. Enter one hellish brute Bane and his underground, literally underground, army ready to reduce Gotham to their playground. This guy is relentless, tough and unlike others who have tried to make an end run on the town had a plan, a plan beyond total devastation if he does not get his way. So once word gets up to Mansion Row Batman has the old flame lighted under his ass to save “his” city once again. Save with the sometimes help, sometimes unhelpfulness of Cat Woman, played by fetching Anne Hathaway breaking the mold of her girl next door looks who has her own agenda, has her own rock to get out from under.

Like I said this Bane really was a piece of work, really had his stuff together despite wearing a weird semi-mask to alleviate ancient wounds. As the battled ensues on the first go-round Batman shows some rust after that long hiatus and loses the round, is taken prisoner never to be seen again. At least that is what Bane had thought. Once Bane and crew take some action which includes having access to a nuclear machine which can be turned into a weapon the town’s police force and its general population accept the new regime for a while. At one point the machine was in cold storage but a big- time woman environmentalist has taken charge and so despite her the damn thing was weaponized. A few resistance fighters, including Cat Woman in her better moments, pushed back until Batman escaped coming back to town looking for creeps, scumbags and glory. Push back not only against Bane and his thugs but that woman who controlled the nuclear button turned out to be something like the big guy’s lover, or friend. So chaos looms, looms as long as Batman can’t figure out how to get that freaking bomb out of Gotham City’s harms’ way.           

Bruce/Batman falls on his sword again but really only off-stage in case there is to be another sequel, the desire to make this yet another trilogy which seems to be the way these comic book adventures go. Having said all that I hope, I really hope, everybody can see what a forlorn task it is write this foolishness. I hope Greg is listening-again. Just kidding but I wanted to show that I can do insightful film panning just as well as moribund Sam Lowell, or whoever writes his stuff these days         

As The 100th Anniversary Of The Armistice Day 11/11/1918 at 11 AM Commences-Some Creative Artists Who Fought/Died/Lived Through The Nightmare That Destroyed The Flower Of European And American Youth -Ernst Kirchner

As The 100^th Anniversary Of The Armistice Day 11/11/1918 at 11 AM Commences-Some Creative Artists Who Fought/Died/Lived Through The Nightmare That Destroyed The Flower Of European And American Youth -Ernst Kirchner 

By Seth Garth

A few years ago, starting in August 2104 the 100^th anniversary of what would become World War I, I started a series about the cultural effects, some of them anyway, of the slaughter which mowed down the flower of the European youth including an amazing number of artists, poets, writers and other cultural figures. Those culturati left behind, those who survived the shellings, the trenches, the diseases, and what was then called “shell shock,” now more commonly Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) which is duly recognized, and compensated for at least in the United States by the Veterans Administration in proven cases reacted in many different ways. Mainly, the best of them, like the ordinary dog soldiers could not go back to the same old, same old, could not revive the certitudes of the pre-war Western world with it distorted sense of decorum and went to what even today seem quirky with moderns like Dada, Minimalism, the literary sparseness of Hemingway, and so on. I had my say there in a general sense but now as we are only a few months away from the 100^th anniversary of, mercifully, the armistice which effectively ended that bloodbath I want to do a retrospective of creative artistic works by those who survived the war and how those war visions got translated into their works with some commentary if the spirit moves me but this is their show-no question they earned a retrospective.

Happy, Happy Birthday Brother Frankenstein-On the 200th Anniversary Of The “Birth” of Mary Shelley’s Avenging Angel “Frankenstein”-A Comment

Happy, Happy Birthday Brother Frankenstein-On the 200^th Anniversary Of The “Birth” of Mary Shelley’s Avenging Angel “Frankenstein”-A Comment 

A link to a 200^th anniversary discussion of Mary Shelley and her “baby” Frankenstein on NPR’s On Point. 

http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2018/02/12/working-in-the-lab-late-one-night

By Lenny Lynch

We all know in the year 2018 that it is impossible to create a human being, maybe any being, out of spare stitched up human parts, and a few jolts of electricity. At least I hope everybody short of say Hannibal Lecter, Lucy Lane or some such holy goof who thought he or she could “do God’s handiwork” on the cheap, out of some “how to manual” knows the ropes enough to have figured that out. You have to go big time MIT scientist and MGH doctor routes running through DNA, RNA, genetic matching and such to do what back in the day only a scary primitive amateur guy working in some foreboding isolated mountain retreat would even dare to contemplate. Back in that 1818 day when Mary Shelley (she of the thoroughbred breeding via Earth Mother feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft and French Revolution-saturated  anarcho- philosopher William Godwin and later channeling Romantic era poet husband Percy Shelley who hung around with ill-fated heroic Lord Byron and that crowd ) wrote her iconic classis Frankenstein former idea, the stitch and sew part, seemed pretty far out on the surface and would go on to sell scads of books to titillate and disturb the sleep of fevered.  

I like the Modern Prometheus part of her title better since like I said science was pretty primitive on that count, not much better that the Greeks creation from earth’s laden clay process, about the way our brother was put together in a slapdash manner but provided an impetus to further discovery. Today where through genetic engineering we have a better understanding of science and medicine who knows what the possibilities are for good or evil. Although at times we need to treat science, maybe medicine too, like a thing from which we have to run. (Example, a very current example, running the rack on discovering everything there is to know about the atom and then have such a discovery threatening a hostage world with nuclear weapons once the night-takers latched on to the military possibilities. At that point running away from the results of the creation like cowardly Victor Frankenstein doesn’t mean a thing, not a thing.)      

Still Mary Shelley was onto something, some very worthy thoughts about human beings, about sentient and sapient beings, about where women fit into the whole scheme of things if we can at the flip of a button create life without human intervention which has already accrued to us today in marginal cases and probably would have shocked her 19^th sensibilities. A better result if humankind can make itself out of odd spare parts, a little DNA splicing here and there, that also puts a big crimp in the various ideas about God and his or her tasks once he or she becomes a sullen bystander to human endeavor. Not a bad thing not a bad thing at all. But the most beautiful part of her story is the possibility, once again, that we may get back to the Garden to retrofit that Paradise Lost that the blind revolutionary 17^th poet John Milton lost his eyesight over trying to in verse form how we lost our human grace. Yeah, tell us that we might be able to get back to the Garden. Nice choice Ms. Shelley. 

We know, or at least I know, that Frankenstein aka Modern Prometheus, has gotten a bad rap. Prometheus remember him from subtle Greek mythology and how he was able to create his brethren out of clay. Nice trick. Better, the brother did not leave humankind hanging by offering the gift of fire to move human progress at a faster clip. To keep the race from cold and hunger. Took a beating from psychopath Zeus for his lese majeste by having to roll that rock for eternity. Mister Frankenstein really has been misunderstood especially since the rise of the cinema starting from that first libelous presentation in 1931 which turned him from that misunderstood and challenged youth who was orphaned by a unfit “father” into a scary monster who made kids afraid on nighttime shadows on bedroom walls. There are a million ways that piece of bad celluloid got it wrong but if you will he remember actually learned English, despite being “born” out in the wilds of 19^th century Germany, so movie audiences could understand what he was saying. Does that sound like a monster to you? I thought not.

The bad ass in the whole caper is this dolt Victor Frankenstein, the human so-called scientist who built a thing from which he had to run like some silly schoolgirl. If the guy had the sense that God, yes God, gave geese he would not have abandoned his brethren, his avenging angel. Wouldn’t have started a string of murders for which he not his so-called “monster” was morally responsible for. Instead the dink just let the bodies stack up like a cord of wood as he let his “creation” get out of control.

On this site my fellow writer Danny Moriarty has recently taken it upon himself to smash what he has called the unearned reputation of one Lanny Lamont, aka Basil Rathbone, aka Sherlock Holmes the so-called deductive logic detective who also let innocent bodies pile up before he got a bright thought in his dope-addled head about how to stop the carnage. That Danny’s take, Danny not his real name by the way but an alias he had been forced to use to protect himself and his family who have been threatened by a bunch of hooligans who are cultist devotees and aficionados of this Lanny Lamont known as the Baker Street Irregulars.

I don’t know enough about the merits of Danny’s crusade to decide whether he too is also an avenging angel, a blessed brethren in the fight for human progress against the night-takers, against the “alternate fact” crowd. But I do know that the idea behind what he is trying to do is solid. In his case the bare knuckle blowing up of an undeserved legend. This bicentennial year of the existence our beautiful Mister Frankenstein, the Old Testament avenging angel, I am proud to defend his honor against all the abuse he has taken for far too long. That may be a tough road but so be it.         

Mary Shelley started something for us to think about on letting things get out of hand though and now we have to try to put the genie back in the bottle. 

Dearest Mommy Can’t Dance-Or Sing-Joan Crawford And Clark Gable’s “Dancing Girl” (1933)-A Film Review

Dearest Mommy Can’t Dance-Or Sing-Joan Crawford And Clark Gable’s “Dancing Girl” (1933)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Sarah Lemoyne

Dancing Girl, starring Francot Tone, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, 1933

[New Introduction-Sometimes things happen for a reason, for the fates, maybe a portent, at least that is what Seth Garth, my grandfatherly mentor here of late has told me (that “grandfatherly” put in to cut off what is becoming an ugly insinuation that there is some kind of undercurrent romance going on between us which is far from the truth as I have mentioned before but which bears repeating since this workplace has a history of older writers taking their stringers under their wings, despite age, marital status, religion or race for nefarious purposes again according to Seth). This review was supposed to appear several months ago when I first viewed it and turned in my draft review.

Somehow, between Greg Green’s undivided attention on doing the encore edition of a rock and roll series entitled The Roots Is The Toots which the previous site manager (or administrator, I think he was called but don’t quote me on that since that was before I started here), Allan Jackson put together over several years and trying to get a handle of a couple of new series this one fell through the cracks. That is important because now that the dust has settled on that rock and roll series Greg asked me to get it in shape for publication. The happens to have dove-tailed with a “dispute” I am entwined in with occasional reviewer Sam Lowell who old, senile and wizened as he is still thinks he can write reviews, if he ever did in the past which is open to question, serious question.

I have been informed, and I did the research to prove it, that Sam after he got his precious by-line had stringers, mostly Leslie Dumont before she moved on to bigger and better things and Minnie Moore who I don’t know what happened to her and Seth didn’t know either, write his reviews and pass them in and/or he used studio publicity department press releases and just chopped off the top and sent them in from whatever watering hole or backdoor hotel he was hanging out in.

In a recent review of Jessica Chastain and Idris Elba’s Molly’s Game, a good film by the way which Sam essentially panned for no other reason than hubris on this fast-paced and intricate film (and probably had his longtime companion Laura Perkins who watched it with him and liked it write the review and sent it in), he challenged my research. Not the truth of it but a couple of lame excuses about how every stringer here had in those days, all female according to Seth who admitted that his stringers were usually female as well, the hots for him and/or everybody was doing the studio press release stuff on dog day films, his expression but actually about right. I have not had time to get back to Leslie, or to check the stringer employee records or see how many times Sam “mailed it in” with studio press releases (he says a couple but who knows until we get the stats). What is interesting is that the introduction I wrote below several months ago when Sam was beginning his sabotage campaign to get the coveted Hammer Productions series from the 1950s and 1960 reads like it was written by me this week. That says it all and so I will keep it- More later I am sure-Sarah Lemoyne]          

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[In my very first film review after being hired here by site manager Greg Green I mentioned that this was my first real job in journalism and that I was going to use the introductory space to talk about myself and not go off on some tangent like some of the older writers do rather than deal with the subject at hand. Which I did. I also noted that not being wise to the various “traditions” in the profession like starting out as a stringer I had a lot to learn. Well I am here to bitch just like the older writers this time and to let one and all know that I am a quick learner once the rug has been pulled out from under me by one nasty old has-been Sam Lowell.   

The source of my wrath is centered on Sam, who is supposed to be retired and write an occasional review to let younger and fresher voices come to the fore, who let it be known to Greg Green that he was interested in doing the Hammer Production series originally assigned to me. The series that had six psychological thriller in it from the early 1960s mainly of which I had already done two which have been published here Cash On Demand and The Snorkel. It seems that as a remnant of the “good old boys” network that existed here under previous site manager Allan Jackson that older writers meaning mainly those good old boys got “first dibs” at any decent material. Sam, Judas-goat Sam by the way according to what I heard about the faction fight that led to Jackson’s demise (although he is here still puffing away at some nostalgia rock and roll thing that nobody under about sixty cares one whit about) invoked that privilege and now not only will he complete the series but will give an alternate review to the two that I did have published. That sucks.

Worse if what Leslie Dumont said is true about her time here when she was a stringer before she got that big push of a by-line at Women Today many years ago I will probably be writing the damn reviews while Sam gets on his bong pipe or whatever dope keeps him from toppling over in his dotage or runs away on some tryst with his flame Laura Perkins leaving me here to save his sorry ass. In that first introduction I was, admittedly, naïve enough to take Sam as a kindly old sot but like I said I am a fast learner, very fast. In the meantime I have this dog of a film to review about creeps I never heard of except maybe Clark Gable who my grandmother swooned over whenever his name was mentioned about a million years ago. Sarah Lemoyne]  

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My good friend Seth Garth, who has given me some good advice, told me that the 1930s and 1940s, my grandmother’s time, was the golden age of musicals, musicals based on Broadway shows or done with the music of well-known Broadway lyric and melody writers like Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, the Gershwin Brothers and Barton Lane. Those names provided by Seth since I only knew George Gershwin’s name from Porgy and Bess. He had me watch Babes On Broadway with him which he was reviewing at the time and which has since been published as an example of real talent lighting up the Great White Way with Mickey Rooney and especially Judy Garland in the top roles. I could take my cue from that film and the two others which made up the trilogy and throw in a couple of other Rooney-Garland collaborations and would have the gold standard for the genre. (Bart Webber said throw in the motherlode of Fred-Astaire and Ginger Rogers song and dance flicks and you would not be steered wrong.)

Then there is this dog of film Dancing Lady which must have been produced by lead actress Joan Crawford’s lover or she had something on him that his wife should not know about because however earnest Joan might have been she could neither sing nor dance. Especially not dance with all her flailing arms and out of synch motions which left me wondering what the heck was going on. Of course the plotline (and star power Clark) would have indicated that maybe this would be a better film than it turned out to be.  

  

I have already moaned and groaned about the poor song and dance (hell even Fred Astaire brought in probably from desperation couldn’t make dear Mommy pop) so all we have left is the story behind the story. Joan, from nowhere, meaning probably Hoboken, dreamed the big dream of being a dancing fool on the Great White Way, on Broadway but like a million other well-intentioned young women didn’t make a dent although that did not stop her, or them, from needing food and shelter. Hence, she started out down in the dumps, down in dime a dance, roller rink, burlesque where she was “discovered by a young, wealthy Mayfair swell, played by Francot Tone who didn’t want her to perform but to marry him.

They go on and on about the matter but to his frustration and her sometimes annoyance she is committed to her art. One way or another she used him to make a few contacts on the street, on the Great White Way, and thus enter Patch, played by Clark Gable, who is the primo musical director on Broadway. Needless to say they don’t get along for a while until he sees her as his savior with her dancing and singing skills. Let me tell you though old Patch is no judge of either such skills and the real deal is that at the end after finally dumping Mayfair swell boyfriend and making a smash hit on Broadway they become lovers-fade out.           

I wish I could swear in a review like Seth Garth or even Sam Lowell do when they have a stinker or something that they cannot understand or make heads nor tails out of but I am a lowly stringer working my way up the food chain as Bart Webber said he used to say when he was moving up. But probably the only way I can swear is when Sam Lowell, pretty please, asks me to do one of his Hammer Production film reviews for him. You know I will then.

From The Lenin Internet Archives- Lenin And The Fight Against Imperialist War (1914-1917)-Principles Involved in the War Issue (1916)

From The Lenin Internet Archives- Lenin And The Fight Against Imperialist War (1914-1917)-Principles Involved in the War Issue (1916)

Markin comment:

It would seem almost unnecessary to comment on Lenin’s Bolshevik positions on imperialist war, as exemplified by his analysis of the war that he actually had to fight against, World War I. Those positions reflected his understanding that with that war the nature of capitalism had changed, definitively, from a progressive step for humankind to just a squalid, never-ending struggle among “thieves” for control of the world’s resources. It would have seemed almost unnecessary to mention this, that is, for earlier leftist generations who were familiar with his various slogans centrally-“the main enemy is at home” (adapted from German revolutionary Karl Liebknecht-“not one penny, not one man for the imperialist war”- “turn the guns the other way” (toward your own rulers)-and, specific to Bolsheviks- “fight for a new workers international, the Third International” (to replace bankrupt Second International).

Now, especially after the past several anti-war rallies that I have attended, I am not sure who among the attendees is familiar with his work. With all the pacifist, stop war in general, peace now, let all men and women be brothers and sisters rhetoric ringing in my ears I have to assume not. More importantly, I do not see such slogans (or anything close to them) emblazoned on any banners lately. Thus, in a month when we of the international communist movement honor Lenin anyway (along with the aforementioned Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, the Rose of the revolution) this series will try to familiarize those who seek a better struggle against imperialist war than is being presented now with “red” anti-war positions.
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V. I. Lenin

Principles Involved in the War Issue

Published: First published in 1931 in Lenin Miscellany XVII. Written in German in December 1916. Translated from the German. Published according to the manuscript.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1964, Moscow, Volume 23, pages 152-160.
Translated: M. S. Levin, The Late Joe Fineberg and and Others
Transcription\Markup: R. Cymbala
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive 2002 (2005). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.
Other Formats: Text • README


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Swiss Left Social-Democrats are unanimous in rejecting the defence of the fatherland principle in the present war. The proletariat, at any rate its best elements, is likewise opposed to defence of the fatherland.

Hence, on this most burning issue confronting contemporary socialism in general and the Swiss Socialist Party in particular, it would appear that necessary unity has been achieved. Closer examination, however, is bound to lead us to the conclusion that it is only seeming unity.

For there is absolutely no clarity, let alone unanimity, that a declaration against defence of the fatherland places exceptionally high demands on the revolutionary consciousness and revolutionary viability of the party that makes such a declaration, providing, of course, that it is not reduced to a hollow phrase. And such a declaration does become a hollow phrase if we merely reject defence of the fatherland without being fully aware of, i.e., without appreciating, the demands implied, without realising that all propaganda, agitation, organisation, in short, the sum total of party activity must be radically changed, “regenerated” (to use Karl Liebknecht’s expression) and adapted to the supreme revolutionary tasks.

Let us carefully consider what rejection of fatherland defence implies, if we approach it as a serious political slogan that must really be carried out.

First. We call on the proletarians and the exploited of all the belligerent countries, and of all countries faced with the danger of war, to reject defence of the fatherland. We definitely know now, from the experience of several of the warring countries, what this actually implies in the present war. It implies rejection of all the foundations of modern bourgeois society, the undermining of the very roots of the modern social system, and not only in theory, not only “in general”, but in practice, directly and immediately. Is it not clear that this can be accomplished only if we go beyond the firm theoretical conviction that capitalism has fully matured for its transformation into socialism and accept the practical, direct and immediate carrying out of such transformation, i.e., the socialist revolution?

Yet that is nearly always lost sight of in discussing refusal to defend the fatherland. At best there is “theoretical” acceptance of the fact that capitalism is ripe for transformation into socialism. But immediate, radical change of all aspects of party activity in the spirit of the directly imminent socialist revolution—that is shunned!

The people, it is alleged, are not prepared for that!

But that is ridiculously inconsistent. Either, or. Either we do not proclaim immediate rejection of defence of the fatherland—or we immediately develop, or begin to develop, systematic propaganda for immediate socialist revolution. In a certain sense the “people”, of course, are “not prepared” either to reject fatherland defence or accept socialist revolution. But that does not justify two years—two years!—of procrastination and delay in starting to systematically prepare them!

Second. What is being opposed to the policy of defence of the fatherland and civil peace? Revolutionary struggle against the war, “revolutionary mass actions”, as recognised by the 1915 Aarau Party Congress resolution. No doubt a very good decision, but ... but the party’s record since that congress, the party’s actual policy, show that it has remained a paper decision.

What is the aim of revolutionary mass struggle? The party has made no official statement, nor is the question being discussed in general. It is either taken for granted, or frankly admitted, that the aim is “socialism”. Socialism is being opposed to capitalism (or imperialism).

That, however, is absolutely illogical (theoretically) and void of all practical meaning. Illogical because it is too general, too nebulous. “Socialism” in general, as an aim, as the opposite of capitalism (or imperialism), is accepted now not only by the Kautsky crowd and social—chauvinists, but by many bourgeois social politicians. However, it is no longer a matter of contrasting two social systems, but of formulating the concrete aim of the concrete “revolutionary mass struggle” against a concrete evil, namely, the present high cost of living, the present war danger or the present war.

The whole Second International of 1889–1914 opposed socialism to capitalism in general, and it was precisely this too general “generalisation” that brought on its bankruptcy. It ignored the specific evil of its age, which Frederick Engels nearly thirty years ago, on January 10, 1887, characterised in the following words:

“...a certain petty-bourgeois socialism finds representation in the Social-Democratic Party itself, and even in the ranks of the Reichstag group. This is done in the following way: while the fundamental views of modern socialism and the demand for the transformation of all the means of production into social property are recognised as justified, the realisation of this is declared possible only in the distant future, a future which for all practical purposes is quite out of sight. Thus, for the present one has to have recourse to mere social patchwork...” (The Housing Question, Preface).[1]

The concrete aim of “revolutionary mass struggle” can only be concrete measures of socialist revolution, and not “socialism” in general. The Dutch comrades have given a precise definition of these concrete measures in their programme (published in the Bulletin of the International Socialist Committee No. 3, Berne, February 29, 1916): annulment of the national debt, expropriation of the banks and big industry. When we suggest that these absolutely concrete measures be included in an official party resolution, and be systematically explained in the most popular form, in day-to-day party propaganda at public meetings, in parliamentary speeches, in legislative proposals—we get the same procrastinating, evasive and thoroughly sophistical reply that the people are not yet prepared for this, and so on and so forth!

The point is, however, that we should begin preparing them right now, and firmly stick to this work!

Third, the party has “accepted” revolutionary mass struggle. Very well. But is the party capable of waging it? Is it preparing for it? Is it studying these problems, gathering together the necessary material, setting up the proper bodies and organisations? Is it discussing the issues among the people and with the people?

Nothing of the kind! The party clings to its old line—a thoroughly parliamentarian, thoroughly trade union, thoroughly reformist and thoroughly legalistic line. The party remains manifestly incapable of facilitating the revolutionary mass struggle and leading it. It is obviously making no preparations whatever for this. The old routine rules supreme and the “new” words (rejection of fatherland defence, revolutionary mass struggle) remain mere words! And the Lefts, failing to realise this, are not mustering their forces, systematically, perseveringly and in all fields of party activity, to combat the evil.

One can only shrug one’s shoulders on reading, for in stance, the following phrase (the last) in Grimm’s theses on the war issue:

“In conjunction with trade union organisations, party bodies must in this event [i.e., the calling of a mass railway strike if there is a danger of war, etc.] take all the necessary measures.”

The theses were published in the summer, and on September 16, the Schweizerische Metallarbeiter-Zeitung,[2] issued over the names of its editors, 0. Schneeberger and K. Dürr, contained the following phrase (I was on the verge of saying, the following official reply to Grimm’s theses or pious wishes):

“...The phrase ‘the worker has no fatherland’ is in very poor taste at a time when the workers of all Europe, in their overwhelming majority, have for two years been standing shoulder to shoulder with the bourgeoisie on the battlefields against the ‘enemies’ of their fatherland, while those who remain at home want to ‘live through it’ despite all the poverty and hardship. Should we be attacked by a foreign power we shall doubtlessly see the same picture in Switzerland too!!!”

What is this if not “Kautsky” policy, the policy of the impotent phrase, Left declaration and opportunist practice, when, on the one hand, resolutions are proposed urging the party, “in conjunction with trade union organisations”, to call for revolutionary mass strikes, and, on the other, no struggle is waged against the Grütli, i.e., social-patriot, reformist and thoroughly legalistic, trend and its supporters within the party and the trade unions?

Are we “educating” the masses or corrupting and demoralising them if we fail daily to say and prove that “leading” comrades like 0. Schneeberger, K. Dürr, P. Pflüger, H. Greulich, Huber and many others hold exactly the same social-patriot views and pursue exactly the same social-patriot policy as the one Grimm so “courageously” exposes and castigates... when it concerns the Germans (in Germany) and not the Swiss? Rail against the foreigners, but protect one’s “own” “fellow-citizens”.... Is that “internationalist”? Is that “democratic”?

This is how Hermann Greulich describes the position of the Swiss workers, the crisis of Swiss socialism and also the substance of Grütli policy within the Socialist Party:

“...The standard of living has risen insignificantly and only for the top strata [hear! hear!] of the proletariat. The mass of workers continue to live in poverty, beset by worry and hardship. That is why, from time, to time, doubts arise as to the correctness of the path we have been following. The critics are looking for new paths and place special hope on more resolute action. Efforts are being made in that direction, but as a rule [?] they fail [??] and this increases the urge to revert to the old tactics [a case of the wish being father to the thought?].... And now the world war ... drastic decline in the standard of living, amounting to outright poverty for those sections which in the past still enjoyed tolerable conditions. Revolutionary sentiments are spreading. [Hear! hear!] In truth, the party leadership has not been equal to the tasks confronting it and all too often succumbs [??] to the influence of hot heads [??].... The Grütli-Verein Central Committee is committed to a ‘practical national policy’ which it wants to operate outside the party... Why has it not pursued it within the party? [Hear! hear!] Why has it nearly always left it to me to fight the ultra-radicals?” (Open Letter to the Hottingen Grütli-Verein, September 26, 1916.)

So speaks Greulich. It is not at all, therefore, a matter (as the Grütlians in the party think, and hint in the press, while the Grütlians outside the party say so openly) of a few “evil-minded foreigners” wanting, in a fit of personal impatience, to inject a revolutionary spirit into the labour movement, which they regard through “foreign spectacles”. No, it is none other than Hermann Greulich—whose political role is tantamount to that of a bourgeois Labour Minister in a small democratic republic—who tells us that only the upper strata of the workers are somewhat better off now, while the mass is steeped in poverty, and that “revolutionary sentiments are spreading” not because of the accursed foreign “instigators”, but because of “the drastic decline in the standard of living”.

And so?

And so, we shall be absolutely right if we say:

[[DOUBLE-LEFT-BOX-ENDS:
Either the Swiss people will suffer hardships that will increase with every passing week and they will be faced daily with the threat of involvement in the imperialist war, i.e., of being killed in the capitalists’ interests, or they will follow the advice of the finest part of their proletariat, muster all their forces and carry out a socialist revolution. ]]

Socialist revolution? Utopia! “A remote and practically indefinable” possibility!...

It is no more a utopia than rejection of fatherland defence in the present war or revolutionary mass struggle against it. One should not be deafened by one’s own words or frightened by the words of others. Nearly everyone is prepared to accept revolutionary struggle against the war. But one must visualise the magnitude of the task of ending the war by revolution! No, it is not a utopia. The revolution is maturing in all countries and the question now is not whether to continue to live in tranquillity and tolerable conditions, or plunge into some reckless adventure. On the contrary, the question is whether to continue to suffer hardship and be thrown into the holocaust to fight for alien interests, or to make great sacrifices for socialism, for the interests of nine-tenths of mankind.

Socialist revolution, we are told, is a utopia! The Swiss people, thank God, have no “separate” or “independent” language, but speak the three world languages of the neighbouring warring countries. It is not surprising, therefore, that they are in such close touch with developments in these countries. In Germany, things have reached a point where the economic life of 66 million people is directed from one centre. The national economy of a country of 66 million is run from this one centre. Tremendous sacrifices are imposed on the vast majority of the people in order that the “upper 30,000” can pocket thousands of millions in war profits, and that millions die in the shambles for the enrichment of these “finest and noblest” representatives of the nation. And in the fase of these facts, of this experience, is it “utopian” to believe that a small nation, with no monarchy or Junkers, with a very high level of capitalism and perhaps better organised in various unions than in any other capitalist country, will try to save itself from hunger and the danger of war by doing the very same thing that has already been practically tested in Germany? With the difference, of course, that in Germany millions are being killed and maimed to enrich a few, open the road to Baghdad, conquer the Balkans, whereas in Switzerland it is merely a matter of expropriating a maximum of 30,000 bourgeois, i.e., not condemning them to perish, but to the “horrible fate” of receiving “only” 6,000–10,000 francs income and giving the rest to the socialist workers’ government in order to ward off hunger and the war danger.

The Great Powers, however, will never tolerate a socialist Switzerland and will use their immensely superior strength to crush the socialist revolution at the very beginning!

That, undoubtedly, would be so if, first, the beginnings of a revolution in Switzerland did not generate a class movement of solidarity in neighbouring countries, and, second, if these Great Powers were not tied up in a “war of attrition” which has practically exhausted the patience of the most patient peoples. Military intervention by the mutually hostile Great Powers would, in present circumstances, only be the prelude to revolution flaring up throughout the whole of Europe.

Perhaps you think I am so naïve as to believe that such issues as socialist revolution can be resolved by “persuasion”?

No. I only wish to illustrate, and, what is more, merely one partial issue, the change that must take place in all party propaganda if we want to approach the question of rejection of fatherland defence with all the seriousness it deserves. That is only an illustration, and it concerns only one partial issue. I lay claim to no more.

It would be absolutely wrong to believe that immediate struggle for socialist revolution implies that we can, or should, abandon the fight for reforms. Not at all. We cannot know beforehand how soon we shall achieve success, how soon the objective conditions will make the rise of this revolution possible. We should support every improvement, every real economic and political improvement in the position of the masses. The difference between us and the reformists (i.e., the Grütlians in Switzerland) is not that we oppose reforms while they favour them. Nothing of the kind. They confine themselves to reforms and as a result stoop—in the apt expression of one (rare!) revolutionary writer in the Schweizerische Metallarbeiter-Zeitung (No. 40)—to the role of “hospital orderly for capitalism”. We tell the workers: vote for proportional representation, etc., but don’t stop at that. Make it your prime duty systematically to spread the idea of immediate socialist revolution, prepare for this revolution and radically reconstruct every aspect of party activity. The conditions of bourgeois democracy very often compel us to take a certain stand on a multitude of small and petty reforms, but we must be able, or learn, to take such a position on these reforms (in such a manner) that—to oversimplify the matter for the sake of clarity—five minutes of every half-hour speech are devoted to reforms and twenty-five minutes to the coming revolution.

Socialist revolution is impossible without a hard revolutionary mass struggle in which many sacrifices have to be made. But we would be inconsistent if we accepted the revolutionary mass struggle and the desire for an immediate end to the war while, at the same time, rejecting immediate socialist revolution! The former without the latter is nil, a hollow sound.

Nor can we avoid hard struggle within the party. It would be sheer make-believe, hypocrisy, philistine “head-in-the sand” policy to imagine that “internal peace” can rule within the Swiss Social-Democratic Party. The choice is not between “internal peace” and “inner-party struggle”. Suffice it to read Hermann Greulich’s letter mentioned above and examine developments in the party over the past several years to appreciate the utter fallacy of any such supposition.

The real choice is this: either the present concealed forms of inner-party struggle, with their demoralising effect on the masses, or open principled struggle between the internationalist revolutionary trend and the Grütli trend inside and outside the party.

An “inner struggle” in which Hermann Greulich attacks the “ultra-radicals” or the “hotheads”, without naming these monsters and without precisely defining their policy, and Grimm publishes articles in the Berner Tagwacht larded with hints and only comprehensible to one out of a hundred readers, articles in which he castigates those who see things through “foreign spectacles”, or those “actually responsible” for the draft resolutions he finds so annoying—that kind of inner struggle demoralises the masses, who see, or guess, that it is a “quarrel among leaders” and do not understand what it is really all about.

But a struggle in which the Grütli trend within the party—and it is much more important and dangerous than outside the party—will be forced openly to combat the Left, while both trends will everywhere come out with their own independent views and policies, will fight each other on matters of principle, allowing the mass of party comrades, and not merely the “leaders”, to settle fundamental issues—such a struggle is both necessary and useful, for it trains in the masses independence and ability to carry out their epoch-making revolutionary mission.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
[1] See Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Vol. I, Moscow, 1962, pp. 549–50.

[2] Schweizerische Metallarbeiter-Zeitung (Swiss Metalworkers’ Gazette)—a weekly paper founded in Berne in 1902; adopted a social-chauvinist position during the First World War.

Songs For Our Times-Build The Resistance-Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changing"

Songs For Our Times-Build The Resistance-Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changing" 

During, let’s say the Obama administration or, hell, even the Bush era, for example  we could be gentle angry people over this or that notorious war policy and a few others matters and songs like Give Peace A Chance, We Shall Overcome, or hell, even that Kumbaya which offended the politically insensitive. From Day One of the Trump administration though the gloves have come off-we are in deep trouble. So we too need to take off our gloves-and fast as the cold civil war that has started in the American dark night heads to some place we don’t want to be. And the above song from another tumultuous time, makes more sense to be marching to. Build the resistance!

The Times They Are A-Changin’

WRITTEN BY: BOB DYLAN

Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who that it’s namin’
For the loser now will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside and it is ragin’
It’ll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin’
And the first one now will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’

Copyright

© 1963, 1964 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1991, 1992 by Special Rider Music

From The Archives- HUNTER THOMPSON-DR. GONZO-HELP!!!

From The Archives- HUNTER THOMPSON-DR. GONZO-HELP!!!

Zack James’ comment June, 2017:

You know it is in a way too bad that “Doctor Gonzo”-Hunter S Thompson, the late legendary journalist who broke the back, hell broke the neck, legs, arms of so-called objective journalism in a drug-blazed frenzy back in the 1970s when he “walked with the king”’ is not with us in these times. In the times of this 50^th anniversary commemoration of the Summer of Love, 1967 which he worked the edges of while he was doing research (live and in your face research by the way) on the notorious West Coast-based Hell’s Angels. His “hook” through Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters down in Kesey’s place in La Honda where many an “acid test” took place and where for a time the Angels, Hunter in tow, were welcomed. He had been there in the high tide, when it looked like we had the night-takers on the run and later as well when he saw the ebb tide of the 1960s coming a year or so later although that did not stop him from developing the quintessential “gonzo” journalism fine-tuned with plenty of dope for which he would become famous before the end, before he took his aging life and left Johnny Depp and company to fling his ashes over this good green planet. He would have “dug” the exhibition, maybe smoked a joint for old times’ sake (oh no, no that is not done in proper society) at the de Young Museum at the Golden Gate Park highlighting the events of the period showing until August 20^th of this year.   

Better yet he would have had this Trump thug bizarre weirdness wrapped up and bleeding from all pores just like he regaled us with the tales from the White House bunker back in the days when Trump’s kindred one Richard Milhous Nixon, President of the United States and common criminal was running the same low rent trip before he was run out of town by his own like some rabid rat. But perhaps the road to truth these days, in the days of “alternate facts” and assorted other bullshit    would have been bumpier than in those more “civilized” times when simple burglaries and silly tape-recorders ruled the roost. Hunter did not make the Nixon “hit list” (to his everlasting regret for which he could hardly hold his head up in public) but these days he surely would find himself in the top echelon. Maybe too though with these thugs he might have found himself in some back alley bleeding from all pores. Hunter Thompson wherever you are –help. Selah. Enough said-for now  

COMMENTARY

THE 2006 ELECTION CYCLE IS BEYOND FEAR AND LOATHING-AND IT HAS NOT EVEN

FAIRLY BEGUN YET.

FORGET DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS AND GREENS- BUILD A WORKERS PARTY!

With all due respect to the ‘bad boys’ of American political journalism, Alexander Cockburn and Christopher Hitchens, this misbegotten political campaign leading to the 2006 elections in the fall needs the master’s touch. Only Doctor Thompson could deal with the political madness that is about to descend on us. Yes, I know in the end he got to a place that in his early career he definitely wanted to stay away from. That is, the position Theodore White found himself in after a couple of volumes of his The Making of a President series- tied to the vortex of political campaigns as a political junkie. When that happens you can definitely forget about writing the GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL. It leaves one too depleted to make a proper literary career in the aftermath. Hunter may not have been able to hit that high political fastball in his later years, but he still belonged up in the bigs. Here’s why…

‘Hunter, like many of us, cut his political teeth on one Richard Milhous Nixon, at one time President of the United States, common criminal and all- around political bandit. Thompson went way out of his way, and with pleasure, to skewer that man when he was riding high. He was moreover just as happy to kick Nixon when he was down, just for good measure. Nixon represented the ‘dark side’ of the American spirit- the side that appears today as the bully boy of the world and as a craven brute. (Sound familiar?). If for nothing else Brother Thompson deserves a place in the pantheon of journalistic heroes for this exercise in elementary political hygiene. Anyone who wants to rehabilitate THAT man Nixon before history please consult Thompson’s work’.

This insipid campaign has created some much fear and loathing in this writer that it will take years of reality therapy to regain my political soul- AND IT HAS NOT EVEN BEGUN IN EARNEST YET. Moreover, I am far removed from having to deal with these political cretins personally. Hunter liked to get down in the swamp with them. HE REALLY LIKED IT. Well, Dr. Gonzo what would you make of the following exhibits randomly picked by this writer.

The following is definitely not for the faint hearted. Be forewarned.

EXHIBIT#1- Closet Republican, Democratic Senator Lieberman of Connecticut is in a well-deserved fight for his political life for his pro- Iraq war stand against the neophyte dissident Democrat Lamont. If he does not win the Democratic primary Lieberman intends to take his ball and bat and go home and run as an independent. From this writer’s perspective, Lieberman should go home but it should be a real anti-war activist who ousts him. One who will vote against the war budget. By the way anti-war Mr. Lamont, will you?

Senator Lieberman is the case study for why we need a huge political realignment in this country. His soul belongs in the Republican Party. Remember, however, his was the liberal darling during his Vice-Presidential run in 2000. Jesus, he could have been President. For the things the rest of us need we desperately have to break with the Democrats and form a workers party. And fast.

EXHIBIT#2 General Hillary “Hawk” Clinton, currently running for reelection for United States Senator from New York has been ‘on the low’ running around all spring positioning herself for a presidential run in 2008 by keeping just slightly to the left of the Republicans. Of course, the Republicans are positioning themselves just slightly to the left of Genghis Khan. On second thought they are carrying out the Khan’s program. Apparently Hillary has been reading Lady Margaret Thatcher’s memoirs. More on her later as she raises her political profile. “Hawk” is the case study for the proposition that women can have ugly politics, just like men. That must be some kind of feminist victory, of sorts.


EXHIBIT#3 Senator John Forbes Kerry of Massachusetts, currently resurrecting himself as a darling of the anti-war Democratic Party left. Maybe? He recently gave a speech in Boston in commemoration of the 35th anniversary of his testimony against the Vietnam War before a Senate Committee. Jesus, in the age when everyone commemorates the flimsiest moment does one nevertheless really commemorates such an event. I try to give every man his due, but, after all, his testimony was in 1971 as a civilian after millions had already most vociferously opposed the war. And after the army had already half-mutinied in Vietnam. Christ, soldiers were burning down the barracks and jails and going AWOL in Vietnam.

I would not nominate Kerry for Profiles in Courage for his efforts. He, moreover, very quickly thereafter moved on to electoral politics when the Vietnam Veterans Against the War started getting tactically serious in opposition to that war. He took a beating from the right on this issue in 2004; he can take a beating from the left in 2008. And like it. John Kerry is the case study for that mythical ‘fire in the belly’ that attacks those with presidential ambitions. They will say anything or do anything for the prize. Ask one Hubert Horatio Humphrey.

Hey, what about the Republicans? Okay, Okay.

EXHIBIT#4 Anne Coulter is currently touring with her foot in her mouth, deliberately. My candidate for poster child for the Widows and Orphans Fund. In the old- fashioned rough and tumble of politics widows and orphans used to be a politician’s best friend. Now it is open season on anybody. If the Republican Party was really honest about itself it would run Annie for president, unopposed, in the primaries. She represents the heart and soul of the party. No matter that she is just some upstart white trash (oops! I can imagine the headlines on this one in the Washington Times- Communist Hack Blog Journalist Slams RAP Star). (RAP-Republican American Princess). Given what Ms. Annie says publically, one can only imagine the political comments of the old-money Republicans. I wonder if they still wear their old uniforms? Come to think of it, Annie is a case study for the proposition that Hillary is not the only woman with ugly politics. Except she’s an honest reactionary. Know this. Annie better not come out in of favor kicking your dog around. Then there will be hell to pay. Enough said.

Hey, what about the Greens?

Ya, what about them. From what I have gathered from the Green program it is, except with greater emphasis on the environment, perfectly in line with the Democratic Party’s program- of 1964. For those who think that we who fight for a workers party are utopians, know this, trying to pressure the Democratic Party to the left is the real utopia. For proof, just ask any old member of the American Communist party. They KNOW.

Hunter, e-mail, use the ‘mojo’, channel a message through Johnny Depp, call collect or write me a letter anytime, from anywhere if you can help me out. I’ll take the charges, no problem. These are desperate times. Selah.


THIS IS PART OF A SERIES OF ARTICLES ON THE 2006-2008 ELECTION CYCLE UNDER THE HEADLINE- FORGET THE DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS, GREENS-BUILD A WORKERS PARTY!

Woody Allen Redux-To Rome With Love (2012)-A Film Review

Woody Allen Redux-To Rome With Love (2012)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Film Critic Sandy Salmon

To Rome With Love, starring Woody Allen, Alex Baldwin, Penolope Cruz, 2012

I really believe, and after watching this film under review Woody Allen’s 2012 filmed in Rome To Rome With Love I believe I have additional ammunition, that once Woody got away from his roots in New York City, hell, from Manhattan, the quality of his work overall fell off. Maybe it was that quintessential Jewish nerdish comedian raised among the high rises and absorbing the culture of the Jewish quarter, the city and maybe Coney Island in the 1940s that left its mark on him. And was not transferable. He certainly flaunted it in great NYC- based movies like Manhattan.    

Other towns from LA to Barcelona and here Rome leave me with very mixed feelings about his filming in other locales. (Although Midnight In Paris worked it depended on the heavyweight fantasy figures of Hemingway and his crowd in Jazz Age Paris times to carry the thing off.) This despite the fact that he, a funny man almost without talking, was in the film after an absence of some years.

Rome might be a great locale for love but to hitch four basically unrelated stories together to fill up a script seemed disjoined and unwieldy. The four: a standard boy meets girl story; an average Joe waking up to celebrity; a young rural couple lost in the big city, and; a trip down memory lane (by Alex Baldwin) in a semi-fantastic setting don’t seem to have much to hold the whole production together. Too bad Woody but I guess not every effort can reach Annie Hall or a slew of others that made a poor gentile boy from the suburbs laugh, laugh hard.