So its election time again and the election time stupidity has reached new hights. I found a blog called natsivahti and a Facebook group called Jussi-Halla-ahon-kootut-sanansa-syömiset. The first translates roughly to Nazi Watch and the second to "the collected statements said and withdrawn by Jussi Halla-aho". Both are basically collections of screenshots of Facebook discussions on the very much public walls of True Finn fanboys and girls. I have no problem with the content of the messages, if being a racist homophobe is your thing, then good for you. This is not the stupidity I am talking about.
The stupidity I am talking about is the apparent intent of the said True Finn Fanboys and girls to press a class action law suite for defamation of character against those two sites. This is double facepalm worthy stupidity on so many levels that I don't really know where to begin. Well here is a start, how about the fact that in Finland you can only start a class action suit in consumer protection cases even those suits are lead by the consumer protection advocates office. So there is no way, no how this law suite would ever make it forward.
Moving on. Not only is this lawsuit impossible to file on due the legal technicallity described above, they are basically sueing the sites for publishing things that they themselves said and published on their apparently very public Facebook profiles. So the defamation of character comes from things that they said themselves. So under this logic could they maybe sue themselves? I don't think these people have any concept of how media works, let alone how social media works. I was under the impression that most of our media revolves around reporting what various, usually famous people, say and do in public and occasionally in their private lives. Lets take an example of the more traditional medias, couple of months ago Alexander Stubb, a Finnish Minister involved in foreign relations, said something like "Fuck this shit" when refering to the Nordic Council meeting he was attending. So under the TF Fanboy and girl logic, Stubb could have sued every single newspaper, TV channel and radio station that repeated the story of his little FUBAR.
This effect is even more enhanced in the social media, where basically anyone with a computer, smartphone and camera can become a reporter. So when you say and do stupid shit either in public or on Facebook, it shouldn't come as a surprise if someone records it and shares it to the rest of the planet. I mean that's what the bloody social media is about, having the ability share information, thoughts and ideas online. If you don't want your stupidity made public, don't do stupid shit in public.
tiistai 24. tammikuuta 2012
perjantai 6. tammikuuta 2012
Review of the new Vares film.
Tonights film was the latest edition in the series of Vares films. If you haven't heard of these and don't live in Finland, no worries it is because its a Finnish film, made in the Finnish language. Then again not seeing this particular film is no great loss since at best it was a mediocre detective film and at worst an ungodly abomonation of a film.
The main problem I had with this film was pretty much what was my problem with the previous Vares film. The film isn't what it claims to be. The advertising and promotion of the previous films promised to me a classic femme fatale detective story, where a sexy female villain seduce men to their doom. Had they made even a half hearted attempt at making such a film I would have been happy, but no, they made something else, I can't really remember what it was about, so that should be an amble testament of how memorable it was. This one promises to be about a murder that happened in a ultra-religious ultra-conservative rural community, which offers a pretty juicy possibilities for the plot, but no instead we are handed your basic extortion plot that has been used time and time again in nearly every single detective and cop show ever made.
At the beginning of the film Vares, our hero, who in between his drinking sessions, works as a private detective, is hired to look into a murder of a young woman that happened in a ultra-religious ultra-conservative rural community. The movie tries to portray the community as oppressively religious but it fails to do so miserably, largely because instead of showing the audience the oppressive aspects of it, all we ever get is a few exposition dialogous of how religous and oppressive the place is. The closest thing to a scene like this is the local law enforcement coming to complain about hard liqour being sold with out a license at the motel Vares is staying, not that it prevents the owner from selling the liqour to Vares anyway.
Another trait that movie tries to establishe for the village is that it is weird and yet again it fails at this. The only hint weird is the local village nut who wears a WWII era Gerbirgsjägers great coat and introduces himself to Vares by sitting down at his table while carrying a chain saw, who after a while turns out not be a nut at all. By and large the people in the village appear to be rather normal ordinary people who belong to a certain religious community, not that you see the people of the village anyway. The makers of this film fail at the basic principle of screenwriting, show don't tell. Film is a visual media, so if you want to create an impression on the audience you have to show it to them in a scene.
In the end the religious nature of the village is completely useless detail, inspite of the film trying to make it a big plot point. The whole plot revolves around an extortion scheme that the local business man is running. His victims are the head of the religious movement and the head of the local asylum, who also appears to be the only doctor in the community. The idea is fairly simple, the pastor lures rich old people into leaving their posession to the church in a will, who then sell them of to the business man at a low price. The business man then sells the property, usually land, for a higher price with gang pocketing the difference. The doctor is there to essential murder the scam victims, if the gang needs some quick cash. The doctor and the pastor go along with this, because the business man has some compromising fotos of them having sex with the murder victim.
The three villains of the film are rather pathetic, there is no aura of menace about them. The pastor is basically a drunk and spinless toad, the doctor isn't that better either and the business man we never learn anything about expect that he needs money badly and is ruthless enough to come up with the plot above. There is also a pointless side plot of Vares having sex with the pastors wife, which doesn't really add anything to the story expect injecting a couple of sex scenes into the film and establishing the pastors wife as a slut, which would have added depth to character, if that wasn't the only characteristic she had in this film. Again we are told how important and well respected she is in the community but we never really get to see her doing anything else except having sex with someone or trying to have sex with someone.
All of this is very frustrating since the whole setting offered opportunities to explore the nature of cult like devotion to a religion and the power it can have over people. The movie could have reflected the recent pedophilia scandals in one Finnish ultra conservative religious community, the main villain could have been a Jim Jones like cult leader, who's brainwashed minions keep an iron grip over the village by exacting divine retribution on anyone who breaks the cults tenents, with scenes where actual oppression happens. Like a scene where a heavy metal listening school kid gets bullied by his more religious peers, because according the cults teachings Heavy Metal is satanic. Or a scene where a recently divorced single mother washes the word Whore, that has been painted with big red letters, off the wall of her house, or one where the cult members verbally assault anyone buying beer from the local supermarket. These types of scenes would have established a really oppressive atmosphere and made you think that yes, these guys could easily murder someone. The dark secret behind the murder would have been to cover up the ongoing sexual abuse of children in the cult. That is a movie I would have loved to see.
The missed opportunities weren't the only problem with the plot, there were several stupid scenes that were predictable. The scene where Vares gets drugged is the worst example. In this scene at a village dance the doctor offers Vares some booze, when literally in the previous scene Vares had issued pretty clear veiled threats at the doctor. This scene was so stupid and foreseable that I was half expecting Admiral Acbar to pop-up and say "It's a Trap!". The climax of the film was equally stupid, the murder goes into the basic villain exposition monologue, while preparing an acid bath for Vares. I fail to see why the guy just didn't kill Vares and then disolved the body in the acid, classic Bond villain stupidity that isn't even funny anymore. The audience pretty much guesses in about 10 seconds, that Vares is going to be rescued and who the rescuer is going to be. After this stupidity the movie ends, without ever explaining what happened to the villains or the village now that the scandal pretty much laid waste to all of its social and economic foundations.
To those who don't know the Vares films are based on a series of books and since I am not a big fan of the detective novel I haven't read them, but what I hear is that they are fairly popular. This is why it saddens me that the Finnish film industry is falling to the Hollywood like trap of making half-assed movie versions of popular books. What really pisses me off is that carbage like this got 375 000€ of funding from the taxpayers. Rest assured makers of this film, the next Vares film that you spew out, I won't be watching. As the saying goes, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.
The main problem I had with this film was pretty much what was my problem with the previous Vares film. The film isn't what it claims to be. The advertising and promotion of the previous films promised to me a classic femme fatale detective story, where a sexy female villain seduce men to their doom. Had they made even a half hearted attempt at making such a film I would have been happy, but no, they made something else, I can't really remember what it was about, so that should be an amble testament of how memorable it was. This one promises to be about a murder that happened in a ultra-religious ultra-conservative rural community, which offers a pretty juicy possibilities for the plot, but no instead we are handed your basic extortion plot that has been used time and time again in nearly every single detective and cop show ever made.
At the beginning of the film Vares, our hero, who in between his drinking sessions, works as a private detective, is hired to look into a murder of a young woman that happened in a ultra-religious ultra-conservative rural community. The movie tries to portray the community as oppressively religious but it fails to do so miserably, largely because instead of showing the audience the oppressive aspects of it, all we ever get is a few exposition dialogous of how religous and oppressive the place is. The closest thing to a scene like this is the local law enforcement coming to complain about hard liqour being sold with out a license at the motel Vares is staying, not that it prevents the owner from selling the liqour to Vares anyway.
Another trait that movie tries to establishe for the village is that it is weird and yet again it fails at this. The only hint weird is the local village nut who wears a WWII era Gerbirgsjägers great coat and introduces himself to Vares by sitting down at his table while carrying a chain saw, who after a while turns out not be a nut at all. By and large the people in the village appear to be rather normal ordinary people who belong to a certain religious community, not that you see the people of the village anyway. The makers of this film fail at the basic principle of screenwriting, show don't tell. Film is a visual media, so if you want to create an impression on the audience you have to show it to them in a scene.
In the end the religious nature of the village is completely useless detail, inspite of the film trying to make it a big plot point. The whole plot revolves around an extortion scheme that the local business man is running. His victims are the head of the religious movement and the head of the local asylum, who also appears to be the only doctor in the community. The idea is fairly simple, the pastor lures rich old people into leaving their posession to the church in a will, who then sell them of to the business man at a low price. The business man then sells the property, usually land, for a higher price with gang pocketing the difference. The doctor is there to essential murder the scam victims, if the gang needs some quick cash. The doctor and the pastor go along with this, because the business man has some compromising fotos of them having sex with the murder victim.
The three villains of the film are rather pathetic, there is no aura of menace about them. The pastor is basically a drunk and spinless toad, the doctor isn't that better either and the business man we never learn anything about expect that he needs money badly and is ruthless enough to come up with the plot above. There is also a pointless side plot of Vares having sex with the pastors wife, which doesn't really add anything to the story expect injecting a couple of sex scenes into the film and establishing the pastors wife as a slut, which would have added depth to character, if that wasn't the only characteristic she had in this film. Again we are told how important and well respected she is in the community but we never really get to see her doing anything else except having sex with someone or trying to have sex with someone.
All of this is very frustrating since the whole setting offered opportunities to explore the nature of cult like devotion to a religion and the power it can have over people. The movie could have reflected the recent pedophilia scandals in one Finnish ultra conservative religious community, the main villain could have been a Jim Jones like cult leader, who's brainwashed minions keep an iron grip over the village by exacting divine retribution on anyone who breaks the cults tenents, with scenes where actual oppression happens. Like a scene where a heavy metal listening school kid gets bullied by his more religious peers, because according the cults teachings Heavy Metal is satanic. Or a scene where a recently divorced single mother washes the word Whore, that has been painted with big red letters, off the wall of her house, or one where the cult members verbally assault anyone buying beer from the local supermarket. These types of scenes would have established a really oppressive atmosphere and made you think that yes, these guys could easily murder someone. The dark secret behind the murder would have been to cover up the ongoing sexual abuse of children in the cult. That is a movie I would have loved to see.
The missed opportunities weren't the only problem with the plot, there were several stupid scenes that were predictable. The scene where Vares gets drugged is the worst example. In this scene at a village dance the doctor offers Vares some booze, when literally in the previous scene Vares had issued pretty clear veiled threats at the doctor. This scene was so stupid and foreseable that I was half expecting Admiral Acbar to pop-up and say "It's a Trap!". The climax of the film was equally stupid, the murder goes into the basic villain exposition monologue, while preparing an acid bath for Vares. I fail to see why the guy just didn't kill Vares and then disolved the body in the acid, classic Bond villain stupidity that isn't even funny anymore. The audience pretty much guesses in about 10 seconds, that Vares is going to be rescued and who the rescuer is going to be. After this stupidity the movie ends, without ever explaining what happened to the villains or the village now that the scandal pretty much laid waste to all of its social and economic foundations.
To those who don't know the Vares films are based on a series of books and since I am not a big fan of the detective novel I haven't read them, but what I hear is that they are fairly popular. This is why it saddens me that the Finnish film industry is falling to the Hollywood like trap of making half-assed movie versions of popular books. What really pisses me off is that carbage like this got 375 000€ of funding from the taxpayers. Rest assured makers of this film, the next Vares film that you spew out, I won't be watching. As the saying goes, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.
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