France Wins the Oscars: Part 3.

This should be read as a direct continuation of; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/france-wins-oscars-part-2.html

Probably the most disappointing thing about the "Oscars So White" protests is that this year's nominations featured a number of movies specifically intended to mock them. Unfortunately this all seems to have gone completely over the heads of the protesters.

Bridge of Spies: This biopic tells the story of James B. Donovan who was an insurance lawyer in 1950's New York City. 

In 1957 the FBI arrested a Soviet spy by the name of Rudolf Abel. Rather than summarily executing Abel as they were entitled to do the US government decided to give him a civilian trial to highlight their superior morals and minimise Soviet propaganda. Donovan was appointed to act as Abel's lawyer.

Although they wanted to give the appearance of due process Abel's trial was never intended to be anything other than a show trial that would result in his conviction. As such Donovan wasn't expected to work too hard in his defence and if he did with little experience of criminal law it was unlikely that he would be able to do anything like a good job.

Donovan though surprised everyone and angered many by mounting a passionate and competent defence of Abel. Although Abel was guilty and therefore rightly convicted Donovan still managed to persuade the Judge to spare him the death penalty and instead sentence him to 30 years in prison. Donovan then went and appealed Abel's case to the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) on a 4th Amendment issue and only narrowly lost on a 5-4 split decision.

As a such much of the first half of Bridge of Spies is spent championing the founding American values of justice for all, the protections of the Constitution and how we shouldn't let fear or hatred stop us from granting those rights to all.

I think it's fair to assume that at the time Rudolf Abel was about as popular as alleged Charleston shooter Dylann Roof is today.

The movie then moves forward a few years to 1960 when an American U2 spyplane crashes over the Soviet Union and the pilot - Francis Gary Powers - is captured. Impressed by the integrity he showed during the Abel trial the Soviets request that Donovan is brought in to negotiate a prisoner exchange of Abel for Powers.

This exchange is set to take place in Berlin, Germany which at the time was split between Capitalist West Germany and Communist East Germany. Donovan soon learns that the East Germans are holding another American - Frederic Pryor - prisoner as a spy. That prompts Donovan to embark on an extremely complex, tri-party negotiation between the US, the Soviet Union and East Germany that would see Abel freed in exchange for both Powers and Pryor.

Despite the negotiations coming to the brink of collapse on numerous occasions eventually all three prisoners are exchanged in a huge victory for the integrity of the quiet American.

Obama desperately wishes he could claim that mantle as part of his legacy.

Although I don't know what prominence it is given to it in the movie the U2 spyplane that Powers crashed originally took off from United States Air Force (USAF) base Incirilk in Turkey. In the immediate aftermath the Soviet Union demanded that Turkey ceased all similar operations from Incirilk and Turkish President Mahmut Celâl Bayar agreed. Already under pressure from the US over his refusal to end the production of Opium Bayar didn't last long after that and was removed from office in the coup of 1960.

A lot of the current problems in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) stem from the US being over-sensitive to Turkey's demands in return for the use of USAF Incirilk.

So that was a hell of a good spot from a movie that started principal photography some 14 months before the US began its anti-ISIL operations.

Spotlight: Yep. It made both lists.

The Boston Globe investigation didn't just uncover child abuse by the Catholic Church. It also uncovered a vast conspiracy between the Church, the local police, politicians and the Courts to cover up that abuse. If you know what you are looking for you can see a similar sort of conspiracy at work as part of the Black Lives Matter campaign.

Probably the most blatant example and the one I'm most familiar with is the Freddie Gray case in Baltimore, Maryland. Here I think it is very obvious to all that Baltimore States Attorney Marilyn Mosby is conducting a politically motivated vendetta against the accused police officers in the hope of getting her husband Nick Mosby elected as city Mayor.

What's worse is that none of Baltimore's Courts seem prepared to stop her.

For example a mistrial was recently declared in the first and strongest prosecutions against William G. Porter. Although it's unlikely we'll ever truly know what happened in the secrecy of the jury room the strong rumour I'm now hearing is that 11 jurors voted "Not Guilty" while just one holdout voted "Guilty." If that is true then the Judge should have accepted the majority verdict of Not Guilty.

Failing that the Judge really should have dismissed the case with prejudice as regards the 5th Amendment ending proceedings.

However with the case against Porter continuing to proceed a whole new argument has emerged over whether Porter can be denied his 5th Amendment right to silence by being compelled to testify in the trial of Caesar R. Goodson Jr. - the second officer to go on trial. As a result the entire case has ground to a halt while the issue of Porter's testimony is resolved.

I'm getting the distinct impression that this delay is the result of a conspiracy between the Mosby campaign and Baltimore's Courts to delay all the trials until after the Mayoral election. The intention being to prevent the Mosby campaign being handed six damaging defeats in quick succession right before the election.

However I think it's worth noting that on the day Porter's case went to the Supreme Court of Maryland, February 19th (19/2/16) Marilyn Mosby was invited to address the state Congress on the issue of child sexual abuse. 

17:50 on 29/2/16 (UK date).

France Wins the Oscars: Part 2.

This should be read as a direct continuation of; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/france-wins-oscars.html

45 Years: Although I may have neglected to mention it earlier one of the central characters in Les Revenants is a single mother who is about to marry a man who will become the step-father to her daughter. 

The fact that the fiance is played by a Frenchman of north African origin while the show is set in a rather rural French town poses all sorts of questions about immigration and belonging. This have become big topics within French society throughout 2015. However this show was made in 2012.

Suddenly the single mother's tragic first love returns as a Zombie looking just as handsome as he did all those years ago. This of course raises issues about how you never really forget your first love and all subsequent lovers end up being compared to them.

In 45 Years a couple who have been married for, well, 45 years see their relationship placed under great strain when it emerges that the husband's first love who is thought to have died tragically is in fact still alive.

So as with The Revenant and The Martian it is the same story only told in a different way.

If The Revenant is a star vehicle intended to win Leonardo DiCaprio a long over due Oscar then 45 Years is intended to win its star Charlotte Rampling an Oscar she has been waiting much longer for.

A highly acclaimed British actress Charlotte Rampling's credentials as both an actress and an artist are beyond dispute. A contemporary of Andy Warhol she has served as a muse for many respected artists and fashion designers while appearing in far too many critically acclaimed movies, TV shows and stage plays for me to even attempt to list here.

Very much part of the European Arthouse movement of the 1960's and 1970's Rampling has a reputation for appearing in extremely provocative, challenging and controversial roles.

In 1969 she took the female lead in "Three." Essentially this is about two men and a woman who are on a road trip across Europe and are all engaged in a sexual relationship with each other. In the 1960's to suggest that a woman could not only enjoy a sexual relationship but sexual relationships with multiple partners was ground breaking the same way that an earthquake is ground breaking.

In 1986 Charlotte Rampling appeared in "Max. Mon Amour." Here she played the upper-class wife of a British diplomatic in France who embarks on a sexual relationship with a monkey. I can't say that I'm familiar with a movie that sounds like a paycheck but I suspect this bestiality theme could serve as a metaphor for posh white women's strange sexual fascination with black men. In short the underpinning of Idris Elba's celebrity.

In 1987 Charlotte Rampling appeared in "Angel Heart." In the form of Lisa Bonnet this was probably one of the first mainstream American movies to feature a black woman in a central role alongside many other black actors and actresses. It was probably also one of the first mainstream movies to feature an interracial sex scene between a white man and a black woman.

Charlotte Ramplings most controversial roles though came were her appearances in two movies that deal heavily with Nazism in attempts to explore the ideology and rise of Nazi Germany.

The first "The Damned" (1977) tells the story of how a German industrialist family come to support Adolf Hitler and the Nazi war effort. At one point this portrays the so-called "Night of the Long Knives" as a massive gay male orgy. In probably its most infamous scene the son gives a performance at the grandfather's birthday party as the 1930's German sex symbol Marlene Dietrich. This of course poses all sorts of questions about sexuality and gender identity. I understand that 39 years later at the 2016 Oscars a movie called "The Danish Girl" was nominated.

The second film "The Night Porter 1974" is probably the most controversial of them all.

Along with "Beyond Good & Evil" 1977 and "The Berlin Affair" 1985 this is the first of three movies made by Italian director Liliana Cavani which are known as "The Nazi Trilogy. Together they explore the history and ideology of Nazi Germany from its roots in the work of Nihilist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche through to the alliance with Imperial Japan.

In The Night Porter Charlotte Rampling plays a Jewish prisoner at a Nazi concentration camp who is viciously sexually abused by one the guards. In the years after the war Rampling's character discovers her abuser working as the night porter at a hotel and proceeds to engage in a consensual sadomasochistic relationship with him.

This movie raises all sorts of complex issues about the way that the Nazis perverted something as natural as passion and love into something so dark and violent. The theme of a Jewish concentration camp survivor seeming to crave the abuse of the past did lead to some writing the movie off as sort of pro-Nazi pornography. However if they'd paid attention they'd have realised Rampling's character is the daughter of a Socialist rather than Jewish.

Even today you will struggle to find a TV network prepared to broadcast The Night Porter because it still has the power to rip your face off like an angry Chimpanzee. In fact I think it was only after I raised it at a European Union (EU) security summit the UK broadcast regulator - OFCOM - granted a special, one-off dispensation to a channel closely linked to the British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS) to show it late at night in faded 4:2 with a soundtrack full of hiss to minimise the impact.

However it was initially released at a time when many people who fought in World War Two were not only still alive but often in positions of great power. The central theme of Nazis working in secret to absolve themselves of their feelings of guilt so they could re-enter mainstream society undetected was therefore very controversial.

As such it's one of those movies a lot of people probably wanted to give awards too but were terrified of the backlash. In fact towards the end there's a scene where the male lead - "Max" - is on the telephone with a character named "Oscar." He ends the call with the pointed phrase; "Goodbye Oscar" while the words; "possibly forever" hang in the air unspoken.

Even today it remains extremely controverisal because we currently have the 14th Genadier Division of the Nazi Waffen SS proudly marching through the streets of Ukraine. We also have EU member states such as Poland telling us we should endure every hardship to support these gallant heroes. Meanwhile Poland is trying to erase any evidence of its own Nazi past even going so far as to deny that the Auschwitz death camp is or ever was in Poland.

It almost goes without saying that without a movie like The Night Porter and its graphic depictions of sadomasochistic sex movies like "50 Shades of Gray" would simply not get made. The Berlin Affair centres around a lesbian relationship between a middle-aged German woman and a much younger Japanese woman. As such another film nominated this year "Carol" seems to directly owe it a debt for paving the way.

Thanks to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) the ideologies of Nihilism and Nazism are once again very relevant topics for discussion.

The big commercial movie of this year's Oscars is "Mad Max: Fury Road." Set in an unspecified desert nation this centres around a brutal warlord who keeps women prisoner as sex slaves. One day led by a ferocious female warrior - sporting a Charlotte Rampling style haircut - these sex slaves escape and the warlord tries to hunt them down. So basically it's ISIL's treatment of the Yezidi and the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG/J) attempts to defeat them then.

Ramplings other big role this year was of course in the TV mini-series "London Spy." Produced by the BBC's *ahem* 'Special Projects Division' this was the UK's foretelling of how the COP21 Summit would go.

It centres around the character of Daniel Edward Holt played by Ben Wishaw who is supposed to serve as a metaphor for yours truly. Suddenly Holt'sgay lover disappears and he is forced to navigate the high stakes world of international espionage and politics to discover what happened to him.

In one key storyline the British intelligence services purposefully infect Holt with HIV/AIDS. This is a reference to the argument between the US and Brazil over the inclusion of the REDD+ program in the agreement which I'm sure is now known as "The Sheen Clause" as it was revealed that the actor Charlie Sheen is HIV+ as part of the argument.

That storyline also introduces the concept of "The Certainty of Failure" and the need to accept it.

However I think the key sequence occurs close to the end when Holt carefully sends out copies of this world changing theory to everyone he can think of. The intelligence services simply gather up every single copy and send them back to Holt having replaced every page with blank paper.

This perfectly summed up what happened at COP21. US President Obama swept in at the last minute to replace the agreement everyone had been working on for five years with something so watered down it may as well have been blank pages.

Sadly if ratified those blank pages are the only action the World will be allowed to ever take to combat climate change.

The other thing of note about London Spy is that is contains a lot of gay sex. The movies - like the British TV industry - of course aren't bound by the US Federal Communication Commission (FCC's) ridiculous "No Nipples" rule expect when they're shown on US TV.

In the absence of such a binary rule where the presence or absence of a particular body party determines whether a scene is sexual or not the movies tend to rely on a more general interpretation of each scene. This is harder to define but generally questions are asked about whether any sexual content is necessary to the story.

For example even a poorly skilled film maker should be able to convey not only whether a couple are having sex but whether they're having hot, passionate sex or bored, married sex without actually having to show a penis going in and out of a vagina. So when trying to get a movie passed by the censors film makers and their lawyers end up having long discussions about things like "the degree of thrusting."

The sex in London Spy is not only between men but it leaves you under absolutely no illusion as to exactly what is going on. The type of sex portrayed is also of the sort that would be considered extreme and a bit disgusting by many gay men. For example there is one scene where I think five men are all having sex with each other. During this sequence one of the men is shown very clearly rubbing lubricant into his anus.

This of course was broadcast in an atmosphere of new found British prudishness where the mere sight of a female nipple on "War & Peace" caused palpitations across the nation. Therefore if you weren't aware of the BBC's special projects division you could quite reasonably conclude that London Spy was only being allowed to get away with it because it was gay sex. This would make it an example of pro-gay affirmative action or positive discrimination.

The Academy of course has a long history of affirmative action - particularly towards black people.

Even as far back as the late 1980's the Academy noticed that black actors were being held back by this culture that you simply can't put black faces on screen. The Academy challenged this by nominating black actors and directors for awards they probably didn't deserve in order to give them an excuse to put black faces on TV in order to normalise it. TV shows like "Scandal," "Orange is the New Black," and "How to Get Away with Murder" are now simply taking advantage of the opportunity that the Oscars provided for them.

Matters really came to a head when the proverbial disabled black lesbian Queen Latifah - star of such classics as "Taxi" and "Bringing Down the House" was awarded Best Supporting Actress for her role in "The Help" in 2008. This was a bumper year for black nominees and was done to help Barack Obama get elected as America's first black President.

Looking back at this year's themes that may well be a source of regret for many.

With black talent really coming through the ranks in mainstream TV the Academy seems to have tapered off its affirmative action program and is now only handing nominations and awards to black talent that genuinely deserves it.

The "Oscars So White" protesters have really not taken this progress in good grace.

So to my mind Charlotte Rampling's comments on French radio in which she accused the Oscars So White protesters of being racist against white people should have sealed her Best Actress victory. After all it was clearly a woman who is no stranger to controversy having a bit of fun.

It also raised a serious point. The debate of whether there should have been more black nominees is not only a question of what black candidates should have qualified for this list but also of what white candidates should have been denied a place?

I suppose at best Spike Lee's "Chi-raq" could have worked as a reference to the Blacksploitation sub-genre rather than The Hateful Eight. However it's far from clear if Lee was intentionally mocking himself and Taratino certainly did a lot more with the theme.

Plus in a year where France looms large a title that can easily be confused with a very famous French President is likely to cause confusion and conflict meaning it's a definite no-no.

15:25 on 29/2/16 (UK date).

France Wins the Oscars.

Yeah, pretty much all of them.

Back in mid-January I wrote a post about "The Revenant" - the big film at the 2016 which can be read here; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/oscars-massive-spoiler.html

I agonised for days over whether to post that or not because it really reveals the main theme of the Oscars thus risking ruining the whole thing.

The Big Short: At the time I said that the fact The Revenant has a Mexican director - Alejandro G Inarritu - meant that it and the French TV show "Les Revenants (The Returned)" that it references where much talked about in South America during 2015. This was true. However it was not the whole truth.

As with the rest of that glut of Zombie TV shows and movies that appeared around 2012 Les Revenants uses the Zombies as a metaphor for all the lives ruined by the 2008 financial crash. Essentially you have lots of people aimlessly wandering around stripped of all the hopes, dreams and plans for the future that make them human.

Prior to the 2008 financial crash the big challenge for second tier developed nations like Brazil was attracting outside investment. That is why Brazil was awarded the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics. The idea being that the boost in profile and the infrastructure spending those competitions triggered would attract much needed investment to Brazil.

However then the 2008 crash happened. Investors fled first tier developed nations such as the US and the EU with their 0% interest rates and flooded into second tier developing nations like Brazil. Suddenly attracting far more outside investment than they could ever need these economies quickly overheated leading to high inflation and stagnant growth.

So essentially many nations like Brazil are now experiencing a financial meltdown of their own making shows like Les Revenants suddenly very attractive to Brazilian audiences.

The Big Short is of course all about the 2008 financial crash. I think one of the main causes of that crash was that the financial instruments were far too complicated for even the people using them to understand. During to the 2014 World Cup I seem to remember trying to explain how Brazil's economic troubles weren't FIFA's fault. However it quickly got so complicated that I simply gave up.

In The Big Short if they reach a point where they have to explain one of these complex financial instruments or economic principles they cutaway to a comedic sequence where it is explained slowly and clearly. The most talked about of these cutaways features Australian actress Margo Robbie playing herself nude in a bubble bath drinking champagne.

That's obviously a very inventive and memorable way to explain what is otherwise a seriously dry and boring topic.

The Martian: As I've already mentioned The Revenant tells the story of a fur trapper - Hugh Glass - who is left for dead in the wilderness of the 19th century American mid-west. He then has to survive the awesome power of nature to fight his way back to a triumphant return to civilisation. This is a metaphor for the journey of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that culminated in the COP21 Summit in Paris, France at the end of 2015.

The Martian tells the story of an astronaut played by Matt Damon who is left for dead on a mission to Mars. He then has to survive for two years on this hostile planet that has been stripped of its life supporting atmosphere - such as the Greenhouse Gas layer - before his crewmates rescue him and he makes a triumphant return to civilisation.

As such it is the exact same story as The Revenant only told in a different way. The Oscars is of course a celebration of stories and the different ways of telling them.

The big joke is that The Revenant is largely seen as a star vehicle to allow Leonardo DiCaprio to win the Best Actor award. This is both to reflect his important role within the actual UNFCCC process and to make up for the Best Actor Oscar he didn't win for the 2006 movie "The Departed."

In The Departed DiCaprio plays a police officer who is sent undercover in the Boston Irish mafia in a story that is based on the exploits of Whitey Bulger. Matt Damon stars in the same movie playing a member of the Irish mafia who is sent undercover in the Boston (technically Massachusetts State) police department.

So the joke is; "DiCaprio and Damon are both COPS!!!!"

Spotlight: This is the telling of the true story of how the investigative department of the Boston Globe newspaper known as "Spotlight" uncovered the widespread sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church. 

Their 2002 expose triggered a scandal that impacted the Catholic Church globally. In turn it triggered a similar scandal involving the Protestant Church of England and continues to cause scandal about sexual abuse at the highest levels of the British Establishment.

So in many ways I think this is simply a story that deserves to be told and the real people involved deserve the global recognition that an Oscars nomination brings.However the story is set in Boston which obviously references The Departed. Also the Catholic Church really does not come off as the good guy of the piece.

While I don't want to spoil Les Revenants for people who have not seen it the show's main premise is resurrection from the dead. Therefore it doesn't take a genius to work out that Christianity is referenced and with the show being set in a French Alpine town that tends to mean a reference to Catholicism. 

With Les Revenants being a gay-friendly show you could almost get the impression that the Catholic Church is being mocked for its stance on homosexuality. However it is definitely one of those shows where you see what you want to see.

Although I don't think anyone quite remembers how the feud started traditionally Jews and Catholics really don't get on. It was probably something to do with King Herod the Great - King of the Jews responding to the news that Jesus Christ had been born by ordering all children in the kingdom to be murdered in the Biblical "Massacre of the Innocents." However Catholic Pope Pius XI (aka; "The Nazi Pope") decision to ally the Church with Adolf Hitler facilitating the Nazi Holocaust is unlikely to have helped.

Marty Baron - the Boston Globe editor who ordered the Spotlight team to investigate the Catholic Church was and still is Jewish. Therefore it would be easier to portray the investigation as a Jewish conspiracy against the Catholic Church. This provides a metaphor for whether Les Revenants treatment of Christianity is a gay conspiracy against the Catholic Church. Jewishness being used as a metaphor for homosexuality is likely to melt a few heads in Israel.

The historical tension between Jews and Catholics is also referenced in the Egyptian movie "Ave Maria" which features in the Best Action Short category. Here life in a Catholic Nunnery in Palestine is disturbed by a group of Jewish settlers whose car has broken down. However once the comedy makes the joke that the Jews aren't allowed to use the telephone on the Sabbath while the Nuns have taken a vow of silence there isn't time to say much else in the 15 minute runtime.

What is interesting about Spotlight though is that this Jews and Catholics theme is all sub-text.

The Baron character is played by Liev Schriber who is reasonably well known and whose name hints at Jewish heritage. However I was impressed by his performance as an Irishman in 2011's "Goon" which could well have been a re-telling of the story of the Golem from Jewish mythology.

Early on in Spotlight there is a throwaway bit of dialogue where it's acknowledged that Baron is Jewish and much later on there is a similarly throwaway anti-Semitic comment directed at him by one of the Church officials. However beyond that no reference is made to it at all. So if you want to pick up on that theme you really have to do much of the work yourself.

That is very much the spirit of Spotlight which doesn't have any big stunt sequence where the Church sends assassins to kill the journalists. There's no big confrontation between one of the journalists - Sacha Pfeiffer - and her deeply Catholic grandmother. There's no big dramatic courtroom scene where the victims confront the Church officials.

Instead there's just lots of people quietly sitting at their desks poring over interviews with sources, running down leads and checking facts. Obviously to make that watchable over the course of a two hour movie the director and all the actors need to be extremely good at what they do.

As such Spotlight really represents the antithesis of The Revenant and The Martian. While those movies celebrate the flashy glory of DiCaprio posing for photographers at COP21 Spotlight is a celebration of all those people who spent COP21 and the years that preceded it quietly pouring over the text of any agreement line-by-line, word-by-word.

Brooklyn: This tells the story of a young Irish woman played by Saroise (prn: "Sorcha" apparently) Ronan who migrates to New York City in the 1950's. There she falls in love with an Italian American man before being forced to return to Ireland where she is forced to choose between her new found Italian love and her Irish childhood sweetheart.

Not only don't Jews and Catholics traditionally not get on Italian Catholics and Irish Catholics don't even get on that well either. Therefore there are still some who view the casting of the Italian DiCaprio as an Irishman in The Departed as sacrilege.

Brooklyn rather neatly then plays about with the rivalry between The Returned and The Martian. It is also apparently a beautifully shot movie whose use of colour and vintage costumes and set designs really help to convey the romance and nostalgia of the era amid themes of migration.

The Hateful Eight: Rather like The Revenant this is a snowbound western set in American mid-west the 19th century. However unlike The Revenant it has nothing to do with COP21 or the UNFCCC.

Instead it is focused entirely on the issue of race in America and that great white flight in which white Americans fled to the mid-west and Pacific north-west to escape the freed slaves.

As you would expect from a Tarantino movie the way that this is handled is not in any way subtle. One of the lead characters - Major Marquis Warren - played by Samuel L Jackson is a former officer in the Union Army turned bounty hunter. He carries with him a letter of commendation from the Republican President Abraham Lincoln which he claims helps him get the respect of white people. Later on in the movie he comes into confrontation with the Sanford Smithers character - played by Bruce Dern - who was a General in the defeated Democrat backed Confederate Army.

The contrast between The Revenant and The Hateful Eight though does raise questions about US President Barack Obama's commitment to the COP21. 

In preparation for the summit Leonardo DiCaprio, Pharrell Williams and others wanted to stage a series of worldwide concerts to raise awareness. However despite his oft-repeated claims of leadership Obama and the Democrats snubbed this effort in favour of the racist Black Lives Matter (BLM) campaign. That campaign was actually used during COP21 to highlight how utterly gormless Obama is and how he cannot be trusted.

The Hateful Eight also makes a contribution to the contrast between the dramatic and gimmicky special effects in The Revenant and The Martian and quiet perseverance of Spotlight.

Movies are traditionally shot on 35mm film. However for The Hateful Eight Tarantino resurrected a technique where 70mm film is used to give a dramatic widescreen effect. This caused many distributors and movie theatres to turn around and say; "Yeah, we're not going to buy 70mm projectors just so you can show off."

By all accounts The Hateful Eight is a rather trashy movie that lots of excessive, gory violence and seems to revel in foul and abusive language. Particularly the use of the term "Nigger" by white characters to abuse black characters.

However this trashiness seems purely intentional because the director - Quintin Tarantino - is well known to be a big fan of a sub-genre of movie making known as "Grindhouse." In 2007 Tarantino even made a film called "Grindhouse."

This sub-genre has its roots in the 1950's and early 1960's when the convention was that movies were shown as double features with a "B-movie" being shown before the main movie. Filmmakers quickly realised that these B-movies could be used to push the boundaries of what was considered acceptable in terms to the portrayal of sex, violence and ethnic minorities on screen. After all provided you didn't push things too far anyone who was offended is likely to have forgotten about it by the end of the main feature.

In the late 1960's and early 1970's this type of low-budget, boundary pushing movie began to emerge as a sub-genre in its own right. Although there was often a lot of cross-over movies that pushed the boundaries of sex were known as "Sexploitation" while those that pushed the boundaries of violence were known as "Grindhouse" and those that pushed the boundaries of race were known as "Blacksploitation." Taratino's 1997 "Jackie Brown" was a big homage to the Blacksploitation movies.

Following last year's "Oscars So White" protests that have continued into this year it seems important to make the point that the Academy is hardly the California chapter of the Aryan Brotherhood. Or the Anaheim branch of the KKK. In fact often described as a Jewish conspiracy almost since its formation the US movie industry has worked hard to advance a liberal agenda including racial equality.

Take for example the often talked about "The Wizard of Oz" from 1939. Although this is frequently considered to be an iconic gay rights movie a large part of the narrative is the protagonists fear of the Spooks that live in the forest. At the time "Spook" was a commonly used term of abuse for black people. Following a sequence where the Tin Man appears to be lynched from a tree the protagonists learn that there's really no need to be afraid of the Spooks.

The inclusion of The Hateful Eight also helps put the perceived snubbing of Idris Elba in perspective. After all probably the most famous Blacksploitation movie is "Shaft" - the 1971 original not the 2000 remake starring Samuel L Jackson. Every time I read a review of Elba's detective show "Luther" it automatically starts the theme song from Shaft playing in my head.

12:10 on 29/2/16 (UK date).

 

Operation Featherweight: Month 20, Week 1, Day 4.

On Friday (26/2/16) a cease-fire came into effect in Syria. We were immediately provided with an example of why this cease-fire will only aid the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and associated groups.

On February 14th (14/2/16) the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF/QSD) launched operation Wrath of Khabur. It's objective was to liberate the town of Sadadi. This sits around 55km (33 miles) south of the City of Hasakah around 45km (26 miles) west of Syria's border with Iraq. It controls the main Highway 7 supply route between Hasakah City and the ISIL occupied city of Al Mayadin some 120km (70 miles) to the south.

On February 19th (19/2/16) the SDF had succeeded in liberating Sadadi itself and were setting to work securing the surrounding area and the Highway 7 supply route.

Yesterday (27/2/16) - technically recorded on Thursday (25/2/16) - US President Barack Obama declared in his weekly address to the nation that the cease-fire will not apply to ISIL and the US will remain relentless in its efforts to defeat the group.

Despite that assurance from Obama the QSD have come under extensive US pressure to announce that they will cease operations under the agreement. As a result they have stopped their efforts to secure the area around Sadadi including the Highway 7 supply route.

On Saturday (27/2/16) the SDF paid the price for that announcement. Taking advantage of the QSD's cease-fire ISIL launched a two-pronged attack on the town of Tel Abyad. This sits right on Syria's border with Turkey around 70km (43 miles) east of the Euphrates River.

The first prong of the attack came from Raqqa - ISIL's de facto capital in Syria - around 90km (50 miles) to the south. Most worryingly though the second prong originated from within Turkey and was supported by Turkish artillery fire.

Eventually the US did give the QSD permission to resist the attack and US aircraft were dispatched to assist them. The remaining ISIL fighters were cleared from Tel Abyad today but not before 50 QSD fighters had been killed.
 
Elsewhere ISIL have taken advantage of the lifting of pressure on them and their associates to today launch an assault on Abu Ghraib which sits around 15km (9 miles) west of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. They have also today carried out twin bomb attacks on the Shia Sadr City district of Baghdad that have killed at least 24.

16:00 on 28/2/16 (UK date)

Operation Featherweight: Month 20, Week 1, Day 3.

On Friday (26/2/16) at 22:00 (GMT) a cease-fire went into effect in Syria. There seems to be a degree of confusion over which armed groups this cease-fire applies to.

However it is crystal clear which groups are not covered by the cease-fire;

It does not cover the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). It does not cover Al Qaeda's Syria affiliate Al Nusra Front (ANF). Nor does it apply to any other individual, group, undertaking or entity associated with either ISIL or ANF;  UNSCR 2254 (2015) - Paragraph 9.

Although it makes me sound like I've got a terrible stutter I refer to the ANF as "The Al Nusra Front" because that is how they are listed in the relevant United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolutions. However like "The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS)" this is one of those appalling mixes of English and Arabic. ANF's full Arabic name is; "Jabhat al-Nusra" while it's full English name is; "The Support Front."

Rather like its parent organisation Al Qaeda - literally; "The Base" - this is exactly how ANF functions in Syria. As a support network for all the other Islamist terror groups. In March 2015 this support role was formalised with numerous other groups officially allying themselves with ANF to form the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF) coalition.

As such the following groups are also not covered by the cease-fire agreement;

• The Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham al-Islamiyya,

• The Army of Islam/Jaish al-Islam,

• The Right Brigade/Liwa al-Haqq,

• The Army of Sunna/Jaish al-Sunna,

• The Assembly of Iman Bukhari/Iman Bukhari Jamaat,

• The Army of Victory/Jaish al-Nasr,

• The Soldiers of Al-Aqsa/Jund al-Aqsa,

• The Levant Legion/Faylaq al-Sham,

•  The Soldiers of the Levant/Ajnad al-Sham,

• The Falcons of the Levant/Suquor al-Sham,

• The Levant Front/Jahbat al-Sham.

Those last four groups in particular are currently operating the 100km (60 mile) stretch of Syria's northern border between the Euphrates River to the east and the town on Azaz to the west. Here they are fighting directly alongside the ANF and are being supported by Turkey. As such they are formally associated with several other groups;

• The Syrian Turkmen Brigade/Suriye Türkmen Ordusu - note the lack of Arabic,

• The First Coastal Division/Forqat al-Awwal As-Sahli,

• The Second Coastal Division/Forqat al-Thaniaan As-Sahli.

Collectively these groups - it is far from an exhaustive list - occupy all areas of Raqqa Province, Aleppo Province, Idlib Province, Hama Province, Homs Province and Latakia Province not under the control of either the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) or Kurdish forces. They also occupy towns/suburbs in and around the capital city Damascus.

Obviously the cease-fire equally does not cover any of these areas.

The western media are still mistakenly describing these groups as "Rebels" and showing on maps/graphics the areas they occupy as somehow separate from ISIL/ANF controlled areas. Under the terms of the wider cessation of hostility agreement they are going to have to cease this misleading practice.

The only groups I can think of that are covered by the cease-fire are possibly the Southern Front and certainly both the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF/QSD). However the cease-fire does not apply to them when they are engaged in military operations - including proactive, offensive operations - against any of the aforementioned groups.

So basically this has been an extremely convoluted way of saying that Turkey will immediately cease its attacks on the YPG and the QSD as they move to liberate the area between Azaz and the Euphrates River.

The UN's Special Envoy for Syria - Staffan de Mistura - has already recommended that the international community takes military action under Chapter 7 if Turkey is unable to comply with its obligations.

15:50 on 27/2/16 (UK date).