“Whiplash” The Amazing Cinema Jewel of 2014!
The story of a student jazz drummer and a relentless sadistic teacher scores major points on screenplay, direction and acting. This is a sure academy award winner. Allow me to tell you about a film that I think most of you will enjoy.
It’s an independently produced film that won awards at the Sundance Film Festival. The story is about a young drummer trying to reach perfection. Driving Andrew Neiman [Miles Teller] is a sadistic drill sergeant of a conductor, Terence Fletcher [J.K. Simmons] who manipulates the young man up to an obsessional point where Miles has no other choice than to become both crazy with fury and at the same time, the new Buddy Rich.
The story of a student jazz drummer and a relentless sadistic teacher scores major points on screenplay, direction and acting. This is a sure academy award winner. Allow me to tell you about a film that I think most of you will enjoy.
It’s an independently produced film that won awards at the Sundance Film Festival. The story is about a young drummer trying to reach perfection. Driving Andrew Neiman [Miles Teller] is a sadistic drill sergeant of a conductor, Terence Fletcher [J.K. Simmons] who manipulates the young man up to an obsessional point where Miles has no other choice than to become both crazy with fury and at the same time, the new Buddy Rich.
On the surface this story may not sound compelling, yet when you see the J.K. Simmons, the avuncular insurance sales man on our TV commercials, turn into a nasty-ass drill sergeant a la ‘Full Metal Jacket’, then you have seen true acting. I was stunned by the performances of both Simmons and Teller. Moreover, I was completely taken aback by the taut script and professional directing.
Even more amazing was the fact that the writer/director was a novitiate ex-Harvard Student, Damien Chazelle. His proficiency in writing conflict and dialogue belied the fact that this was film was really his break-out opus. Whiplash was only the second film which this 29 year old man had ever directed. Like the last year’s esoteric film, “Dallas Buyer’s Club” , which I had picked to win Academy Awards in the three categories of script-writing, directing and acting; I will go on a limb again, and chose “Whiplash” as the trifecta winner in all three categories.
What pleases me the most was the fact that an unknown writer/director had a chance to make a small budget film [$3.3M] and succeed at a time when movie sequels and blockbusters are deep-sixing Hollywood. Please, if you get the chance to see this gem of a movie, be prepared to witness the socialized sadism/masochism of becoming the best of the best in the music profession. The film points out very clearly that if one aspires to reach the apex of a career, personal ambitions mean very little without self-discipline, intense focus and the unenviable ability to endure humiliation.
This film shows how rejection is the mother of greatness. Never give up!!
Thank you, Damien Chazelle. May you continue to succeed in your chosen profession of writer/director. I can only imagine how many rejections you had to endure to make this treasure of a film. Thank you Sundance Institute for giving him the chance to burnish his nascent talents.
Reminds me of Joe Jackson and his son Michael Jackson.
ReplyDeleteYeah I think I'm gonna have to pass on this one.
DeleteIt's hard enough for people to understand what's important in life from what's unimportant without yet another obsessive asshole to make matters worse.
This reminds me of that "Men of Honor" bullshit movie where Bobby DiNero [NOT one of my favorite actors btw] is this Navy asshole who thinks the highest standard of what a man can be in the universe is to be a "Navy Diver."
Sorry to break it to you losers in the world like the DiNero character in that film or the asshole drummer instructor here...
But any brain-injured savant can out-perform you any day of the week.
Success as a human being has nothing to do with such stupid competitions.
I had the priviledge of knowing a few NFL pro football players and I can tell you they are just a bunch of assholes.
DeleteCompetitive sports and music and other stupid competitions which are not grounded in any kind of VIRTUE or MORALITY enshrine a high social status to the winners in enterprises which have no moral basis.
If you gonna say that our heroes are selected merely because they shoot hoops or run faster than others then your heroes will be without any of the virtues which make someone happy and able to live with others without making them totally miserable.
People think that Jews are from Palestine but they are not.
DeleteJews are originally from Ur on the Eurphrates River, and moved to Palestine and conquered it.
Then they were taken back to Babylon in captivity where they absorbed Babylonian religion and incorporated it into Judaism, particularly the Talmud.
After the release from captivity many Jews continued living in Babylon and formed the educational and financial elites there for over 2,000 years.
Iraq is the Jews second home, really their PRIMARY home...and as long as it was such to them the existence of Israel in Palestine as an alternative homeland was in question.
Iraq is unacknowledged and unknown to American Jews as the primary home of the Jews, although anyone who knows Jewish history is well aware of this.
Ask educated Americans why the US invaded Iraq and they won't be able to provide an answer....
DeleteAll they can do is speculate that it might have been about oil, or as Chris Matthews claims, "ideology," but in the end there is no clear answer....
To Americans it's a mystery.
All you have to do is crack open a history book about the history of Iraq and the zionists and it's all there....
DeleteIt's very clear.
Do not have other Gods than me.
DeleteThe story of the Iraqi "Golden Square" is something out of a "Mr.Moto" 1930s serial...
DeleteBut it's true.
Chia Cha.....
DeleteChill out.
Sound like you're ready to start the next...
"Christian State in Iraq"
According to the Christian messiah Jesus the most important thing is love of your fellow man, NOT
"following the laws of Jehway."
If you are a Christian you must put aside the Torah and the Talmud and adopt love and charity above all.
That was his message.
The "Satan" that you refer to is a spirit which inhabits the minds of people who pretend to be followers of Christ, go to church and pray a lot, and talk a great deal about how they are guided by Jesus.....
DeleteBut then just at the right moment when they have the chance they forget everything and unlease a torrent of rape, mutilation, impoverishment, hopelessness and misery on ordinary people.
George W. Bush was obviously a Satan-worhipping man whose concept of the Christian messiah was actually Lucifer.
But then he's been around the spirit of Lucifer all his life...
Like all of this family members and their skull worshipping buddies in New York.
Or you can be like Barak Obama and attend a particular church for over twenty years and then overnight claim that everything that goes on there has nothing to do with you ..... LOL
DeleteHas anyone in politics ever gotten away with so many obvious hypocracies????
Here's a guy who claims to be opposed to smoking and every night retreats to his bathroom and lights up camels in private....
What a joke his followers are. They excuse everything because he's there hero of the first black President.
He's a disgrace as a black President in every way which is a shame because if Colon Powell had been President it would have been a different story COMPLETELY.
After the end of the war in 1945 the central issue in Iraqi politics wasn't anything to do with Iraq itself...
DeleteIt was zionism and what they thought the Jews were doing in Palestine.
That's how mobilized and agitated public opinion always has been about Israel since before Israel was even created!
When Israel was declared in 1948 Iraqi Jews had everything taken from them by the Baghdad government and 120,000 Jews who'd lived there for 2,600 years fled to Israel.
The zionist leaders in Palestine knew their declaration of independence would have such consequences for all Jews in Iraq and elsewhere if they declared independence.
Despite the fact that Iraqi Jews to a man didn't want Israel to be declared and were violently anti-zionist all through the 1920s and 1930s the zionists in Israel welcomed the destruction of their Iraqi Jewish cousins so they could join their cause by force.
Yes as Christian i believe i am saved, because i belive i have met Jesus (Jews will also meet Mesiah later but they are in meanwhile choosen), but if you are saved, that does not mean that your life here on this world can t be damned by God. I never met already saved Christian who is not damned on this world if he does not respect his own parents because that is impossible from my observations. Israel is will of God to make union of this world on this world with humans. God also said what boreders Israel are. While Satan is absance of God invented by God, (imagine, all mighty God and all knowing God was "tired" so he went to sleep for snake to do her job...) Satan was created by God for us humans to distinct good from evil to not be animals who does not care about that, many times God s job for God is done by Satan... For instance if you start to be scared by Demons, in that moment you believe that they have power over God (do not have other gods than me). Fear is biggest tool of Satan. In that moment Satan will punish you because God gave him that power. So in thatm moment Demons get persmission to right away attack such human as punishment. Very simple. India is damned country for instance, socialistic and without any chance to be graced by God througout Israel and USA. Many times single mother with many kids, if kicked out from house by her landlord turns to Satan, he loose her faith in to God... So such will get possesed as warning where she is going to. Also Satan is able to give social position, media attention, money to his servant but will keep and respect only biggest among them, like Hitler. He have also 3 manifestation, Satan, Lucifer, Asmodey in full command hyrarchy. He came as simulation of light (white, gray light) from Sirius, in Egypt temple you temple in which everything is built in a way to recivie light of Sirius every 1000 or so years over Horizon in to one bottle... So biggest collective sin is for people to use given knowlage in to idol worshiping. That way you destroy that new discorvery and become damned. Also genetical Jews (choosen one) should know that prophet Issiah siad that messiah will not be King but Bishop, and Jesus was Bishop.
Deleteatheist can be saved, damned pagan can be saved, because Jesus said that all those who meet him are saved... As Jesus said how you treat those weakest among you is the way how you treat him, that you will meet him there. But if you are communist who thinks that is good to help people because you party said so, or some wordly consumer who thinks it is trendy, (or under image of any worldy idol that you go to hell),,, love must be unconidtional with out any idols... to be saved... i adore to recognise (it builds up my faith) how old communist in my city all dies in screams and yelling in their last moments, when they see who is comming toward them... and people around them saying ooooh he was fighting until his last moment, last moment for sure:)
DeleteThank you for the theology lesson. Between you and the Jews who believe in the Torah and Talmud and the Muslims who believe in the Korhan we will have an endless world of conflict and killing.
DeleteANOTHER PISSED OFF AUSTINITE IN THE "MELLOW" CITY OF AUSTIN.......................
DeleteA few years ago an Austin area resident flew his plane into the local office of the IRS.
Early this morning another Austinite shot up the Mexican Consular building downtown, the Federal building closeby, and then moved on the the Austin Police building, having a grand time of shooting up the works.
His rampage was ended when an Austin policeman shot him in the parking lot while putting away the horses the Department for some reason keeps....
The truth about Austin is that it's the opposite of a "laid back" and mellow town.
People get the impression it is because the people here are too lazy to take work seriously, but that's only laziness and entitlement....NOT traquility.
In 1966 the first mass shooting of citizens happened here when Charles Whitman [no connection to the "Whitman sampler" or "Dick Whitman" of "Mad Men"] went to the top of the University Main Tower with an arsenal of rifles and shot dozens of pedestrians, killing many.
Austin was the seat of two American Presidents responsible for genocidal wars overseas which were completely unnecessary and which the US lost.....
Lyndon Johnson and George W. Bush.
There's evil here.
yes you are right, i those truths did t put in inclusive manner, and maybe it is true that only in USA those issues do not rise up in deciding manner... i know that all those people who worked for 20 years in siberian camps under stalin after when they were allowed to settle in peace near camp, they all were allowed to have their own synagog church and mosque but it was not issue after 20 years of hard work
Delete'Rejection is the Mother of Greatness' I like it, I will be stealing that. In fact I wish I had heard that when I was 19, my sons certainly will!
ReplyDeleteYou are so wrong.
DeleteRejection is the father of pathology.
All of histories sick assholes like Barak Obama, George W. Bush, etc....formed unquenchable obsessions for acceptance because they were rejected by their families....
When I owned escort services I could clearly see that all the pathological, sick and desperate girls I worked with in the sex industry all had that in common...rejection by their fathers.
If I've learned anything in life it's that the bond a young girl seeks with her father is the foundation of her self-esteem and contentment.
DeleteAcceptance and affection by the father is what the young girl requires. If it's not there the girl will grow up feeling unworthy without knowing why, and will seek out destructive relationship with men who use her only for sex.
THIS IS WHY THE NUCLEAR FAMILY IS ESSENTIAL....
Without the father around a mother cannot meet the emotional/developmental needs of the female child.
The girl will grow up totally disfunctional and become a sex worker.
No joke.
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ReplyDeleteBefore in history there was famous Milan Scala, knows opera theatre, and only premiere which happened there, was something to talk about. Today, Milan Scala is nothing because only premiere which happened on Broadway means something. Let see in this movie, why.
ReplyDeleteI nearly forgot 'Tip of the week' my latest purchase a 'Nutribullet' (no not a stuffing bullet to shoot your Thanksgiving Turkey!) but rather a really neat, easy to clean blender. You just throw in your Kale, fruit or whatever in and it makes all that stuff good for middle age much more palatable.
ReplyDeleteI love my nutribullet! My GF made me a Kale/strawberry/banana shake this a.m. carry on!
DeleteI recommend Kale.
DeleteI had a bit of a blog crush on you way back, Dr. P, but the thought of dating you quelled the crush quite quickly! A forensic psychologist friend in Dallas shook his head side to side when I said that to him. What kind of scan do you conduct, if any, on potential GF's? I can only imagine the mind games you could play, even subconsciously, with all your psyop knowledge and connections...
DeleteYou're overlooking the hot sex. It's worth the compromise.
DeleteI just cut off my twenty-seven year old El Salvadoran...now that I am free, maybe I can ponder this a bit more until I replace him...
DeleteI am thinking about a business in Cambridge and going to name it after the doll that bears my name, Chatty Cathy. I looked at the wiki and the inventor was Jack Ryan, lol.
Here in Austin UBER is promising a minimum of $5,000 first month for anyone with a car and license who can drive for them.....
DeleteWhat are they offering in Boston?
I had trustifarian old friend fly me to LA this last March to see if I would want to nanny his son when he has him there...he Ubered while I had his car. I got back to Boston and it was impossible to get an Uber to pick me up the times we tried. I was at Hynes and needed to be somewhere and no Uber's available, so I wonder If they would pay big-I will check.
DeleteThe cab companies here are often old boy cash only. Not Uber friendly.
http://www.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/2dc2uw/as_requested_i_am_a_boston_uber_driver_ama/
DeleteDoubling their staff an Oct. 2014 article states.
I do not own a car though. I am on Enterprise car share. I wonder if I advertised Logan runs from North Shore how many the status quo townie cabbies would react.
I videotape now when I leave due to gaslighting after I rejected a body fluid stained "new" $1200 mattress and used frame. I come in with a date stamped email of my exiting, with a witness and windows will be open that I left closed, all kinds of stuff like that.Itbis so nepotistic and cronyistic, I would have to move to Cambridge, Allston or Somerville and outta this town. They have had enough of little Mizz Texas reality checking them.
You don't have lying around an extra court admissible video cam that feeds direct to my cell ($700) do you? Best to move though. The author of the anti-bully housing bill, a board member of a North Shore Community Advocacy group has advised me to move. Money answers everything...how can I Uber with no car of my own. I will research that out as well.
Thanks for the tip.
http://www.policygenius.com/blog/insurance-secret-uber-doesnt-want-know/
Deletehttp://blog.uber.com/partnersfulltime
What if I don’t have a car, or have one that’s too old?
Want to get a new car to use with Uber? We can help connect you to companies who will offer you special rates available to virtually any driver. Once you create a partner account, click “Special Offers” on the dashboard to find info about our vehicle financing. You could be in a brand new car within a week, regardless of credit history!
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2014/11/26/war-is-a-racket-2/
ReplyDeleteI just saw the above. A commenter mentioned a movie needs to be made...
LIKUD PROPOSES LAW TO MAKE ISRAEL "LESS DEMOCRATIC"
ReplyDeleteAs I've been saying the central problem of Israel is that as a democracy it has to give equal citizenship and rights to people there who are not Jews....but at the same time it's supposed to be "the Jewish state" and give preferences for Jews.
The only Jews in Israel making babies today are the ultra conservatives. The Arabs and Druz are pumping out babies by the millions....
Jewish Israelis in recent years have been talking about the inevitability of an eventual non-Jewish majority in the Kenesset, and have framed the issue as "Jewish state vs. Democracy."
Now Netanyahu is setting his party's position in ink, or stone, or blood.....
His newly proposed law will bend Israel toward a "less democractic" state with priviledges for Jews there enshrined in law. This first law if past will no doubt be followed by numerous others to further deny rights to non-Jews in the future, and doubtlessly encourage them to leave altogether.
For Jews this event is probably the most important they've ever faced.
As I've posted before the best and perhaps only hope for peace is the absorbtion of all Palestinian Arabs into a single Israeli state encompassing all of Palestine. The two-state solution is not workable in any way whatsover....
When all dispossessed Palestinian Arabs return to their lands in Israel an become citizens the conflict will be over, but it will no longer be a state in which one ethnic group dominates another.
The way the Kenesset deals with this first effort at exclusion for the future will fortell if Israel continues to exist at all because without an inclusive solution an eventual war of somekind will have to settle the matter, and Israel is too vulnerable to prevail in any such war.
In 1967 most Israelis thought the Arabs in the new lands they took from Egypt, Jordan and Syria would welcome being occupied.
ReplyDeleteI know this sounds crazy but it's true and there's good reason to understand this.
The huge advantages to living in the Israeli economy, legal system and so forth over their Arab tyranny counterparts is a NO-BRAINER.
Israelis were shocked when the Palestinian Arabs continued fighting and resented the occupation.
If however the Israelis had let the Arabs who fled in 1948 return to their lands and become citizens along with the Arabs who stayed the resistance would not have continued.
It's a though some in Israel WANT there to be a resistance so they can justify their expansion and exclusion when it's not necessary...
Peace has always been an easy option but some in Israel don't want it.
In every "peace process" the single issue over which the Israelis would never negotiate was the "right of return."
The one harmless and costless demand is the one they most reject.
Chia Cha,
ReplyDeleteWhen you say a Christian is "saved" what is he saved from? Eternal damnation? What?
How can an intelligent person believe such a thing?
Has it ever occurred to you that there is no intelligent justification for believing any of the things Judaism, Christianity and Islam claim?
They make all these claims but there is no thoughtful reason to believe any of it.
It's all just superstition isn't it?
Where's the proof?
There is no proof. Otherwise that "substance" called faith, which is made up of things "hoped for" and is "unseen" would become "knowledge". And knowledge is different from belief. To "know", is different than to "believe".
ReplyDeleteReligion requires a "leap of faith", no matter how you look at it.
To use your phrase Mit.... "that's just how God is."
ReplyDelete