Last night I went to see The Internship, staring Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn and Rose Byrne. It’s a classic “fish out of water” story, where the fish makes good against the odds. Two middle-aged guys who know less about technology than the average seven-year-old get an internship at Google because they’ve run out of other job prospects. (The process of getting in seems a little like the way Reece Witherspoon got into Harvard in Legally Blond.) They find themselves with a bunch of twenty year old who can program in C++ and half a dozen languages I didn’t recognize. When asked to design an app, they suggest with something that already exists, and which is already known to all the twenty-somethings. Along the way, they have conflicts with another group of interns who are out to spoil their chances. A love interest arrives half way through the film (like all good Hollywood scripts). In this case she’s supposed to be Australian and she actually is. (Too many ‘Australians’ in American movies are British actors who can only do a half-plausible accent.) The film had a lot of good comedy lines, and they play the tech-newbie aspects of the Owen Wilson for all it’s worth. It’s a good film. You’ll probably like it. Take a night off and go.
Should there ever be a statute of limitations on murder?
Image from the memorial at the Killing Fields, Cambodia, from Wikipedia Commons.
Tonight I went to see the film ‘The Company You keep”, with Robert Redford and Shia le Beouf. Le Beouf plays a journalist who exposes the identity of one of the Weather Underground, a real-life group of radicals who opposed the Vietnam War, and who bombed several US federal buildings, and robbed cash deliveries to banks in the late 1960s and early 1970s, killing several people. In real life, three members of the group also blew themselves to pieces by accident on 6 March 1970while building a bomb in New York. The bomb was destined for a Non-Commissioned Officers’ (NCO) dance at the Fort Dix U.S. Army base. Some of the real-life weathermen were charged with various offences, some had charges dropped in 1973 after a court decision meant that evidence obtained by illegal electronic surveillance could not be used in court. Several members of the group have ‘rehabilitated’ themselves and re-integrated into society. Yes, I have used the term ‘rehabilitated’ in inverted commas, since I can’t be sure to what extent the surviving members of the group have really changed their views, or to what extent the group simply became irrelevant after the Vietnam war ended.
In the film, Robert Redford is a suspect in a bank robbery carried out in the 1970s, although, as far as I can tell, the specific robbery depicted in the film is fictional. In the movie, Redford was in fact not involved in the robbery, and goes on the run while trying to find someone who could establish his innocence.
As Redford meets up with former members of the Weatherman group, some unpleasant questions came to my mind.
I was in Cambodia teaching English in 2010, when the trial of a former Khmer Rouge leader named Duch took place. (The Khmer Rouge were the Chinese-backed communist group that ruled Cambodia for four years, from 1975 to 1979.) Duch had overseen the Toul Sleng torture centre in Phnom Pehn, where 15,000 people were held and made to ‘confess’ to various crimes being sent to the ‘killing fields’ just outside the city. When I visited Toul Sleng, there was a very rough English translation of the prison rules on display. The first rule was, ‘When I ask you a question you must answer me immediately, or you will get ten hits of the stick, and five shocks of the electric.’ It’s not a nice place.
On 26 June 2010 Duch was found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to 35 year’s jail, or about 9 hours for every person whose torture he oversaw. The sentence was later increased to life imprisonment. The Cambodian government said at the time that only half a dozen more of the old Khmer Rouge leadership would go on trial. The current Prime Minister of Cambodia, Hun Sen, is a former Khmer Rouge leader who defected to Vietnam, and to put every ex-Khmer Rouge leader on trial would probably leave the country with not much of its leadership left.
In other countries that have had civil wars, people have had to make compromises. In South Africa, the ‘Truth and Reconciliation Commission’ heard confessions from former white police officers and prison officers about their activities against blacks during the apartheid era, as well as violations of human right by (black) ANC members who fought the regime. About 900 people were given amnesty for their crimes. The general justification for the commission’s approach was that the country had to acknowledge what had happened in order to have healing, in order to be able to move forward.
In Northern Ireland, there has been a peace process, and Catholics and Protestants are working together in a government. I venture to suggest that if every murder committed during the Northern Irish ‘Troubles’ were fully investigated and prosecuted today, the degree of progress that has been made there might soon evaporate.
I’ve seen American documentaries on the real weathermen, some of whom today still won’t comment on which ‘operations’ they or other members took part in.
I have mixed feelings about all of this. If one of my kids were murdered, I’d want the killer bought to justice, even if it weren’t in the ‘national interest’ of reconciliation. There are people walking around today in the US who have almost certainly participated in murders, but for legal reasons cannot be prosecuted. South Africa, Cambodia, and Northern Ireland appear to have made decisions not to reopen old wounds for pragmatic reasons.
But should murder ever be subject to a forgive-and-forget policy? what do you think?
How do you live with a man who is extremely talented, perhaps a genius, but who is insecure, resentful, often dismisses you, puts you down, is a peeping tom and seems determined to prove that everyone else in his industry is wrong?
Helen Mirren, from Wikimedia Commons
In Hitchcock, staring Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren as his wife Alma Reville, Hitchcock believes the Hollywood film industry want him to make the same kind of film over and over again, so he chooses as his next project Psycho, based on a book about a serial killer (Ed Gein) who kept his dead mother mummified, and killed attractive young women who came to his motel. It was 1959, and Hitchcock proposed showing a woman being stabbed to death in the shower, and evidence being flushed down a toilet. Back then, cinema just didn’t show those things. Everyone is against the project.
These are the twin themes in this film: Hitchcock’s determination to prove the industry wrong, and the effects on Reville of a living with a man who most of us would think was impossible to live with.
The first theme begins when Hitchcock is asked at the premier of his latest movie, North by North West, whether he is too old to continue making movies and should just retire. As she hears the question, Reville freezes. We can see how deeply she knows the question will hurt Hitchcock. Hitchcock sets out to prove everyone wrong, but chooses a project which nobody will fund. When the studios won’t finance the film, Hitchcock mortgages their house and tells Reville that if it doesn’t work out they’ll be eating crow for a long time. In fact, they’ll probably lose their house and may become bankrupt.
The filming is soon behind schedule, and Hitchcock doubts whether the still ‘has it.’ Reville also has doubts, which are implied, but not directly voiced. As the film progresses, Hitchcock’s doubts grow, until he refers to the film as being ‘stillborn.’
The second theme revolves around Hitchcock’s constant overeating and drinking, his obsessing over actresses that he could probably never attract, his lechery (in front of his wife) and his suspicions of Reville’s relationship with a fellow writer, Whitfield Cook. As Cook and Reville work together on one of Cook’s scripts, Cook tells Reville that a lot of great men are “impossible to live with, but worth the effort.” Eventually Hitchcock accuses her of having an affair with Cook, at which point Reville gives Hitchcock a blast over the time she spends supporting him, and the little recognition or gratitude she gets for any of it. After they have a reconciliation of sorts, Reville turns her energies into helping Hitchcock “whip Psycho into shape.” When Paramount Pictures decides to release the picture in only two cinemas, Hitchcock comes up with an ingenious plan to get the film the publicity it needs. It went on to be regarded as one of his best films.
The acting in this movie is superb – especially that of Helen Mirren as Reville. In many scenes the main emotional impact is conveyed merely by the expressions on Reville’s face, without the need her to say anything. If Mirren doesn’t get an Oscar for this, I’ll be very very surprised.
This film is well worth the money. If you haven’t seen it, I hope you’ll consider it.
So what did you think of Hitchcock and his films? Do you have a favorite Could you have lived with a man like that? And did you ever watch the original of psycho? I’d love to hear what you think.
Note: this is my blog site. For information about my novel, click here. For information about editing an academic thesis, click here.
In Britain, a young woman has had her stomach removed after drinking a cocktail made with liquid nitrogen. Gaby Scanian, 18, a resident of Haysham in Lancashire, drank the cocktail at Oscars Bar in Lancaster. The bar had advertised the drink on its Facebook page. Adding liquid nitrogen to the cocktail makes it give off white smoke. Liquid nitrogen is often used to chill food and glasses, but if swallowed may burn your mouth, throat, and stomach. The bar has since stopped serving the drink.
Cocktail Picture by Lynn Kelley Author, WANA Commons
Scientist have discovered a new type of squid, named Vampyroteuthis infernalis, (Latin for “Vampire squid from Hell”). The squid lives at ocean depths so low that it can’t form muscle tissue, so it lives on dead things, and guess what else? Faeces. Yep, that’s right. Apparently this doesn’t require a whole lot of muscle development.
Some squid that live in the waters around the states of Victoria and Tasmania, Australia, use up so much energy in mating that they swim slower for half an hour afterwards. The “dumpling squid” only live a year, and become sexually mature at four months, so they have to get it while they can. Melbourne University Master of Science student Amanda Franklin studied the squid and published her findings in the Journal “Biology Letters.” According to Franklin, the squid have multiple partners and the males initiate sex “whenever they can.” Being slow to swim afterwards makes them vulnerable to predators, so they bury themselves in sand to hide.
A bride in the town of Jallias in western France gave birth to a baby, only minutes after the wedding ceremony. She was not due for a week, but felt unwell after a ceremony at the town hall and went back inside. Minutes later paramedics were called after her waters broke. The local mayor, Jean-Robert Gachet, said it was a very emotional moment for everyone when the baby was delivered. Yeah. sounds like bad planning to me. I wonder what the wedding photos will look like.
If anyone would like to alert me to weird stuff in their newspapers, please let me know.
ON A MORE SERIOUS NOTE: There has been a lot of discussion this last couple of weeks about the film “Innocence of the Muslims,” and the resulting riots in many counties, including at least a couple of dozen people who have been killed. I found this video by a Muslim man, Syed Mahmoud, urging his fellow Muslims not to demonstrate or riot. I agree. The film is an artless piece of junk that looks as tho a-14 year-old made it just to be provocative and seek attention. Mahmoud argues that by continuing to demonstrate, people are simply giving the film free publicity, for no good outcome. I agree, and here’s the link to his video.
Have a good week.
Richard Snow
My novel ‘Fire Damage,’ an action thriller, is available on Amazon Kindle, here :The novel is based on the Japanese religious cult Aum Shinrikyo, which released Sarin nerve gas in the Tokyo subway system in the 1990s. If you don’t have a Kindle, you can download the app to read it on your computer or phone from here.
Chess players with assault rifles? Sounds unlikely, doesn’t it? But first some other strange news:
A consumer agency in the US filed a law suit to ban the sale of “Bucky balls” (shapes that fit together with the aid of magnets inside them.) A total of twenty-two children had swallowed the magnets and suffered an injury, out of a total of 475 million magnets sold. Someone did a bit of mathematics, and calculated the rate of injuries per 100,000 people from Bucky balls, tennis, skate boarding, and dog bites. Guess what’s most likely to give you an injury that needs medical attention? Guess first. I’ll tell you at the end of this blog.
In Australia, a youth on the run from the police decided to hide in the roof cavity of a house when the police came to a party. He should have stayed still, because when the moved, he fell through the ceiling, and into the long arms of the law. I’m sure the cops were surprised too.
Can you imagine chess players with assault rifles? Neither can I. But it turns out that the Sicilian Defence, one of the most common chess openings, has a variation called the Kalashnikov variation What the Hell?? Well, the AK47 weapon was named after an Mikhail Kalashnikov, who invented it in 1947. Chess openings, as it happens, are often named after the city where they were first successfully used in an international tournament, or the player who made them famous by coming up with a new twist and winning unexpectedly. But the various chess websites and books I’ve consulted have no information as to which Mr Kalashnikov started the chess move. His first name appears lost to history.
AK 47 (photo from Wikipedia Commons)
And what about the Buckey balls? It turns out that tennis is more likely to cause you an injury than skateboarding, dog bites, accidental poisoning with household substances, and Buckey balls come last. Click here for the stats.
This week, a post in Piper Bayard’s blog about Russian naval spying bought back a memory of perhaps the strangest experience I ever had as a tourist. In 1985, I visited the USSR, as Russia and it satellite countries were then called. In those days, Russia had strict currency exchange control laws. The Rouble was tied to the British pound at one for one. But, on the streets, one British Pound could get ten Roubles.
Red Square – from Wikipedia commons
The Russian authorities wanted to control street speculation: they wanted all the foreign “hard currencies” to go to the state, not to private individuals. How they achieved this was unbelievable.
On the train going into Russia from Finland, the dining car took western currencies. Shortly before we crossed the border, the waiters stopped taking new orders, and went to balance the cash register. When we crossed the border, we pulled up at a train station where we were all encouraged to get out of the train, and changed our foreign money into Roubles. I had Deutschmarks (the German currency before the euro.) I changed my money, bought something in roubles, and a few hours later we arrived in Leningrad (now called St Petersburg). In between, I saw what the waiters were going. They were balancing the tills in different western currencies, before they changed to operate in Roubles. It dawned on me. The waiters were not allowed to handle Roubles and western currencies at the same time. If they did, a customer would pay with a British Pound, the waiter could put a Rouble from his own pocket in the till, then sell the British Pound on the street for ten roubles. The waiter would get the benefit of the Pound, not the state.
After checking into my hotel, the problems began.
The hotel had two bars: a Rouble bar, for visitors from communist countries, and a western currency bar for types like me. I made the mistake of going into the Rouble bar and trying to order a drink. The waiter point-blank refused to serve me. He pointed up the corridor the corridor to the western bar. I went. In the western bar, I tried to order a drink. But the barman wouldn’t serve me there either. I had my money in hundred Deutschmark travellers’ checks. He could only take real money: Deutschmark paper money. He told me to go to the gift shop. They would take my travellers cheques and give me Deutschmark paper money in change. Up to the souvenir shop. Yes said the woman, she could take my travellers cheques and give me change. BUT, only if I bought 85 marks worth of souvenirs, and then she would give me fifteen marks of change.
WHAT?
I have to buy 85 marks of tourist photo books and grandmother dolls to get fifteen marks of change to buy a drink?? I’M GOING TO BE IN RUSSIA FOR TEN DAYS!! THIS IS A FINANCIAL DISASTER! HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO PAY FOR FOOD?
Down to the hotel foyer. They tell me to go to the bank opposite. I do. The bank teller will cash my 100-Deutschmark notes into Roubles. Not Deutschmark paper money, just Roubles. That’s no help.
Back to the hotel.
I’m grinding my teeth into dis-existence with this frustration.
A Finish woman asks me what’s wrong. “Didn’t you know?” she asks. “When you come to Russia, you must bring many small paper monies. US one and five Dollars, one, five or ten Deutschmarks, or one and five British pounds?”
“No. No one told me.”
I go to the hotel counter again. This time a woman tells me to go to the desk which sells opera and ballet tickets. The woman there can take my travellers checks and give me Deutschmark change. Hallelujah! I buy an opera ticket for that night. Who cares what the opera is? Not me. It turns out to be something about drunken priests in a monastery, but I can’t follow the plot. I have change. The whole process of being given the run-around has taken about three hours. Seriously.
The next day I meet an American couple from Chevy Chase. I explain my problem and ask if they want to see any opera or ballet. Yes. Could I buy their tickets for them? Yes. We go to the desk and find out the price in Marks and Dollars. I buy the tickets for them in Deutschmarks, They give me American Dollars for the tickets. Now I have two useable currencies. The woman on the ticket desk watches us, but doesn’t care. Everyone’s happy. For the next ten days I become a man of culture.
So what about you? What’s the strangest experience you’ve had in another country?
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My novel ‘Fire Damage,’ an action thriller, is available on Amazon Kindle, at:
The novel is based on the Japanese religious cult Aum Shinrikyo, which released Sarin nerve gas in the Tokyo subway system in the 1990s. If you don’t have a Kindle, you can download the app to read it on your computer or phone from here:
Richard Snow Writer 