whiskey

It is really cold. I live in a dark room. Working so much leaves me little time for thinking or strategizing. When I am not working I want to sit in one place and stare at the wall while under the covers and wish someone was around to get drunk with.

Back to the V for Vendetta question as to get it out of my head. There is one review that sums up pretty accurately what I think here. To add to it, the problems I see are thus:

1) No actual values or ideals are articulated.
2) You know its gonna be one of those typical mainstream movies when you hear Natalie Portman's opening voice-over, which is emblematic of such a formulaic movie, which causes me to wonder, who is greenlighting these movies? Isn't anyone watching these and saying, uh it could be a lot better *before* releasing it to the world. Obviously it is not for a lack of funding. Have people forgotten what good movies are? Or maybe no one cares.
3) Okay this goes with number 2, but the acting/script/believability of the characters was lame-o.
4) Making homosexuality the target of repression may pull on your heartstrings, but does not make for a nuanced reflection of the repression people really face under their governments, including co-opting indentity politics making everyone an equal opportunity cog whatever your gender/race/sexual orientation.
5) V says near the beginning "I've never forgotten the power of words" or something close to that. And this is the particularly disturbing part of the movie to me – manipulation. V embodies a charismatic manipulative character, this to me is antithetical to anarchism and really one of the grave dangers I see especially within anarchist cliques. So unfortunately maybe this is the part that most accurately reflects anarchist communities in the u.s. (oh say it isn't so!)
6) Evey says she misses the man and the script blunders on about this romantic relationship between Evey and V (which does not work at all), although one of the central tenets of the movie is that it is not about an individual rather an idea. This goes into the wishwashy-what-the-hell-is-this-movie-trying-to-say category that the review I link to does well in explaining.
7) I couldn't help wondering if Natalie Portman was gonna f-up her fake english accent and whether she was okay with her pronounced nipples in the ridiculous dancing scene. What up with that. In case you are wondering, Berkeley audiences did giggle when V uttered the Emma Goldman line. But alas, Emma he was not. Emma actually had ideals and was able to articulate them brilliantly.

Okay so a few positive things:
1) It was entertaining in the posh hollywood way, although it must be said that I am easily entertained. It was even a little exciting to see a movie grappling with hinting at an interesting idea yet never figuring out what that idea is.
2) If anyone has been hiding under a rock for the past 6 years in the U.S. and still does not understand how blowing something up has culturally symbolic meaning and can change reality, well this movie touches on that.
3) If anyone has been hiding under a rock for the past 6 years and has not figured out the government is fear-mongering as an excuse to get rid of those pesky civil liberties we used to enjoy but take for granted, this movie touches on that.
4) Cool knife-slashing sound effects.

Back to staring at the wall wishing for whiskey and a person to drink it with.