Sep

4

Movie rental rules of thumb especially for one whose girlfriend has a more humanitarian, international sensibility:

1. Avoid movies about poor people in f**cked up countries.

2. Avoid movies relating to "the troubles" in Northern Ireland. (This is by and large a subcategory of 1 above, since Ireland much of that time was a f**ked up country.)

3. Most movies would be improved by the addition of scenes involving the machine-gunning of Nazis. (This includes movies like Julie and Julia, Sideways, and A River Runs Through It.)

Can specs offer other rules of thumb?

Disclosure as to where I'm coming from: The movies I'd rate highest over the last couple of years (at least the ones I can remember):

The Queen

History of Violence

No Country For Old Men

Lives of Others

Taking Chance

Victor Niederhoffer comments: 

Explain to girlfriend that if they take from the rich and give to the poor, it's a taking based on singling out one group based on attributes that the majority does not  like, and it is very dangerous when extended. Explain that it has to come at some one else's expense. Explain that when a game is played, it's unfair to take the chips from the winners after the game. Explain that if two people vote to take the third 's chips away, it's like a robber coming and taking it away. Explain that once you take it away from one group, after another, there won't be any one else to take it from, ( the Jews thing from the bishop again). Explain that people stop trying after they keep having to have it taken away. Explain that it's not theirs to give. That it's wrong to steal from others, even if there's a vote. Explain that when people approach each other from each according to their ability to each according to needs, they begin to hate each other always being afraid of what the other guy is wanting from you or you can get from him. Explain that there's no difference between taking from the rich and giving to the poor to buy votes and all this, and that this is the idee fixe of the party in power. Explain that buying votes by taking a small amount per capita from one group and giving to another, earmarks and logrolling is the same thing.

George Parkanyi writes:

Generally I agree with the points you make, but you need to define "rich", and how they got that way. If you are rich because of looting, subjugating/brutalizing, running people off their land, government subsidies, inside information/cheating, exploiting misery (in a way that perpetuates/worsens, not improves it), generally racketeering and so on (in business or politics) - no sympathy whatsoever. And if you are rich by benefiting from the commons - the environment, shared infrastructures such as roads/highways etc. then a fair contribution should be put toward the custodianship of that (fair being the same formula for rich or poor). But where someone acquires wealth by imagination, creativity, and effort within on a fairly accessible, level, playing field, then I agree wholeheartedly that forced re-distribution of wealth is wrong. As for inherited wealth, although that may appear to be a free ride, if someone bestows upon you the fruits of their work, ultimately it is their right to spend their wealth that way, so that also should fall under protection from external plunder.

T.K Marks writes:

At the early onset of a relationship, there's always a little dance that takes place. I call it the pas de deux period, the part of the performance wherein the two principals gingerly feel their respective ways around one another.

In one's youthful exuberance this situation invariably takes place against a backdrop of lots of saloons and even more beer.

However as one gets older and lest their elevated liver enzymes leaving them forever dancing with two left feet, they must summon up their inner-Balanchine and modify the mating choreography a bit.

As such, and with respect to film rentals, there is a cinematic litmus test of sorts that affords one a little window into exactly what they're about to get into.

Think of it as a diagnostic dating tool. Kind of like an MRI of the soul.

Simply explain to the lady that you're in the mood for a classic film and since the ultimate choice of the rental should should only fairly be a bilateral decision, how about if you choose the director, and she, the exact film.

She may very well be taken aback by your quick sense of interest in her input and tastes in art.

Then you tell her that the two directors you had in mind were Frank Capra and Ingmar Bergman, a blithe/bleak dichotomy if there ever were one.

If she bites on Bergman, you might as well just have snuck a peak into her medicine cabinet. That thing is probably going to choking with Paxil, Zoloft, or whatever the latest SSRI big pharma is pushing at the moment.

However, if she's reflexively goes for Capra, there's a better than even chance that the serotonin issue is off the table and you may have just walked into a Norman Rockwell painting.


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