The Truth About Mark Wahlberg

The true face of dickhead-dom

 J  ust what is the truth about Mark Wahlberg? AKA "Marky Mark"?

If the whole question has you all befuddled, well, you're entitled.

It seems this scumfuck has just crept past all the ordinary barriers to somehow transcend his assholedom and become a "benefit to society."

Dog knows this guy needs to be in 24/7 lockdown instead of being numbers one through ten in Martin Scorcese's rolodex.

Here is the summary on Wikipedia; it reads like Mike Tyson's rap sheet (apologies for the length):

Wahlberg had been in trouble 20–25 times with the Boston Police Department in his youth. By age 13, Wahlberg had developed an addiction to cocaine and other substances. At 15, civil action was filed against Wahlberg for his involvement in two separate incidents of harassing African-American children (the first were siblings, and the second incident was a group of black school children on a field trip), by throwing rocks and shouting racial epithets.  At 16, Wahlberg approached a middle-aged Vietnamese man named Thanh Lam on the street and, using a large wooden stick, knocked him unconscious while calling him "VIETNAM FUCKING SHIT". That same day Wahlberg also attacked a second Vietnamese man named Hoa "Johnny" Trinh, punching him in the face. He believed he had left his victim permanently blind in one eye. Trinh was interviewed in December 2014 by the Daily Mail, who revealed that he had already lost his eye during the Vietnam War, was not severely injured by Wahlberg, and did not know the identity of his assailant prior to being contacted by the media.

According to court documents regarding these crimes, when Wahlberg was arrested later that night and returned to the scene of the first assault, he stated to police officers: "You don't have to let him identify me, I'll tell you now that's the motherfucker who's (sic) head I split open."

Investigators also noted that Wahlberg "made numerous unsolicited racial statements about 'gooks' and 'slant-eyed gooks'."

For these crimes, Wahlberg was charged with attempted murder, pleaded guilty to assault and was sentenced to two years in Suffolk County Deer Island House of Correction. He ultimately served only 45 days of his sentence. In another incident, the 21-year-old Wahlberg fractured the jaw of a neighbor in an unprovoked attack.  Commenting in 2006 on his past crimes, Wahlberg has stated: "I did a lot of things that I regret, and I have certainly paid for my mistakes." He said the right thing to do would be to try to find the blinded man and make amends, and admitted he has not done so, but added that he was no longer burdened by guilt: "You have to go and ask for forgiveness and it wasn't until I really started doing good and doing right by other people, as well as myself, that I really started to feel that guilt go away. So I don't have a problem going to sleep at night. I feel good when I wake up in the morning."

Quote unfucking quote:

" . . . the 21-year-old Wahlberg fractured the jaw of a neighbor in an unprovoked attack."
" . . . he believed he had left his victim permanently blind in one eye."

This dick is now a multi-million-dollar actor who has been knowingly hired by some of the most respected directors of the 21st century?

There is something most definitely wrong with this motion picture, possibly the most egregious thing being this mono-thematic Wall of Berg couldn't act his way out of a fucking puppet show.

Martin Scorcese, take a reminder from one of your favorite characters and Go Get Your Shoeshine Box.

The Most Significant WWII Movie of All Time?

 W  hat is the greatest World War II movie of all time? I asked my partner around these parts, Dane Joe.

Well, we're both war buffs--me not because I like to watch explosions and people blown to smithereens but because my father just happened to be right in the thick of it.

Dane obviously has his favorites and will no doubt weigh in on the subject sometime soon.

I attended British boarding school barely 20 years after war's end, so the Blitz and Battle of Britain were all still on the lips of my teachers, almost all of whom had played some role or another. Two of them, I recall, still retained their titles of rank: Major Wake and Captain Atfield.

In fact our prep school had received a direct hit from some wayward Nazi bomb, no doubt jettisoned in error. At the time all the students had been moved to the countryside, so no one was hurt.

Jack Hawkins (foreground) in The Cruel Sea

But WWII movies were shown in abundance, some just jingoistic excuses to trumpet Britain's role in the Good War, but some that still stand the test of time: The Cruel Sea, with an astonishing cast: Jack Hawkins and Stanley Baker, among others; Battle of the River Plate, which I have not seen since the 60s; The Man Who Never Was, an instant classic; The Dambusters, a film whose subject still resonates today, plus a host of lesser films.

Since then I've seen most WWII films six, seven or even 100 times. All the instant classics like Battle of Britain, Guns of Navarone, Downfall, Stalingrad . . . the list is actually far too long.

Some niche foreign films, like Black Book, The Counterfeiters and Sophie Scholl: The Final Days deal with resistance to the Nazis. Band of Brothers and The Pacific are TV series that do pretty well.

NOT the schlocky Russian-version abortion

Others, like Twelve O'Clock High (I once played in a band that called ourselves "12 O'Clock Hugh," for our drummer, who couldn't seem to get out of bed before noon) exist somewhere in the grey land between propaganda and truth.

I could go down the list. The list is insanely long. If one considers that at some point, almost every living human being on earth had some kind of a role in the most horrific event ever to take place over five years (many more for some parts of the world)one would be confronted with over one-hundred-million separate stories, all potential blockbusters in their own right.

Battle of Britain painted a very broad picture, but the individual stories of any single person who had gone through those times--from housewives to ground staff to children--could easily have incredibly intense dramas devoted only to their own tiny slice of the war, and that goes for every person of every nationality in every possible role--aggressor, witness, perpetrator, victim--that conceivably could still make it into film.

From just the amount of books that have been written--probably numbering now in the millions--of every aspect of WWII, small to huge, well-known to impossibly obscure--there are an equal number of true stories to be told on film.

With forgotten screen legend Anthony Quayle

Forget the stupid dramedies like ludicrous farce The Dirty Dozen or Von Ryan's Express or The Great Escape--60s abortions that only serve to muddy the waters of all the possible to-the-letter-factual-no-detail-embellished movies that could -- and are -- made even today, one can at least try to weed out the absurd star vehicles (anything with Brad Pitt, or the over-the-top eggs-travaganzas: Pearl Harbour, Stalingrad [Russian propaganda Michael-Bay clone]).

It's insane to try to come up with a list of "Top Ten," Top 100" or even "Top 1000" movies about WWII, because there are probably more than one hundred that belong in the top ten movies of ALL TIME, let alone in a niche "war movie" category; The Pianist comes to mind, as does Tora Tora Tora and the aforementioned The Cruel Sea--but in the end, it's not fiction, or even fictionalized faction, but actual documentary that trumps any of the previously mentioned filmic attempts.

So what is the best, most important, most well-made, most "gripping," least expensive WWII movie of all time, in my book?

That would be a very small story from a very small director (a nobody, in fact) about a totally neglected subject, namely, the refuse created by the arch-criminals of WWII, who themselves do not want to even be on this earth because of the Sins of their Fathers.

My nomination for Best Movie Ever Made About World War II would be Hitler's Children. Brought to you by the direct progeny of the actual perpetratrors of the single most catastrophic event ever to overwhelm the human race, in their own words.

And not an explosion in sight.

(This is a link to the documentary but it's a private link and may not work for you. If the link works, watch it immediately, because it probably will not be up for much longer.)

List of movies about WWII that I have watched and in most cases loved:

Highly recommended by Durknit:

Highly recommended; one of the best ever made

Pacific War (in rough order of like):
Grave of the Fireflies (Hotaru no haka)
King Rat
Prisoners of the Sun
Tora, Tora, Tora
To End All Wars
The Pacific
Day One
Oppenheimer
Letters from Iwo Jima (with reservations)

European War (in rough order of like):
The Cruel Sea
The Man who Never Was
Eye of the Needle
Downfall
The Pianist
Band of Brothers
Stalingrad (NOT the Russian abortion)
Into The White
Flamme et Citron
Black Book
The Counterfeiters
Battle of Britain
The Dam Busters
Enemy at the Gates
Is Paris Burning?
North Face (with reservations:not strictly WWII but set in the period, contains Nazis)
Inglorious Basterds (with reservations: comedic value only)
Saving Private Ryan (with reservations: Tom Hanks)
Memphis Belle (with reservations: jingoist propaganda overtones, inappropriate casting)
The Longest Day (with reservations: jingoist propaganda overtones, inappropriate casting)
Battle of the Bulge (with reservations: jingoist propaganda overtones, inappropriate casting)

As it occurs to me, I'm sure this list will grow.

Ideas

Here are some ideas we're working on:

1. What makes a movie so bad it's good, and what makes a movie just plain bad?

2. Why do people like Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino, who basically never have to act again, choose so many barking dogs to appear in? Do they really need the money that much to open up that restaurant in TriBeCa? How do they square with the utter shit that is the inevitable result? (File under: Bruce Willis, Laurence Olivier, Dustin Hoffmann, and dozens of others whose names did NOT linger on after they chose the dogs. Harrison Ford? Still A-list? That is up for debate.)

3. What is the future of blockbusters -- the traditional moneymakers for the Hollywood suits? Are VR platforms like Oculus Rift going to propagate to the movies scene to the point that there will no longer be "theaters" where everyone watches one screen, or a "screening room," where everyone slouches in couches with their personal VR headsets, tripping out on immersive-reality moviemaking?

I foresee the latter within ten years. You read it here first

BladeFather Stroganoff: Dinner and a .mov Part I

I made Stroganoff yesterday (see plated version below the video), and decided to film it. And as is my wont, I watched some TV while I cooked. And then the voices started . . .

Be sure to click on the 1080p resolution button before watching!

 

Made with Hang 'Em High fettucine . . . but that's for another time

Max was talking too much in class