Looking at the violent headlines of the day it is hard to imagine "a peace
movement" or a time when peace was cool. One of the defining moments of the
"peace movement" of the '60s was John Lennon and Yoko Ono's bed which is
excellently captured in the documentary "John and Yoko's Year of Peace".
This movie chronicles the events of 1969 when John and Yoko staged their bed-in
for peace in Toronto, Canada. Luckily the event was filmed and that is
what makes this documentary so moving is seeing the actual footage from the
bed-in. Particularly moving for me was seeing John working on writing "Give
Peace a Chance" as well as the actual recording of the song in the room.
We get to see the warmth and compassion of Lennon in the poignant video from
the bed-in, but unfortunately, this movie also serves as a reminder that we
live in a world where things such as war and piece are not black and white.
Also chronicled in this movie is Lennon and Yoko's billboard campaign that
stated simply "War is Over" in large black letters on white and below it in
small letters (if you want it). Something that is still relevant in today's
world.
So next time you may be feeling anger or hatred, just stay in bed!
Kiss Me Violent
Oddly enough, after rewatching David Cronenberg's "VideoDrome" (which will be
reviewed in depth in an upcoming column), which foretold of brainwashing on
the TV with violence, I happened to catch my first Jet Li film ever, "Kiss
of the Dragon", on cable TV.
I was mildly shocked at the ultra-violence and how unbelievable this movie
was. He kicks the ass of the entire French police force and the movie is
complete with decapitation, bodies being torn in half, and chopsticks in the
throat. Plus the politics in this movie are just wrong. Jet Li, the hero, is
from communist China, and the villains are the French police who are
portrayed as common, yet vile violent, thugs. I thought communism was bad!
In the 1955 Mike Hammer movie, "Kiss Me Deadly", violence is very
effectively conveyed in a scene where the thugs are torturing a woman and
all they show are her squirming legs and feet and shrieks of pain. The
imagination is much scarier that graphic violence usually, especially when
it is so overdone as in "Kiss of the Dragon". Is our culture desensitized to
violence? If films like "Kiss of the Dragon" portray our mainstream culture
then the answer is yes.
Morpheus (the software, not the dude)
Note: downloading or sharing copyrighted material is illegal and this author
and website do not condone it.
One of the original file-sharing peer-to-peer applications, Morpheus is
touting a new version that is spyware free and connects up to 5 different
networks. I decided to give it a test run.
It is indeed spyware free but it does feed you ad banners at the bottom of
the application window. Ads come fast and furious and most of them seem to
be of a dubious/spyware nature. The application used up almost all my system
resources at times using 100% of my CPU. I also immediately got a javascript
exploit(worm) which my anti-virus caught and deleted, and I am using a
firewall.
Morpheus proprietary Neonet network worked best for me out of all the
supported protocols and produced decent download speeds. However due to
hogging of my system resources and getting a worm downloaded to me I cannot
recommend this software to anyone. If you are looking for a Gnutella client
check out Limewire instead.
A Final Note
I just watched one of the funniest films I have seen in a long time, the
James Bond movie, "A View to a Kill". Christopher Walken plays the exact
same role he will later play in "Batman" and Tanya Roberts plays a totally
unbelievable geologist sex kitten. I haven't laughed so hard in quite a
while.
Coming soon: "Cronenberg Heaven, Videodrome and Naked Lunch revisited"
"Couch Potato Confessions" is ©2005 by Vinnie B. Couch Potato main graphic by Vin Blesi and Nolan Canova. Webpage design and all graphics herein (except where otherwise noted) are creations of Nolan B. Canova. All contents of Nolan's Pop Culture Review are ©2005 by Nolan B. Canova.
