Oliver Stone documentary - South of the Border Oliver Stone - Hugo Chave...

What might Jaws: The Indianapolis be like?

Below is a scene from the original Jaws, a speech Robert Shaw edited down from a monologue mostly John Milius contributed. The story of the USS Indianapolis has been dramatized a couple of times, but there has been speculation over the years of whether Universal might dare make another Jaws movie with this as a core story, serving as a prequel to the original. The first concern might be poor taste - an intense movie giving us what we THINK we want, actually showing what the character Quint is talking about in the scene. They do, after all, tell screenwriters "show, don't tell," despite this monologue being an excellent example of telling that has been earned in the context of an otherwise very visual movie. As a moviegoer, I might welcome this prequel flick. (And by the way, no, I would have zero interest in seeing a %100 historical film about the subject as a substitute.) What I expect is that it will all hinge on the casting of a 19 year old actor who evokes Robert Shaw to a shocking extent, modulated for youth and minus minus much of the edge the story will create in his life. He would be the lynch pin, and our involvement would largely be about tracking his arc from a practical joking but team-player and believer patriot all the way to grizzled atheist where I expect he will see a very decent young father or someone else worthy of survival get killed right behind him as he waits for his turn to be lifted from the water. I expect the poster will have multiple versions of the Jaws logo (for which I have an aversion) ascending toward little soldiers floating above. I expect the Jaws theme would be used. I expect that these days digital technology can manipulate shots of real sharks and integrate them. I would also like them to be bold enough to include a shark that looks just like the original Bruce, with jowls where the hinges were kept, and perhaps insinuate that this is the same shark that will sink the Orca years later. That would be a Hollywood wink that a purist might not like, but that is the kind of flick I think would be appreciated by Jaws fans. One temptation I'm on the fence about is whether they should have the Captain receive information that the Russians have made progress into Japan and that it is not necessary to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which has been recently publicized as hidden history by Oliver Stone. They didn't have to use the bomb, but the White House decided it should be a demonstration of strength because now they wanted to keep Russia in line. But even if the movie sticks to the most dramatic structure, with Quint in each scene (he could of course overhead a cable being read), it would be worth doing. The issue of truncating a long ordeal of weeks of survival in the ocean into two hours or less might be a directorial challenge, but also an opportunity. Personally, I would use the old Passion of the Christ structure and punctuate the horror with flashbacks of better times and perhaps what kind of life Quint had up to that point, maybe living in Amity. Then he can try to impart something or motivate a fellow sailor to keep awake or to not be afraid.

11/22/63 and 9/11/2001 and conspiracies

Today I had more trouble than usual finding the Blogger access on my Google account. It's just a fact that things have changed in the last 48 hours or so since I last posted anything or checked into it. Maybe there is something behind it. Maybe Google doesn't want it to be so easy for people to use the blogging service. It had been click the arrow in the upper right, then in the drop-down choose account and then in the top middle will be another arrow to click and in that drop down you look for Blogger. Today there is the extra hurdle of signing in yet again to something called Dashboard then manage accounts and then find Blogger again. The thing about being conspiracy-minded is that it is merely making connections. They say intelligence is understanding the relationship between things. We may or may not understand but will be compelled to see relationships and connect the dots. This brings us closer to the truth than the naive idea that there are no connections. But in the case of the JFK assassination (which I should have posted on a couple of days earlier, but was thwarted by dark forces) all you really need is for more than one person to get the same idea to shoot at the President in Dealey Plaza as the motorcade route passes. Oswald doesn't have to know about anyone who might be lurking in the grassy knoll. The shooters do not have to conspire. Only three participants are required for the word conspiracy to be applied legally. Yet as soon as the dismissive term "conspiracy theory" is thrown around, it is a straw man easily dashed because of the false premise that hundreds of people must have known about it. If you think of the movie Cube where the characters speculate about how an evil device can be made it is mentioned that many systems are compartmentalized and individual parts might be worked on without each worker understanding the function of the whole. Oswald was interested in Russia and communism and the issue of Cuba, and that may have been motivation enough. He may have found out when everyone else did about the visit to Dallas, as may have the person behind the grassy knoll. But chances are that someone was aware of Oswald and did not act to stop him, and that person having little faith in him and his aim just might have arranged for the grassy knoll shooter and helped facilitate that person's escape. That does NOT have to involve a lot of people in the know. It is actually a quite manageable system. Witnesses were present who heard shoots from the knoll and who looked in that direction. Then Oswald's location above in the book depository might have drawn attention. I don't know. But though the book by Stephen King 11/22/63 does not firmly commit to whether any other shooters might have been ready, King says in his afterward that his research convinces him that there was no conspiracy and the book refers to Oliver Stone dismissively and conspiracy theorists are often described as the "tin foil hat" crowd. I guess I should make myself a tin foil hat. I've been meaning to. I simply do not agree with the idea that we must err on the side of closing down a supposed conspiracy - or what I prefer to call a mystery - when there are unanswered questions and allegations that have not been answered to my satisfaction. Best to admit something is unresolved. Penn and Teller had an episode of "Bullshit" that attempted to debunk the JFK assassination theory by addressing the direction his head goes - back and to the left - by shooting a watermelon to show that an object shot from behind may also fall backward. But it is worth watching the documentary that comes with Oliver Stone's movie and listening to his commentary track to address issues in depth. Stephen King's own wife Tabath believes the "conspiracy" about JFK and rejects the flawed Warren Commission report. There are people I respect who do not accept the conspiracies or questions about the events of 9/11/2001 - Bill Maher and Bill Clinton have demonstrated anger towards "truthers." Rachael Maddow has talked about the novel-style publication of the 9/11 commission report, and the comic book adaptation and has addressed some of the wilder perceived connections. There are also some people who scare me and whom I do not warm to, like the pro-gun Infowars guy, who embrace the idea that 9/11 was an inside job - and yet that uncomfortable spin is the one I lean toward. Again, it would not take massive co-operation and awareness of any big picture for all participants. I am sick of the joke that because George W. Bush appeared to be a bumpkin that the government could not orchestrate their presumed part in 9/11 any more competently than they managed other things. They knew it could happen. What action did they take? Staff at the World Trade Center were removed from their floors in the weeks before 9/11 ostensibly for fire drills, and supposedly incendiary devices were installed at this time. Osama bin Lauden and others involved in the construction industry did not expect that a plane hitting the upper third of a huge building would cause it to pancake. Building 7 was raised hours after the two towers fell, and it had not been hit at all by any plane. The harmless thing to admit is that a team could have set incendiaries in the hours since the collapse of World Trade 1 and 2, perhaps in case there had been vibrations that weakened the other structure and they would not want to be responsible for people going in there. That could have been admitted easily, and the pancaking of that building definitely does indicate a controlled explosion. So maybe they did not want to say that they sent a team into that building to plant explosions in the hours following the tragedy - maybe they thought it would seem strange. But no stranger than if those devices were implanted in the days leading up to 9/11. This does not mean that FBI explosive teams implanting incendiaries all knew this was to make sure the buildings went down and were not just standing damaged when the expected fire or plane crashes happened. They don't all have to conspire. They just all have to want to cover their butts.