A COFFEE IN BERLIN - OH, BOY!

Niko is a drunk driver.  He lives on an inheritance.  He is a white 30 something male living in Berlin.  The film follows him for one day as he tries to get a good cup of coffee.  Sound like your buddy who's start-up plan didn't pan out and needed to go find himself by traveling?  "Oh, boy!' is the German thesis film of Jan-Ole Gerster, set in and filmed in Berlin.  It is shot in black and white and hailed as a favorite among early Jim Jarmucsh aficionados.  Although a German production with more in direct connection to German bourgeois cultural problems, "Oh, boy!" can easily be read through a ueber contemporary tech-dominated Mission district of San Francisco lens.  Niko is painted as a normal Berliner navigating a gentrifying metropolis. This sort of experience is common among white men living in San Francisco today.  And like Niko, they are conveniently ignorance of patriarchal privilege.  When some of Niko's privileges are suspended he goes on a new journey to find himself, the content of the film.  Often when white San Francisco males' privilege is restricted they bitch about gentrification and/or maybe move to Oakland or Austin, or wherever has good coffee, a robust music scene and affordable housing, to join a new wave of gentrification they will be unaware of their participation in until it overtakes them a decade later.  Unfortunately "Oh, boy!" is also unaware of Niko's pathetic inability to care about anyone but himself.  Instead the film attempts to cast him as the lovable loser.  His angst is driven by a desire to be independent of his father, but to remain living with the trust fund created for him by his father.  The message of this film is that rich white men deserve some slack, because living with privilege is harder than we think.  Similar to the current fashion of most white males living in the mission these days, work clothes and Hitler youth haircuts, "Oh, boy!" is a facade of struggle worn by the upper-class to pass as common.

It's coming out in US theaters in July 14


-PW

Wes Anderson's new film was financed by Studio Babelsberg and filmed entirely in Germany, a sign that the bobos have decided definitively on imagining Berlin as the locale for the next Belle Époque.  In this 100 minute matryoshka doll chase story of empty and problematic archetypes Willem Dafoe plays the Nazi sociopath, Jeff Goldblum plays the pragmatic Jew and Ralph Fiennes and Tony Revolori play the cultivated and civilized white European male and the brown comedic sidekick, respectively.  Going into nationalities, Fiennes is the only foreigner in this lineup.  That Revolori plays the foreigner character and is of Guatemalan descent simply adds another movie to the long list of movies where any shade of brown actor = any shade of brown character necessary to make a joke work.  The twelve women of the story, played by Tilda Swinton, Saoirse Ronan, Giselda Volodi and Léa Seydoux in the only speaking roles, are mostly scenery pieces to support the flimsy and violent male fantasy this film takes viewers on and three of the four (*spoiler alert) die at the hands of men.

***I must interrupt now to tell you that I just overheard someone say that Suckerpunch was "literally the worst movie ever made, but has a cool soundtrack."  Why are people allowed to speak?****

So I was talking about bobos and Berlin.  Anderson has been leading the bobos by the eye and ear to the cutting edge of uppermiddleclass fashion, music and kitch since Rushmore and he's showing no signs of stopping now.  GBH, although lacking in his traditional whoa I love this Rolling Stones song soundtrack style, has all the trimmings for his future and destined job as a fashion and architecture photographer working for Banana Republic and side gig as a pinterest blogger/cool hunter.  If you want to know what music, espresso drink, clothes, food and or sexual orientation is up and coming, Berlin and Anderson can tell you.  If you want to know what 100 minutes of me guphawing at typical Hollywood appropriation sounds like, you missed your chance, cuz I'm only watching GBH once.


-PW

new releases April 22nd

Which Game of Thrones Character are you?!?

What's your favorite color?

What famous quote best describes you?

"Victory goes to the player who makes the next-to-last mistake." 

- Chessmaster Savielly Grigorievitch Tartakower (1887-1956)

 

"Political correctness is tyranny with manners."

- Charlton Heston (1924-2008)

 

"Sex and religion are closer to each other than either might prefer."

- Saint Thomas More (1478-1535)

 

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."

- Albert Einstein (1879-1955) 

 

"Assassins!"

- Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957) to his orchestra 

 

Are you a Female?

Yes________              No__________

 

Are you between the ages of 18-29?

Yes________              No__________

 

What is the last four digits of your SSN?

____________________________

What times are you usually home?

6pm -6am________________

10pm- 10am________________

12pm- 9pm______________

Do you own an attack dog?

yes_____________

no______________

 

What are the first three numbers of you SSN?

________

 

Are any of your family members or friends in or have been in the US Military?

Yes____________________

No_____________________

 

Favorite 80's movie?

 

 

 What are the middle two numbers of your SSN?

__________________

What Bank best describes you?

 

 When is your birthday?

 _______________________

 

Are you a member of the GOP?

Yes_____________

No_____________ 

 

 

Please electronically sign below that all information you have provided is true and as accurate as possible

_____________________________

NAME

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Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.

Warren Buffett

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/w/warren_buffett.html#5mIplEYoLmey6sfI.99

Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.

Warren Buffett

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/w/warren_buffett.html#5mIplEYoLmey6sfI.99

NEW RELEASES 4/15!

New releases Tuesday, April 8th

new releases April 1st

New Releases, March 25th

New releases Tuesday, March 17th

new releases March 11th

NEW RELEASES 3/4!

Intellectual Evaluation

Dr. Richard O. Rotchett

Psychologist

1432 Ventura Blvd.

Topanga Canyon, CA 91623

Intellectual Evaluation

Name: Greer McGettrick

Date of Birth:   10/19/82

Chronological Age: 5 years 6 months

Date of testing 4/12-19/1987

Greer was referred for evaluation for the Rubber Tree Kindergarten Challenge Program. She is a very peculiar little girl with oddly cut hair and squint-y blue eyes. Her nails are not bitten although she usually has her hands in her pockets, nose or mouth so it is difficult to tell. On occasion she picks her nose; the nose picking does not appear to relate to frustration, though what she does with her 'findings' afterwards could possibly be the onset of Obsessive Compulsion Disorder. She holds pencils correctly, this has nothing to do with anything, I just thought I would mention it.

Background information

Greer is an only child of Mr. and Mrs. Kurt McGettrick. The father is a musician and the mother does something at a record label.

Greer has attended pre-school in a brick building next to a fast food restaurant, the parking lot seemed a lot bigger and the trees seemed a lot taller. Greer has trouble making friends, even when she is approached by other children she becomes anxious and reluctant to play in group games, it borders on reclusiveness. She likes art, music and nappies. She will work under supervision. If she is teased by other children, Greer will stare at her feet. In the 34 years of practice I've never seen this. I can only speculate that it is a defense mechanism of some sort. Also, her socks do not match.

In frustration Greer will stare off in to space rather than confronting the problem. For example, we asked her to solve y^ = x^3 - a x^2 = b x - c , a simple elliptic curve paradox and she stared out the window for 3 and a half minutes and then cried. She is advanced in fake sleeping and hiding, but average in seeking.

There are some learning or behavior difficulties in school. Greer confuses the letter "s" for "c" which we blame on English being stupid and has trouble pronouncing words that have the letter "r"s. Such as; "rejection" or "ribonucleotide" or "Rimbaud". It's adorable, but won't be in another year or so. To fix this speech impediment, we recommend a speech therapist that neurotically taps his pencil on the desk every time the child says a word incorrectly and clears his throat loudly when the child says a word reluctantly. Greer also seems to associate colors with numbers, for example she says that blue reminds her of the number (4) four and yellow is three (3) orange is one (1). This is possibly an example of what Vladimir Nabokov described in his memoir as "color hearing", though he explains that he associates letters with colors: "The long 'a' in the English language has for me a hint of weathered wood, [...] steely x, thundercloud z, huckleberry k" However, it is entirely possible that this is just the early signs of dyslexia and should not be encouraged. 

Her mother describes Greer as shy, but very creative, "her mind is often wandering and it is difficult to bring her back, if I ask her where she goes

 She often tells me nowhere, but I think the narrative she carries with herself may lead her to be a writer." We do not recommend the mother to encourage her daughter to become a writer, instead with children like Greer we hope to motivate them to becoming a Barista, (a word I've just made up, but in 15 years may mean something like a person making fancy coffee for people in a shop dedicated to only serving coffee.) 

Greer has excellent "self-control" we speculate it is because there Greer is advanced in comprehending the great amount of shame associated with "being in trouble". Ignoring the fear of being in trouble can lead to asking why in a critical way, not just an annoying way. Greer can speak English.

Test results

Intelligence

Greer was administered the Welchsler Pre-school and Primary Scale of Intelligence-Revised. Her verbal I.Q. was 0; she was too shy to talk to us all five times we asked her the questions. On our second attempt we tried asking her with puppets; that made her cry. We attempted hiding a walkie-talkie in "Wonald" her favorite stuffed animal; that may have traumatized her a bit (we remain that this is good for her lack of self-confidence.) Our last two attempts involved shock therapy and no nappies for 56 hours; we conclude that she is in the 99.9%ile of shyness and we conclude that she is in the 99.9%ile of being very good at staying awake while pretending she is being threatened. 

Her performance I.Q. was alright. Her geometric design was a little too much like a Buckminster Fuller sketch, when asked to assemble an object using popsicle sticks Greer made a Richard Serra sculpture that we've all seen a thousand times. Her Block Design was impressive if you think mastering the arch at age 5 is impressive. She giggled to herself when she drew a straight line form the beginning to the end of the maze. We see a somewhat crude sense of humor developing in the anatomically correct picture of a dog she drew in the Picture Completion section, and she somehow broke the square peg, those are hard to replace. Overall I would give her an Orange Yellow Blue give or take a Green.

Other testing

Results of the House-Tree-Person and Kinetic Family drawings were informative. These indicate that she thinks her father is red and her mother is blue, we analyze this to mean she has a low self-esteem and may possibly develop homosexual tendencies, though she probably won't ever figure that out. We are reluctant to say Greer does not think humans have noses, which is disturbing, we wonder what she thinks she is picking.  She also drew a dog with a normal body, but the head at least twice the size, we conclude that her dog is very sick or wears its collar too tightly. 

Furthermore, her House-Tree-Person drawing showed great promise if Greer pursues a career in house painting, tree painting, or person painting like for the circus. The "person" in her drawing exhibits characteristics of a flamboyant alien yielding a hammer, drunk with rage and a heavy conscious; we conclude this as normal for a child her age. Unfortunately, she made the clouds blue, and everyone knows; clouds are white. Recent studies in the Psychological Journal of Children's Behavior have concluded that children that make the clouds blue have sociopath tendencies, it is recommended that the child should be told immediately followed by the child explaining this to the parents. 

Summary

Greer is something else. We recommend that Greer come in for further analysis, we very much would like determine her Verbal I.Q. score, we have ways of making her talk. If you accept her into your program, I suggest it is on a trial basis, we believe it is important for the gifted children in your program to have another child to remind them just how gifted they are, hence that they may learn compassion and mental-diversity. With any luck, Greer will stop day dreaming and get to work. If you have further questions please consult a pamphlet.

Dr. Richard O. Rotchett

Psychologist # 06246

School Psychologist # 445

Diplomate # 54 Neuropsychology

Diplomate # 70 Behavioral Medicine