A much better movie than New Moon, if you ask me.
But then again, it is doubtful that New Moon will find a place on the 15 best vampire movies of all time. Or the top 70 vampire movies of all time, for that matter. Actually, the jury is still out as to whether New Moon qualifies as a Vampire movie, but I digress...
Where was I?
Ah, yes, Let the Right one In...
Need I say it? No one does Swedish romantic horror like...the Swedes.
The movie has a great subplot about standing up to bullies...and the price of standing up to bullies in an environment where bullies rule the world.
And, no, the bullies are not the vampires in this movie.
Bullies are alas only too humans.
You know who they are. And you know what they do...
In Columbia ("Sometimes I am God, if I say a man dies, he dies that same day." - Pablo Escobar), in the former Soviet Union, or contemporary Russia, in the United Sates of America, and all the world over...
Bullism has no borders and no ideologies. While bullies commonly speak the language of borders and ideologies (jingoism, fanaticism, fear-mongering, rankism, blame-shifting), bullies' only true motive is power and domination - borders and ideologies are just only so many tools to them, contrivances that change and evolve to serve their needs according to the times and the circumstances.
Which takes me to this inspiring post on madmikesamerica, the "uptown version," today.
This drink is for you Lazersedge.
Glad to hear the Swedes are keeping up with the Swedes.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I've ever been a bully. Close to a bully, yes. Overbearing, boorish, outshouting anyone I disagree with.
But I have never used a club. Or brass nucks. Or a pointed stick.
If you are wondering how you can get your way without these standard tools there is always coercion. Threatening overbearing postures work too. Just the threat of being a bully can do wonders.
Power has always been very important to me. I wear red power ties and my shoes inform head waiters that I am rich and powerful. Waiters in the know all claim they can always tell from the shoes. So I am very careful about my shoes.
Bullying is an art form. You want to be able to do it so that people will think the deference you receive is your due. That you truly are superior. And that others abide by your will because they should. If they don't the social fabric will be broken and something ineffably precious will be violated. The successful bully knows that he will always come out on top to the loud cheers of an admiring public. The more he bullies, the more people will follow him. It is a law of nature. And, what's more, bullies believe in the rightfulness of this law themselves.
When it comes to sanguine thrills and highs I still stick to booze. Drunk I am king of the world. Let no man dare take my space when I am drunk. That's why I am sitting here in this bar.
For that kind of high who needs to be a bully?
Mad Mike doesn't tell us how he made out under the tree?
ReplyDeleteAnd that guy looks like one serious bully, too. Tough kids from the Perry Street Gang in New York's Greenwich Village used to exhort us too. My friends and I played in MacDougal Alley and they would come into the alley (we were maybe eight or nine years old) and they offered us a simple deal. Either we gave them money or they would beat the shit out of us. For a while we gave them money until one of us finally told his parents and they, the tough kids, mysteriously disappeared.
Then there were the kids who went to Saiint Anthony of Padua School, in Little Italy. The sons of the Mafia in blue serge suits. They sometimes played stoop ball with us in the park, Washington Square Park, and when we began to win their leader would stop the game and take us aside. In a calm and reasonable manner he would explain to us the consequence of not allowing them to win. Good training, I suppose, for their future days in the Mafia. We, of course, complied. Since we were not as brave as Mad Mike and they only bothered us a couple of times.
Greenwich Village is not known for tough kids. But they were there. Though today the old neighborhoods they came from have been gentrified.
I was so pleased with Let the Right One In! I get so tired of watching disappointing films & I admit that I passed over this one for weeks before renting.
ReplyDeleteAfter some digging, I found there was one particular instance where the book elaborated a tad more than the film making it even more perfect/fitting [to me].
Thanks for linking that post from one of our fine contributors, Bill AKA Lazer's Edge at MadMikesAmerica (Uptown)
ReplyDeleteNow I could not get into Let the Right One in and for the life of me don't know why. I LOVE a good horror story.
Quinty, I left the tree that day with a broken nose and a busted lip. The bully left with the knowledge that it was a bad idea to mess with a scared skinny kid.
ReplyDeleteWhich I take to mean that you prevailed.
ReplyDeleteMore guts than I have. Well done.