A Sound and Fury Signifying Nothing

It was interesting seeing “The Hunger Games, Catching Fire” movie in close proximity to the second part of The Hobbit trilogy “Desolation of Smaug”.  Both big movies forged on a large, epic scale, one imbued with emotion and feeling and 1 largely devoid of both.  Director Peter Jackson has accomplished something not uncommon in modern film he has sacrificed one of the most beloved books in the world in a funeral pyre of bombastic special effects.  He has sucked all the heart and soul out of The Hobbit and left us with a noisy, gasbag of a movie, and a long one at that!

Jackson has given us, in a mind numbing 5 hours of screen time, virtually no character development, none of the dwarf back-story that is such a part of Tolkien’s great book.  Yes the effects are “state of the art” and the action is exciting but ultimately you end up not really caring very much.  In his determination to turn The Hobbit into the grand film spectacle of The Lord of the Rings Jackson has oddly stripped away all the charm and heart that has made the book so beloved.

While The Hunger Games does not have the literary pedigree of The Hobbit the film has something even more wonderful; Jennifer Lawrence.  Lawrence’s performance is one for the ages; her laser beam focus on heroine Katniss Everdeen and her complex moral dilemmas never ever falter.  She brings a gravitas to Katniss that imbues the relatively hackneyed political story with a tremendous cinematic and moral weight.  Katniss is one of the first non-ironic heroic characters I have seen in film in a while and it was very refreshing.  The filmmakers’ of the 2 Hunger Games movies made sure that the action and special effects in the film supported the story.  Sadly the great director Peter Jackson made sure that The Hobbit, a far more original and beloved tale was completely lost in a flood of special effects and action.

I am mad as hell and I can't take it anymore!

We have surveyed the stifling effects of crony capitalism on these pages many times.  Once you see it, you see it everywhere as you observe the immense flow of money that allows about 1% to 2% of our citizen’s to essentially control our government thru the union of big business and big government.  This is done thru corporate lobbying and funding of political campaigns but I often forget a very important part of what is a deadly and unholy trinity; the media. 

The media is a profound beneficiary of all this money in that they receive millions of political advertising dollars.  Thus the media becomes part of this massive machine that obfuscates our very real issues with biased reporting, both left and right.  This reporting is designed to enflame feelings about one side or the other but not deliver any meaningful dialogue of change.  The reporting is shallow and obviously biased; CNN highlights the evil and obstructionist Republican Party while FOX News hammers the incompetence of the Obama administration.  The reporting is not designed to uncover any truths or help in seeking any solutions but keep our current 2 party system firmly in place and keep the all important money flowing.

Our current 2 party system with its allegiance to its corporate sponsors and their money and supported by a fraudulent media is killing our country.  In the twilight of the Bush presidency the anger was in the liberal community, now as we enter the death gasps of the Obama years all the anger is in the right wing (and liberals have completely forgotten how much they hated George W.).  But this anger yields nothing, as our country simple careens from one corrupt and debased party and candidate to another and nothing changes.  It leaves a country where the vast majority of its citizens remain completely unrepresented by anyone in Washington. 

Those (perhaps) well meaning folks who have their anger stoked by the likes of Rachel Maddow, Rush Limbaugh, Steven Colbert, Bill O’Reilly and many others truly become a “sound and fury signifying nothing.”   The blind anger stoked by the media keeps folks focused and “bought in” to the current system thru a not so subtle system of blame.  These folks don’t see the complete dishonesty and corruption that exists on all sides and that their anger should be directed at everyone in power and then it should foster looking for solutions completely outside our current system.  Being pissed off becomes a suckers game and the powers that be laugh all the way to the bank in their limousines.