Dallas Buyers Club

directed by Jean-Marc Vallée (2013)

This based on a true story flick by the Canadian director of the awesome C.R.A.Z.Y.,  is one of the most entertaining movies I've seen this year.  Dallas Buyers Club is bookended with scenes of Ron Woodroof, as portrayed by a shockingly bone rack thin Matthew McConaughey, rodeo riding massive bulls, and that image so symbolically portrays the tenacious bravery of the man who battles the government, crosses borders , bluffs and bribes his way around international law, and just generally doesn't ever, ever, give up in his pursuit of health.

Ron doesn't take shit from anyone, he's a Texas tough ass scrawny mother fucker,  Rooster Cogburn type, roused up through self interest to battle at the injustices of the parasitical relationship between the FDA and Big Pharma.  The movie is part procedural, and part lionising character study, except Woodroof is an unlikely hero.  He's a homophobic, slutty cowboy; a drug selling, hard drinking, gambling man. Sure he's an ignorant trailer trashy electrician roughneck, but surface first impressions are deceptive.  Don't be so quick to judge because you can never tell how people will respond to crisis, and illness is probably the most common personal crisis around that everyone eventually becomes familiar with, granted they live long enough.

And this guy has an arc too. He has a strong moral and ethical core, but the good ole homophobe gets enlightened around his ignorant prejudice and selfishness.  Suffering can create compassion because it's hard to keep a hate on for people in the same exact situation as yourself.

Jared Leto was awesome, as the gorgeous pre-op transwoman,  Rayon.  She's dressed to the glamourous 9's for much of the film, with fierce style and sass for days.  And she won't tolerate no bullshit when she meets her hospital roommate, Mr Mas Macho, and dishes it right back. She loves Marc Bolan and the glam looks, and so tragically wastes away throughout the film.  Her looks are so important to her identity, and to see her coming to grips with their fading, along with her vitality, was so so heartbreaking to see.

The film pulls no punches in portraying these folk, they're unapologetic hedonists, just they got sick eh? And illness knows no morals - a virus has no agenda.  It's an equal opportunity villain.

Rayon was one of the "lucky" ones,  being among the first of the AIDS patients chosen for a double blind study on the efficacy of AZT, that actually received the drug instead of the placebo given to the control group.  She would have been better off with the sugar pills as AZT had serious side effects - which were suppressed in terms of getting the go ahead for FDA approval for the treatment of AIDS.   And this too is what's messed about drug testing: early days of research for human trials are hell. As Woodroof says when the nature of the study is explained to him, "You're going to give dying people sugar pills?"

Jennifer Garner does a good job as the doctor working inside the medical establishment.  She's privy to the fact that the study patients are NOT doing well on AZT, while the border crossing club patients are faring much better.  "Fuck all y'all!" The doctor echoes Woodruff's dismissal of the medicos,  when she finally bucks the broken system she's been compromising her values to stay within and be the good little doctor just following the orders she knows are immoral.

The AIDS crisis of the 80's was a crucible of fraught circumstances - a disastrous epidemic that snuck up on the populace and was at first ignored because who was it killing?  Folk who challenged the mores of the status quo - the queers and the liberals, the degenerate fucking drug users - fucking being a literal multi use term here.   Of course those with a fundamentalist conservative agenda felt good gloating over god's hand directly intervening in their hateful world view, to strike down and punish the ostensible sinner.  In fact there are conspiracy theorists, who are certain AIDS was deliberately created to eliminate undesirable portions of the population.  That's pretty out there, but in any case the sentiment that this plague was a case of just desserts, was and is very widely held, still.

The biggest problem in the film was not so much AIDS, but rather, how the pharmaceutical industries operate in their pursuit of profits.  The drug companies have an unhealthy relationship with the FDA where the agenda around legitimising some treatments of illness and discrediting others, is entirely suspect due to the incredible amounts of money to be made if a drug gains approval.  The FDA, which is supposed to be an independent body protecting the interests of a populace that has expectations of their health being paramount - that ideal is entirely compromised, when the FDA is made up of former drug company CEOs, with lobby groups and their fat pockets petitioning for laws that favour the companies bottom line interests.  In truth, the FDA function is more lapdog lackey to Big Pharma, and its practical operations are all about restricting access to alternatives to the Big Pharma offerings.  The FDA is the dog in the manger of treatment options barking at the behest of the pill pushers who want to keep their possible markets as far far away as law can mandate, from accessing alternative forms of therapy.

Health is so NOT the primary concern, when you look into the shenanigans the developers of new drugs get up to in search of FDA approval.

Last spring, on a flight back to Van from Montreal,  I sat between two guys who oddly enough ended up being from the same small town in NB, as we discovered in the course of conversation, but I mostly spoke to the one who worked for a Canadian pharmaceutical company.  His specialty was getting contracts for analogue drugs for distribution in Canada.  Mostly this involves tweaking an existing drug so that its patent life and money making window is extended.  It's a fairly complicated legal process, but the most important aspect of our conversation relates to the fact that the profit imperative directly opposes health.  There's a lot of older drugs that may be very effective, but are considered worthless in terms of distributing, because they are longer able to produce the revenue shareholders demand.  He was proud of how his company was continuing to produce some drugs for "orphan diseases", in spite of the fact that they weren't making money off of them, and he explained too how for some of these effective drugs that weren't profitable anymore, they were still viable commodities in terms of dumping them in 3rd World Nations. Probably getting a big tax write off to balance their end of the year bookkeeping too, as it's not cheap disposing of medical waste.  So yeah charity!  And yeah, it's still all about the money eh?

Even more disquieting are the results of a recent sting operation where a bogus cancer study was sent out to a number of peer reviewed scientific journals to test the level of thoroughness in inspecting the veracity of any submission. 70% published the fraudulent study!!!

The game is rigged. Too much authority and power in the hands of too few, and too much money at stake, means peoples' health is sacrificed to the almighty dollar.  Greed is definitely not good in this area, and profit being such an unregulated factor in this industry increases the probability of corruption, and flies in the face of peoples' quest for wellness.

First do no harm is the hippocratic oath, more like hypocritic oath seems like.

In any case it's a good film, and I predict if not Oscar wins for Matt and Jared, at the very least they'll be nominated.

And here's a couple great interviews:  Jean-Marc Vallée talking up Matt and his movie, and McConaughey doing his take on things.

And here's an article about the FDA going after a walnut company because the packaging referenced the omega 3 fats found in the nuts as being beneficial.  Something is nuts there and it sure ain't the walnuts.

Golden Globes 2011

I recorded The Golden Globes last night.  Watched them when I woke up before I got spoilers on the winners from my email or wherever.  I don't remember watching them before, though I do know they have a reputation for more shenanigans than other awards, that the stars get drunk and cut loose more, also that there is controversy regarding awards/nominations being bought.  Like c'mon, The Tourist getting a nod?  That was such a piece of crap film.  It makes sense though; there's so much benefit to be gained for a product with an award.   Even a nomination gives whatever a sheen of prestige.  Of course the integrity of the process should be questioned, but who really cares?  It's just entertainment, and yeah it's a big money business, but it's only show biz, right?

Anyhow, this was the first time I watched an awards show with the DVR, and it was nice being able to rewind and skip bits. The show is long and boring though.  There's not much of interest aside from looking at the celebrities and seeing who you can recognise and speculate on what all plastic surgeries they might have had or whether it's just ageing that's transformed them.  If you haven't watched any of the nominations, it's more difficult to predict who will win, but more important, if you ain't watched anything in the category, you can't weigh in with your own opinion and therefore, you have less investment in the outcome.   I've seen most of the nominated films, but even  I didn't much care who or what won. 

I thought maybe Jeremy Irons had too much to drink when he started shoulder groping the diminutive Dr. Aida Takla O'Reilly, President of the Hollywood Foreign Press.  She giggled and looked uncomfortable as he leaned over her, draping his arm around her and being all massagey finger hands.  Joe thought maybe he was just trying to get closer to the mic, but I thought he was showing bad boundaries, a fairly common thing where men assume women are fine with hugginess.  Could be he's a huggy guy.  Who knows, but the reaction shots of Nicole Kidman and Madonna, where they did not look impressed, seem to indicate they thought he was crossing lines too.

I liked when Jimmy Fallon made fun of Adam Levine - show me your moves like Jagger.  I guess this was a reference to a song of  Levine's.  I've never heard the song, Maroon 5? but it's always fun seeing a big ego get prickly in the face of criticism.  I did like Lambert's big floppy bow tie and tux.

I tried not to judge any of the stars for their looks, except it's hard not too what with all the too smooth and wrinkles stretched tight plastic surgeried older actresses. When Jessica Lange won, I was marvelling on how's she's totally redone in the mode of Jane Fonda and Mary Tyler Moore.  The reaction shots while she was giving her acceptance speech were of her cohorts and about half the fun of seeing them was figuring out which of them has had much more work done than others.  I don't think there's an undone women in Hollywood.  It's just part of the business, keeping your looks up to an unnatural standard.  The men get work done too, but they seem to start later, and there's less pressure on them to look young and beautiful anyhow.

I noticed a few of the dresses, the standouts being Reese Witherspoon looking Hollywood glamorous gorgeous in a red dealio that emphasised her curves.

and Jessica Biel in a see-through super slutty lacy looks like a wedding dress. 

 

I felt sorry for Angelina Jolie some, as her sleeveless gown emphasised how so, so bony she's become. 
 Makes me worry for her some. 

Also Natalie Portman's dress had a big hip wing that looked like a mistake.

There is so much TV I have never heard of, and have no interest in seeing.  There were a couple few series I've actually watched an episode of, but very few TV shows nominated intrigued me enough where I'd make the time commitment to check out a new series.  What if I like it?  It's way too much of an investment getting into a series.  I like movies much better.  Over and done with in the 90 - 120 minute range usually.

Morgan Freeman winning the Cecile B. Demille award was a bit excruciating to watch.  Sidney Poitier was having problems reading the teleprompter and his intro came off super pompous and fatuous.  Made me roll my eyes some, and I like Morgan Freeman.  He's done a whole lot of interesting work.  Still, it seems to me that he's like an Uncle Tom kinda guy who has done roles that make Americans feel like racism is in the past and really we shouldn't even be talking about it anymore.  Meanwhile more black men are in jail now than were slaves in 1850.  It was sweet that Freeman said, in his house, the award would be known as the Sidney Poitier award.

I'm happy The Help got some play as this is a movie that overtly addresses racism, albeit in the past. Octavia Spencer won best supporting actress for playing a maid who talks shit about her bitchy employer through a proxy white girl.  It's kinda pathetic that this is how the issue of racism is presented, but I guess any talk on these issues is progress.  At least she gave a nod to the dignity and worth of domestic labourers.  This was THE ONLY political moment in the whole show, aside from Clooney massaging Brad Pitts ego for his charity work where?  In the world....outside of Hollywood.  I guess the stars are aware they are in an enclave of privilege and playing up the part is part of the game too.  Gervais's offhand comment at the end that he hoped the champagne, gift bags, and gold took everyones' mind off the recession, backs that up.