Posted on 09/06/2008 12:41:49 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
“The Last King of Scotland” was pure fiction. Even the principal characters were only loosely based on real people. Every deed shown therein is made up. Especially the way the hero is sneaked out with the Entebbe hostages.
It got the mood of the times and the basic character of ol’ Idi about right. But all the specific misdeeds were fictituous.
No wonder, it’s in La-La land. Hollywood, California.
http://www.onlocation.com/displayimage.php?searchtype=blueid&blueid=1662
Ah! Thanks!
It takes years of careful education (or centuries of careful breeding) to produce a mind capable of recognizing elegance the idea that less = more. Lacking that education in esthetics, taste is likewise absent; to the vulgar, more = more. This fact of human behavior explains not only those dictatorial palaces decorated à la mode Saddam, but the decal-covered "race cars" and brick-veneer mini-mansions that Americans buy as well. Every owner of one of those Celotex crapboxes one sees in suburbia would decorate just like Mugabe if they had his money; like Tevye, they would prefer to live in a house with "one long staircase just going up, one even longer going down, and one more leading nowhere just for show".
Those with true class know better. The richest people I know (and I know a few) live in circumstances that the average person might consider plain, or even shabby. Few drive new cars; few wear trendy clothes. Instead, they buy expensive, super-reliable cars, and drive them for years; they buy (or have made) the best clothes money can buy, then wear them until threadbare. Those with true class show their superiority through humility. The superior man lives humbly, and is a servant to all.
Only losers need to brag.
Hmmm...Nobama is not on the list yet??
If elected, he may be well on his way.
Jeez, Papa Doc of Haiti didn’t even get an honorable mention.
Thou B. Hussien Obama, might give him a run for the honor.
Not the worst ones; the ones with the worst taste.
Sorry, the Shah doesn’t belong on that list. He wasn’t a dictator and he genuinely wanted to modernize and better Iran and the people.
I bet Tudeh and Mojaheddin Khalq would have been still around, staging regular riots. Most of socialist intellectuals of Iran would be still at home, not in exile in Europe, bitching about U.S. :-)
ROR! (raf out roud)
I agree. I have many Persian friends, have known them for many years. The loved the Shah. Told me stories of how he was “sneaking” Democracy into Iran, and the improvements in the daily lives of his Countrymen.
A fine line, he had to tote, no doubt. But, one that he, in the end, miscalculated.
Should have Tiberius on that list.
I always thought “The Sopranos” did a fantastic job of showing the nouveau-riche/criminal “aesthetic” you talk about. The houses, the furnishings, the clothes, the jewelry, all support the theme of “money doesn’t buy taste” without beating the viewer over the head with it. In one early episode the educated and law-abiding Dr. Melfi shyly admits to her family that she likes Murano glass. I liked how that brief scene highlighted the very complicated social and ideological meanings behind how one decorates her house.
A very interesting thread.
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