When is bloating discomfort a sign of Appendicitis?

"Yeah I like Senator Toomey!" -- Nicholas Marinelli, enthusiastic

Even for the decade in which it was written, The Marseille Contract (74) is little more than a composite pastiche that justifies a decorum to its violence with an almost Victorian reasoning: Anthony Quinn gets in the car with the two Parisian hitmen because he was asked, why else? And yet I chose this flick to dull the monotony of a Memorial holiday weekend with no plans, over a modern, mature, virtuoso performance film like The Aviator. The only thing DiCaprio and Quinn share in common is diffident gestures towards being Everyman to every director's demand. Caine doesn't quite have the range to do this, and yet this film, which we've all seen run half a dozen times over the years, is the only Michael Caine role I actually enjoy, racing automobile toys along Cannes as a stylized foreplay, prefiguring Clooney in The American, as a perfectionist, although this assassin flicker is also more deeply flawed than it has to be. 

I can concede total victories to liberals every so often: AO Scott does his job, and there is something simply off about Clooney here, miscast. Not so Caine in Marseilles. Even Quinn rises to the occasion with practiced cynicism. Should we spill so much blood over underworld kingpins? Not a chance, and yet the film should offer you cues about my argument as to when, and where, violence is acceptable to achieve certain aims, as in my rage with the concept of warehousing wheelchair users in elderly poverty housing as something of an upgrade on a centralized facility: not really, and only in a decorative sense.

Another case in point, which some may read as retributive: I am being subjected to a hostile environment anew here at Riverside. Erik's personal care attendant, Chris, has been behaving like the real belligerent, as opposed to Harambe. The incidences may give me the opportunity to put the squeeze on my old freak ally, because I'm crafty, whether or not I truly *fear* a ghetto boy's denigration. Let's make Google wince: Chris is worthless to me. If my local right wing alliance beats some contusions into his ignorance for me, I've taught the ape who actually needs manners a lesson.