Bit of a Reach?

Bullpuckey.

If you're lost enough to be a Holocaust denier, you were there before The Reader reared its head.

(Spoilers Follow)

I don't believe the movie whips up tremendous sympathy for Winslet's character. She was Fiennes's boyhood love. He can barely touch her hand when he meets her in prison thirty years later. He pulls away. He never stops being disgusted with her contamination of his life. Yet, he knew her, and knew her before any other woman. He sends her books. She learns to read. Monsters are human, too.

The trial scenes are really scenes of an angry, subconsciously guilty mob. I fail to see how the movie explicitly or implicitly defends or excuses German citizens calling for her punishment. I don't for a second believe that David Hare and Stephen Daldry hold the viewpoint that German citizens were not responsible for what happened.

Vonnegut once said that if he had been a citizen in Nazi Germany, he'd have been a Nazi. What choice would he have had? It's a difficult subject, and I certainly don't expect Jews to be comfortable with films showing Germany dealing with the ramifications of the Holocaust, after the fact. I'm not, however, sure that ramming the Holocaust and its horrors down our throats is all that beneficial.

I agree that the Academy is probably being blind and vain and self-serving by nominating the movie, but Rosenbaum et al jumping on it in this way is itself an act of ignoring several key incidents:

The scenes where David Kross's law professor expresses concern about Kross coming forward with information he has and doing the right thing, or else "we have learned nothing".

The scene of Germans watching Winslet's trial, snarling and gasping in shock, as if they were not themselves culpable. "Hypocrite!" is an inescapable thought during these scenes.

The law student ranting against his fellow students about German Society's culpability

Winslet's character chooses to take full responsibility for her actions and those of all the other guards, ostensibly to protect the secret of her illiteracy. Is that the only reason?

I don't think it's a great film, but I also don't think it's worth Rosenbaum's level of vitriol. It's clear that Holocaust denial is a much worse problem in Europe than it is here, as recent Papal events indicate. Still, does Rosenbaum actually believe that Holocaust deniers are going to sit through five minutes of Shoah in the first place?

Ebert argues that the film is less about the Holocaust and more about speaking up when you know you should. Watch the film with that comment in mind, and see how the trial scenes play for you.

Impeach the Backwards Aging Nazi Pederasts

The viewing public is understandably nonplussed by ultra-serious Oscar fare at the moment, as the numbers suggest. It's been a wonky year, to be sure. A small number of big budget pictures were more distinctive in their own way than what ended up being cheered by the Academy. With the exception of Slumdog Millionaire and Milk, I'm sure, as I've stated previously, that the Best Picture nominees are not well-deserved. Pity the voters. One year it's overwhelmingly indie, the next, it's The Dark Knight and Synecdoche, NY. Maybe Hollywood needs to start going to the movies.

Harping on the choice of nominees would be its own way of suggesting the perverse canard that such was ever different. As usual, I approach the Oscars as a springboard from which unrecognized work can widen its exposure. Last year was some kind of reveling nihilist apotheosis. It'll be awhile before we see that again.

The Reader

Stephen Daldry has at least accomplished, along with his resident screenwriter David Hare, a movie that this time around didn't assault me with its own self-pity. The Hours was absurd. Julianne Moore was its saving grace. The Reader does not deserve, however, the various assaults against it. I fail to see how it's fodder for Holocaust deniers, except in perhaps the most determined and circuitous ways. You'd have to want that conclusion, because, by my count, Winslet's character suffers greatly, paying for her crime and the crimes of several others.

We get a story of a person who went to work for the Nazis because she could find no other work, is turned into a scapegoat by a ravenous German mob eager to purge itself of its own sins of inaction (or terrible action, one assumes), suffers, loses her freedom, and regains her humanity for a few brief years. Surely the notion of people swept into a tyrannical system is also subject for meditation? I failed to see at any point how the film shirked the horror of the Holocaust, and am in fact relieved I didn't have to see yet another Oscar-Baiting film consumed with the subject. There's room for Shoah and The Reader, but besides, this film is slight. It is exactly what Oscar likes: Stately, slightly scandalous, and tailored for a conclusion we all see coming. It's a statue in search of a statue.

Frost/Nixon

It's hard to say why anybody thought this would be a big draw. In terms of marketing, the studios were nuts from the start. Getting Ron Howard to direct a story that doesn't require the pacing of Apollo 13 is a strange choice, artistically, and deserved failure commercially. The whole story strikes me as, well, a possible other side of the coin to All The President's Men. So, why not get a filmmaker, say, Stephen Frears, who knows how a Peter Morgan scripts works inside and out? Still, it's not as if the choices here don't work in some way, and I can't fault the movie too much, it being certainly entertaining.

I only wonder if we needed the extra fireworks for an event we can all see on DVD from thirty years ago. Langella and Sheen are wonderful to watch and listen to, and I surely walked away enjoying Nixon's company. Strange thing to imagine, isn't it? Still, this movie is minor league compared to Altman's Secret Honor, with Philip Baker Hall as Tricky Dick, drunk off his ass, all by his lonesome. Nixon is a figure we can attach a number of qualities and depredations to, depending on our mood. I hasten to add that Morgan's script is great. To my mind, for all its skill, the movie never completely justifies itself.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Defensive title, yes? Curiouser and curiouser. Here's another flick that may not have justified itself (or its running time). The difference is that Button spends its entire length trying very hard to bring that premise to a close. It can't, but I'm getting the premonition I've seen something that will be embraced for many years. It's a fascinating conceit to witness, even if you're in agreement with Ebert, creeped out at something fundamentally wrong.

For all the lambasting of Eric Roth for Gumping his Button script, you can't fault him for working in some of the same ideas. The two movies do stand alone, YouTube be damned, and I only thought of Gump when it was most glaring. Eric Roth does wish-fulfillment. The Academy has an outside chance of giving this one Best Picture because (and this is not so limited to the famous) everybody wants to get younger. I was not bored, not for a moment. I don't know what the hell it's supposed to mean, but it is quite an absorbing movie.

Slumdog Millionaire

Stop now. I don't want to hear it. It all occurred to me while watching it, and I just don't care. This is an exhilarating, rich and kick-ass moviegoing experience. It's a cheer your ass off crowd-pleaser. I know it's all sorted out from the start, and clearly driven by artifice (I say it COULD HAPPEN), and that Charles Dickens lives in Bollywood and you don't like that. But I won't hear it. We are all Slumdogs now. Just accept it. This movie seriously bypassed whatever cynicism I could possibly have about storytelling, coincidence, and if-it-were-in-a-movie-I-wouldn't-believe-it-isms. For once, I say that's a testament to how well it's made. If only the Academy were nominating Loveleen Tandan, Danny Boyle's Co-Director for India (which I assume means the lion's share of the movie, right?), I'd have no cynicism directed toward it at all. WHAT? I don't CARE if you think it romanticizes Bombay's terrible poverty JAI HO JAI HO JAI HO JAI HO JAI HO JAI HO JAI HO JAI HO JAI HO JAI HO

Milk
Sean Penn is magic, and I defy the Onion for saying it would've been more artful if it had been more like Van Sant's Last Days or Elephant. Those movies examine inexorable paths towards death. As we see, Harvey Milk knew he was on that path at a certain point, but Milk is a celebration of total life. It's a great American film.

FUCK IT, IT'S A POLITICAL BLOG

It's moments like the last bit on this clip where I really dig Olbermann.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Some Revision

The Oscar reviews are coming soon. Until then, here's how the directing category should look, because this really really matters:

Jonathan Demme - Rachel Getting Married

Gus Van Sant - Milk

Danny Boyle & Loveleen Tandan - Slumdog Millionaire

Christopher Nolan - The Dark Knight

Charlie Kaufman - Synecdoche, NY

I like Ron Howard just fine. He's made a couple of great movies. Frost/Nixon is not an astonishing directorial accomplishment. It's a wonderful acting and writing accomplishment. I'm skeptical that Ron Howard's insertion of "intensity" here and "suspense" there was really needed at all by actors of this caliber, much less by the proceedings of the script.

David Fincher is one of the best living American directors working, as last year's ridiculously unrecognized Zodiac further proved. Why did Jason Reitman get a nod over Fincher's glorious puzzle piece? Fincher deserved it for that, not the aging paradox epic.

Stephen Daldry does not deserve the nomination. There is nothing special in his directing strategy. He does good work, but the work hasn't much of an original voice.

I don't think directing should get in the way of the story, but if we're going to give awards for best coordinated artifice, let's do that. Otherwise, hand out an award for individuals. In their work, I can see all five of the people I listed up front, and I'm not distracted by their presence one whit. I'm enlarged for a brief period by knowing another person. If the award ain't about that, it's not worth giving out.

Lest We Forget....

....we're in for a rough four to eight. Just in case you missed it on Maddow, it's worth pointing out that all our attempts at bipartisanship will be met against these sections of a constituency (though not the whole) that's bound to hate our breathin' guts. This is not a political blog, yadda yadda, but bear with it.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Did It Just Get FATter In Here?

Makin' Up a Post About Coraline

Last year A.O. Scott dared to speak some common sense to parents: Sometimes your children are ready for more than just the talking panda or the ninja kid. My ventures into Tarantinoland or my exposure to Preacher may have come too early for all I know, but I would've been more than ready for Coraline back then.

If you're ready to explain the movie to your kids, by all means take them to the Jungian wonderland, and make sure it says "3D" on the marquee. Go out of your way for that experience, rightly ignoring dear intransigent Ebert, who seems to think that mean or self-centered characters are unusual in children's stories, and probably would've lavished at least one half star more on the movie were it not for 3D lenses darkening his vision and thereby obstructing the view of his notepad.

Staring into Henry Selick's model-box-come-alive is an event rife with many pleasures scary and beautiful and subtle. The 3D part of it is not a novelty insofar as it's 3D. If it's a novelty at all it's because there will scarcely be another like it, unless Selick and his team can top this. I don't want to get into specifics. Go. Your eyes haven't opened wide enough lately.

(If you have already seen it, here's its Making Of Channel)

Dancey Fist Jab

It's nice to know my favorite remix in a hot minute won a Grammy.

This is, to say the least, a damn lot better than wasting it on Oakenfold's latest tits-up FAIL of a cocaine jingle.

Ain't No Lie

I make no apologies for being inspired by Roger Ebert. I've been a reader of his for over a decade. When people tell me they have this or that problem with him (or with critics in general), I don't get defensive anymore, because what they're saying is usually over-determined either by reading his review of Cop and a Half and bitching that he gave it three stars, or by a willful ignoring of the fact that what he's doing is the difficult act of interpretation, not mere recommendation.

If you think you've got Synecdoche, NY or Children of Men or Babel all figured out by your pretty self, then why are you talking to me about Roger Ebert? What's it to you?

Earlier today:

However, there are certain areas in which I consider myself an authority, like the movies. I have devoted years to learning about the Theory of Evolution. I think Creationism is superstitious poppycock. I believe the problem with the literal interpretation of the Bible is that anyone can easily discover its support for the opinions they already hold. I believe Conservatism has proven itself disastrous every time it has been implemented in this country. I believe George W. Bush was not only the worst president we have ever had, but the first, as far as I know, guilty of being an accessory to murder and suborning the Constitution.

Ebert's currently also writing the best blog in the world. Check it.

How Do We Live?

The new year brought with it a renewal of the need to write, and write and write. I need a beat to cover, and had been knocked into an emotional molasses-uphill battle last year, leaving little energy left in me to follow much but the political outrages of '08. That's not my territory. I don't have a lifetime of emotional or intellectual understanding of politics, save what's sieved through the celluloid colander.

I know I'm a film critic the way a wrestler knows he's a wrestler. Which leads me to my new year's resolution with Holly. I'm sticking to it, and we've both taken a pass with one movie. That's it, so I'll start my first column along those lines, dealing with two films that won't clean up at Oscar season, and covering mostly Oscar Nominees until near the end of the month.

American Duty

Sam Mendes may miss Conrad L. Hall more even than the rest of us. Every shot Roger Deakins composes in Revolutionary Road seems to invoke our memory of that great filmmaker. The desolation of fifties American life isn't buried underneath, it's overexposed. This is a cold, uninviting movie. Mendes, Deakins and crew want it that way, perhaps driven by a script that rages its id out front and center just as its characters seem to.

I haven't read the novel, but I have no trouble believing an author could be this self-aware, this unhappy, this alone. What I have trouble imagining is that people in 1950s America would be this aware of the real spiritual predicament they're in. If we're to take DiCaprio and Winslet's couple as representative of a normal couple, we're swallowing a hard enough pill. The total destruction of their dreams and their love for one another is the set-up for the movie, not the end. This makes what proceeds all the more unreal and unpleasant, which is not to leave out ruthless, and for that it has my respect.

Revolutionary Road is a curious, drawn out chick-tract with no God in sight. There's no mention of church, no crosses in any rooms, no symbols of devotion. In a depiction of 1950s America, this is a deliberate choice of omission. Its didacticism is still, however, thoroughly secular. Which brings us to Michael Shannon, most certainly an Oscar winner if not for Heath Ledger's nomination, playing this godless world's angel of death.

He flies in under the guise of Kathy Bates's character's "mentally-unwell" son, and proceeds to methodically dismantle every single move the film's central couple makes to save themselves. He sees their desperation, in fact sees in desperation, and drives them completely into the ground, using words and words alone. He frees them from the need to try and be free. Shannon's performance is the stand-alone reason to see the movie; it's terrifying in his deconstruction of their hopes. He's an actor to watch, but wear a helmet while doing so.

Bielski Justice

Films this year have noticeably fallen into a more positive mode, looking to uplift us with stories of characters' search for meaning and dignity. Defiance falls into a category with Revolutionary Road precisely because both are about struggles for survival against long odds. Those questions of survival are intertwined with meditative examinations of a corollary question, namely, "how do we live?"

I'm puzzled, a little, by critics' responses to this film. No, it's not groundbreaking, yes, it's a conventional narrative (you have seen other Edward Zwick films, yes?), and yes, the pacing is off at a few points.

Still, I think the story of the Bielski Trio is amazing enough to transcend those petty quibbles. The movie isn't bad. It tells their story, if not exploring it beyond the surface, and gives us a compelling character in Liev Schrieber's Zus Bielski. Schrieber keeps getting better, and I think his work here is being ignored. Daniel Craig's character (as well as Jamie Bell's) is a little less compelling, but it's a structural bearing and it props the rest of it up. It's a good movie, folks.

Let the Right One (Edit)

I really want to see this:



I'm pumped by Diplo's review, fresh off of having seen it while touring in Europe.

This Ain't a Politics Blog

For now, it's perfectly fine for Republicans to scream and yell about tax cuts being the answer (even when credit is a thing of the past?). It really doesn't bother me. You lost, people. We'll try your ideas next time, maybe. Another team won. They get to make the law for awhile (unless they bend over backwards to give concessions to a rancid, powerless, leaderless party).

Last political post for awhile, because I'd like this blog to take a direction and not simply be an angry dumping ground. Every time I see the looks of seething anger in my house, accompanied by the transcription of rancid words belched into golden microphones and sent out over the waves to corrode and constrain the functions of otherwise generous hearts, I come here to put it somewhere else.

That has fueled my anger in my own time of crisis more so even than the rancidity of the ideas. Republicans have treated their party as royalty, with subjects divided into attitude duchies presided over by feudal lords Rush and Hannity and O'Reilly. I hope not to fall victim to that here on this side.

Huh...

Well...

But -- the base is happy, or at least reasonably so. Rush Limbaugh will be singing John Boehner's praises tomorrow. I'm just not sure what message this sends to the other 78 percent of the country..

It's the same message they've been sending for the past eight years, which is "you're either with us or you're against us."

What does the electoral map indicate, fellas?

Gonna Post Another'n

Daguerrotwit

Bush, Morrised, tagged, and released to never darken our lenses more.

His was doggedly an image they couldn't quite design.

Get Yo' Ass To

Amen

A little birdie sent me this.

Exegesis

Obama's Speech.

I don't care if it was great or merely good, I'm just happy it's there.

Incidentally:

Number of uses of the word "I" - Four

Number of uses of the word "we" - Many more than four.

City on a Hill

How 'bout that two-shot?

Inauguration For ADULTS 35 and Up Only.

I've imagined a whole rant to write against W. since this day started approaching. I was going to say he should resign on Nov. 5th, after first ordering Dick Cheney to resign and then having him arrested. I was going to tell him that the best way for us to heal would be for him to stand accountable for his crimes. Blah blah blah. Holder'll either pursue it or he won't. I hope these medieval thugs get what's coming to them, but for now, their exit will suffice, and I'm a little beat.

So, a word or two to bitter Republicans: Thank you. Thank you for your generous support in '04 of all this nifty socialism we're about to get. If you hadn't voted for Obama in '08 by voting for Bush in '04, I probably wouldn't be a little bit closer to socialized medicine paying my medical bills if something happens to me from here on out. Thank you for supporting an obvious straw man, thank you for your support of mean bastard policies, thank you for looking out for number one first.

And please, please, please put Sarah Palin on the ticket, but before you do, you should probably read this. Or don't. You'll just despair, but then you might not heed my advice and you'll put your support behind a halfway decent Republican the likes of which wouldn't send me vituperating ass-over-kerchief for four to eight years about the need for a litmus test for voting. Here's a clue: If they can't make it through Katie Couric, they're not qualified.

Just getting this out of my system, as per usual, vis. living in a red house.

As for Obama, I have few words that could match tomorrow's speech, I'm sure, so I'll let my favorite DJ do the work:

Things Pass Before You

I left for Kansas on Sunday to visit sister and see her Wichita home for the first time. Her house also has this barely year old creature in it:


She's Gwendolyn Jade, and she laughs at everything.

Prior to the trip, we had received word that our Grandmother (on my Dad's side) had had a stroke and was ready to leave us. Grandmom never got over my Dad's death (and frankly, the decade's worth of disasters that preceded it).

She passed on around noon on Tuesday. She was 85. I hope she's at peace. She was unhappy. I don't know what's appropriate to write about here. She loved us to pieces and we loved her right back, and I hope she knows that.

The funeral is in Dyersburg on Saturday, and I'm doing ok. Love you all.

Addendum

I Can't Invent Anything

Kill Tha Wabbit, Kill Tha Wabbit

Sorry, People Magazine, sorry, TMZ, sorry, Gawker, Defamer and all the rest. Tom Cruise will continue to make movies. In fact, whatever insights this article has to offer, I think we're all selling Cruise short, both as a capable actor and a consistently malleable persona.

Valkyrie is neither great nor terrible. It's competent, that's about it. The rhythm seems missing from the movie, at least the rhythm we'd expect from Bryan Singer. It comes down to accent-less performances that are nonetheless in the appropriate range.

Our attention is eventually focused on how far the fetishism of the actors in these ss uniforms will be amplified (I was on Eddie Izzard watch, believe me). Palpable fear looms over this production, as if they knew that any false move would make for them a certified howler. If Tom Cruise had done less couch-jumping and pill-bashing over the past few years, we might have had a freer movie, but then again, we probably wouldn't have had Valkyrie at all.

Sad, really. Cruise is at home with mutilation. He shows this in Vanilla Sky or Minority Report, or with his emotional castration in Eyes Wide Shut (where he spends a significant section of the movie hiding his face). A director working to wring dissonance out of his boyish American face can do so indelibly, partly because Cruise is (usually) willing to be completely naked in those scenes.

The moment where Cruise's Von Stauffenberg is forced to salute the portrait of Hitler, and defiantly uses his stubby arm, is almost an example of this. It might have had more impact, as the scene suggests the possibilities for Kubrickian image making, rather for camp or creep-outs. Cruise's image stays safely on the side of "please take me back, America".

America will. In the annals of celebrity meltdowns, Cruise's freakouts are minor. Angelina Jolie is next, anyway.

What's That in Your Cassette Deck?

The Great Barstoolio is hanging up the regular Music-Tist gig over at her site, so, naturally, I mixed up a mess of breaks, 8-bit, cumbia, electro, chill-out and metal thrashing into one set, which you can listen to with your sound holes right here, at Janie's. We'll miss the daily badass music, Janie!

It's hosted at the Droid-Rock Show.

Check either of the links above, or just right click and save as.

Featured Fiends include A-Trak, Adam Freeland, Stanton Warriors, Burial, Crookers and M83. You need them in your lives. Trust me.

*Hic*

2008: The Year in Harvey Dent

Mid-2008, Lights up on Joan and Jesse (the J-Wil Pig Dogs), second or third consecutive Dark Knight viewing

Scene:

J: We've really put a Harvey Dent in this popcorn!

J: .....really?

One Month Later:

J: Oh no you Harvey Dent'innt!!!!

J: A ha a ho a ha ha ho hah ho. And I thought MY jokes were bad.

J: Your post was so sweet I think I need to see a Harvey Dentist.

J:Now now, that was a little Harvey tenDentious, don't you think?

J: That little remark just earned you a Harvey Dentention. See me after class.

J: ooooh, that just makes me froth around my Harvey Dentata!

J: It seems we have come to a Harvey Dentente. [ We had not - Ed]

J: You're such a Harvey TranscenDENTalist.

J: I love you Harvey ArDENTly

Next Day:

J: 'm so sorry I missed you, I was watching the current Olympiad away from my computer, Harvey Evidently.

J:It's my own fault for becoming so Harvey codepenDent.

Before Dinner:

J: Hey, you won't want me near you after I eat at Olive Garden (which I love), unless I chew some Harvey Trident.

J: Oh, we are so not even CLOSE to being done with this Harvey Dent thing. They make me Harvey resplenDent with joy.

J: We tag-team with jokes that bring us joy through a Divine Harvey Providence.

The Next Day:

J: I want us to see Dark Knight again, but I'm not sure it would be Harvey pruDent.

J: I've seen the Dark Knight five times, and at this point it's invaded the Harvey SuDententland of my mind.

J: Yeah, I've officially gotten my Dark Knight Superfan Harvey creDentials.

J: I can only imagine how annoying it must be for our mutual friends when our never-ceasing Harvey Dent jokes show up in their news feeds. They must be Harvey desponDent.

J: All reactions to our banter that don't indicate rapturous joy are Harvey Incidental to me.

J: If they're feeling Harvey dissiDent, they were never really our friends to begin with.

J: I hold that truth to be self Harvey Evident.

J: That sets a good Harvey preceDent.

J: Our Harvey descenDents will speak of us with awe.

Ed Norton Pops in, Angrily:

J: Ed can be such a jealous little Harvey roDent.

J: You think he'd feel better if we sent him some Harvey RodoDentrens?

J: I think he's too Harvey Dents to understand the symbolism.

That Night:

J: I WATCHED THE FIFTH ELEMENT WHEN IT WAS ON LAST NIGHT. What is wrong with us? In the immortal words of Micah Corngod, we are one. It's like you've taken up Harvey resiDents in my brain.

J: Maybe we're Harvey Identical twins.

Election Cycle:

J: I seriously want to punch McCain in the face. He's not going to be my Harvey President.

Finish Line:

J: Here's hoping that the Dark Knight continues playing theaters throughout our lives, right up to the point when we're wearing Harvey Dentures.

Dogs and Cats, Living Together, Mass Hysteria

Ebert, harbinger of shiny, positive, bright and limitless future. If you're a cockroach, that is.

Yes, Ebesy, things aren't lookin' too good. It may be a small consolation that the forces of smartness won this time around. Maybe not. How many times in history have we been confronted with what seemed like apocalyptic threats? Is it because you're much older than me that you see things through a "humanity may not be worth saving" lens?

Look, I walked to the kitchen one day and heard, on Fox News, something about how Christmas was under siege and the Easter Bunny was being barred from public events. Is this what adults concern themselves with? Really? The same week Dick Cheney confesses to authorizing torture techniques, this is what grown-ups are worried about? Yesterday, I hear that "if George W. Bush went on vacation in Hawaii, he'd be vilified by the liberal media. When Obama does it, they want to write poems for him." Really? Grownups? I wonder if that has anything remotely to do with the direct correlation of body count to figure in question.

The adults are in charge, and the rest are seated at the kids' table, singing "Barack the Magic Negro". That's a positive enough start for me.

Frank Miller Got To Make a Movie...

...All by hisself. And when Frank Miller dicks around, you're certain a cult classic. With the right audience, The Spirit is, though sometimes draggy, quite funny. It's inscrutable in a way that actually manages to keep asses planted in chairs. Nobody in the theater left. How could we? There...there are moments that will interest you.

Is it good? It's better than Miller's (scripted) Robocop 2. Does it have interstitial dinosaur puppets? Whoops! Spoiler.

I don't know what I'd do if I had to give it a star rating. Can I just give it three question marks and a voltage sign?

Warning: Do not attempt to interpret The Spirit

Of '08

Yesterday, my Mac crashed and burned. Hard Drive dead. I'm taking it to the Genius Bar today in hopes that something can be done. I don't have the money yet to start making monthly payments on a new one, but come hell or highwater I'll have things back to normal. So, posting on a Dell Laptop that hangs around the house from my mom's school makes me madder than a posse of neglected lady lemurs.

No, No I don't want to go up. I want you to stay here, on this part of the page. Yes, Yes I unplugged my external drive, and I'm glad we both shared that moment, computer.

Anyway, here's my top ten:

10. Rachel Getting Married

09. Standard Operating Procedure

08. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days

07. Happy-Go-Lucky

06. Iron Man

05. In Bruges

04. Milk

03. Wall-E

02. Synecdoche, NY

01. The Dark Knight

Yeah. The Dark Knight. Sometimes popular means better or maybe even the best. It's been a good year for that. All I know is, Movie danced in my brain. Occupied an unusual, cosmic place in me. Permeated my brain to the point that I almost unknowingly engaged in 'joker-voiced' pillowtalk.

Everyone unfairly compares this year with the last. Last year was a year for despair and decline. Moral cloudiness and the absurdity of making moral choices dominated last year in a dark and moody palate. We dug the hell out of it, all of it, all the blood, all the nihilism. Look what won best picture. Great films, many of them.

This year is the year of a flickering conscience. All of these films are about choices. Moral choices are possible, however damned hard the world makes them for us. A year for hope indeed.

Acceptance (#10) Hope (#4) Aging Gracefully (#2) Love Love Love (#3) I can fly (#6) Be excellent to each other (#7) challenge of transmutable facts (#9) Stick to your guns (#5) You may be on your own (#8)your code may or may not save you (#1) But the world can change for the better (All of the above)

2007 Outliers: Every year there are films I can't see before the new year, and, most certainly, last year a few of them could've made the list. I would've knocked off something for There Will Be Blood, and made some mention of Zodiac and Gone Baby Gone. As it stands, there are a few things I haven't seen, but will evangelize, meh, or deflate by Oscar time. I'm looking forward to Che, and will be entertained no doubt by Doubt, Frost/Nixon, The Reader, Revolutionary Road, etc. But look back at my top ten. Were they designed to win awards? Were they designed to make us better people? No. They're all living organisms that have bigger things on their minds.

With all its narcissism, Synecdoche, NY doesn't 'say' an honest, open, or humanitarian statement. Instead, it makes big, mighty, fearless gestures of the kind, gets inside your body and your soul, and penetrates to the edge of more truths than ten Don Cheadles could amidst any refashioned ravaged cities as a backdrop. For that, Kaufman deserves an Oscar, if only so it's seen. You, whoever you are, if you read this, you have an interest in film, and you are hereby behooved to see the American 8 1/2, end of story, I don't care if you loathe it.

Sean Penn, for his selfless and magical work, merciless Oscar coveter though he is, deserves one too.

I could write a lot about the whole list. Almost all of them were predominantly hopeful, not obsessed with moral decline and untenable quandary, as per last year. This is an observation of difference, not quality.

Bafflement: Appaloosa is a film that gets special recognition for being off its rocker and apparently proud of that fact. I've spoken to no one who's gotten it (fewer even still who have actually seen it), no one who really loves it, and yet, something has happened here, and I daresay we will all remember it. It's got moments of incredible interest. Beyond that, I'm still stammering through it in my head. I suppose that might indicate that its characters influenced me to behave as they generally did onscreen.

Abortion of the year: No, not The Happening, it's something much, much worse, for not being for one second remotely funny. Zack and Miri Make a Porno is the worst film of 2008, and perhaps deserves that distinction because it was made by someone who should be doing much better work than this. Kevin Smith at least made Clerks 2 funny. What the goddamn hell on earth was this? I don't care about dirty words and truck nutz on an R2 Unit. I'm not offended. I'm unamused. That's the crime. I love Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and that movie may even be dirtier than this one. So. Umm. What the fuck, Silent Bob?

Unfortunate and Continuous Downfall: M Night Shyamalan's cult in Pennsylvania is still making movies. Did you know? Go ahead, buddy. I can do this as long as you can. I don't mind. It's more fun every year. Seriously. After Avatar, make something about, I don't know, a balloon animal that fills your shoes with thumbtacks and then floats away and laughs at you while you bleed from your feet holes. To death. Tak Fujimoto gets paid whether you suck or not.

Ahem. To end on a positive note. If you've ever been in love, lost love, or found a soulmate you could never have but would sing with and to forever, if you could, then Once is for you. It was the first movie I saw this year, and perhaps the best, certainly the most beautiful. It is a reminder that we are capable of unstoppable, almost inerrant sweetness, kindness, grace, art, but most of all music that could restart your heart and make you consider where you began, and how you'll feel when the sirens call you home. Steven Spielberg was amazed by this film. No wonder. It's all there.

Shake a Spear

...and the trail of limbs was all smolder and ash when I was through sacking that little hamlet...

Delightful, master!

The Pulitzer for Blogging Goes To

After what I've just seen, I really don't know what to say, so I'll just thank Holly for her discovery, and forgo writing redundant hagiographies about the proprietors of this site.

Come on, you're going to look at the picture below and NOT click on a site called FUCK YEAH SHARKS?

Omar's Banjee

I'm rounding a corner. Gathering my bearings, I can't think of much to cogitate on, ergo, erratic posting, not even much to twitter. You can only call George Lucas FAT so many times before figuring something else out to pare down to (or from) 140 characters. Not that that will stop me, mind.

I'll be writing a little more about the movies, as per usual, and I'll be putting together a list after seeing as much as I possibly can before the new year. You can expect nothing less than an enthusiastic review of Milk, which I saw last night, and can wholeheartedly say is the best biopic I've seen in the past five years, not simply because I'm obviously biased.

Until then, because it's perennial:



Whole Lot More Nuns Running Around: Milk

Old School Hydrox-Steezy: Mad Decent Radio

Muthafucka: The Wire Season 2

It's Call in Gay Day

I don't have a job to call into, not yet, in spite of interviews and applications. Nothin'. And I keep hearing I'm supposed to congratulate our President for his AIDS work.

What's fair is fair, he's done more than any President in history regarding AIDS funding for Africa.

That's great. It's great that some Christians I run into don't give a flip about the state of our country now, could care less if it became one giant sinkhole and we all died instantaneously, so long as we've done a good deed for the afterlife.

Meanwhile, being HIV+ in this country has become manageable, depending on your UpperIncome+ status or lack thereof.

I think we should all recognize the effort made by President Bush to help Africa with its AIDS epidemic. Maybe he and Matt Damon can start a charitable foundation together on January 21st.

Until then, I'm not spending too much time congratulating the political party that first labeled AIDS as Gay Related Immune Deficiency.

*Kauf*

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Charlie Kaufman

Colbert at Christmas
Colbert Christmas DVD

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

Big Audience for Disgusting

The glass-crushing machine caught my eye. Billy (Dominic West) is socked into it by the Punisher (Ray Stevenson) and revolves up to his neck in cutting edges while screaming many, many four-letter words, which, under the circumstances, are appropriate.

- Ebes, reviewing Punisher: War Zone

Wonderful actors from two great HBO series shouldn't have to slum here. I hope they had fun.

Also, not for nothin', but Ebert just won something better than Ben Stein's money, right here.

Girl Talk Tour Video 10-15-08

No, I don't know why the music is so sad there, so here's this:



I'm somewhere to the right of whomever is shooting this one, and god that part was awesome.

Huh?

Everywhere I look I keep reading that it's a bad year for movies. My response, as many of these I've listed before:

The Dark Knight
Wall-E
Rachel Getting Married
Tropic Thunder
In Bruges
Hamlet 2
Hellboy 2
Pineapple Express
Synecdoche, NY
Iron Man
Standard Operating Procedure
Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Released this year, belatedly in America:
Tarsem's The Fall
4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days


I still haven't seen:

Happy Go Lucky
Frost/Nixon
Encounters at the End of the World
Man on Wire
My Winnipeg
Milk
Slumdog Millionaire
Australia (not everybody's panning it)

This is a bad year? Because it wasn't an unexpected cattle-gun shot of frame-advancements in art-houses like last year?

The above aren't all great movies, but a few of them are, and they're all worth your nickel. If 90% of everything is usually crap, it's been a good year.

The year American Beauty won Best Picture was the same year that Battlefield Earth, Highlander: Endgame, and Dungeons and Dragons all came to theaters.

I think we'll survive the chihuahuas.

T'anksgivin'

I'm 26, unemployed, have had the worst year of my life, and am thankful anyway. I've seen people I love moving forward while my life has perilously stalled, and I'm thankful to be a part of their lives, as thankful when I'm on the right track as when I'm on the wrong.

Also, for this bad year. I'll emerge from it.

We're not alone, not a single one of us, which on a day like today brings a mixture of heartrbreak and gratitude, heartbreak for the horrors across the Atlantic and for the troubles at home, but gratitude also that we get to be here for a little while, and we have so much to inspire us on a daily basis, where we're inclined to look, and frankly, where we're not.

I'm thankful for January 20th. I'm thankful that we're safe from the nuclear codes again. I'm thankful that we've elected a President who possibly knows that whatever side of this war you're on, violence is the very last resort. Or we are all savages.

We'll all of us emerge from this bad decade, just you watch.

I'm thankful that in light of all this, I've had a family that was willing to take me in in my greatest time of need, give me time, give me food, and deal patience.

I'm lucky to have the boyfriend that I have, a ghosthunter, fully aware he's trying to find a me that escaped my body a year ago when I couldn't get what I needed to have.

Finally, I'm thankful this came out when I was a kid:



Transition: Golden Age - TV on the Radio

Inevitable: The Shield - Family Meeting

8 1/2 Floor: Synecdoche, NY

Shimmer of Aurora Borealis: The Yiddish Policemen's Union

I've Done Worse

From the comment thread for the AV Club's interview with Walton Goggins:

RE: NO, YOU DICK

by ZODIAC MOTHERFUCKER

BUNCH OF HATING FUCKING BITCHES HOLY FUCKING SHIT THIS PLACE INTERVIEWS SOMEONE AWESOME FOR A CHANGE AND YOU FUCKS FAIL TO FUCKING RECOGNIZE. THIS GUY FUCKING OWNS EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOUR ASSES ABOUT TEN FUCKING TIMES OVER SO TALK SHIT WITH GOGGINS BALLS IN YOUR MOUTH YOU LIMP DICK NICKEL AND DIME GREASY PIZZA FINGER HAVING MOTHERFUCKERS BECAUSE WHILE YOUR JACKING OFF ONLINE AND HUFFING KEYBOARD CLEANER AND SHIT AT 4AM WITH YOUR WACK NERDY ASSES GOGGINS IS OUT FUCKING OWNING AND BEING MASTER AND RULER OF THE FUCKING WORLD

BETTER FUCKING RECOGNIZE

I didn't get hooked on The Shield until midway through the third season. I'll miss those bastards when they're gone.

West Wing: Electoral Intent

Bravo's been re-airing random episodes of The West Wing since we won, as if to say, remember when this seemed like fantasy? Believing in government? Can you feel that?

Believing in the process even a little wasn't always confined to Sorkin High-Style Wit-Whack-A-Mole.

So they showed an episode from the last season, written by Deborah Cahn, and I was set to just fall asleep to it, when, as I'd been assured would happen early on by those who'd followed it, I was kept awake by the momentum of the plot and the quality of the writing. Was it even close to Sorkin? Well, no, we might as well call Paul Haggis a 'writer', so as not to be that unfair in making comparisons.

Points of awkwardness revealed themselves in the obvious attempts by Cahn to ramp up the velocity of the dialogue in pursuit of a Sorkiny tête-à-tête. These points could've been avoided if she'd (or probably the whole writing team) accepted that Sorkin's velocity was a characteristic of Sorkin's writing, but not, at his best, the end-all be-all goal. The volume of his ideas inherently resulted in fast-paced delivery, which has played no small part in giving him a screwball comedy edge.

Still, that awkwardness isn't the fault of the post-Sorkin seasons. They had a trademark to uphold that was probably beyond anybody's reach (even post WW Sorkin's, it seems).

Season seven appears to be a stand-alone show, good enough for the devoted, especially in light of recent political events. Or maybe I just saw an uncommonly strong episode.

CHOMP

Not only will he be the first President using a laptop in the Oval Office, I'd say it's probably the one seen here. Teehee.

Rahmstein

Why isn't Andy Samberg the lead on this show? He's a national treasure.

Boom

The Only Seat In Town

Hmm.

I have a better idea, which is they get none of my business from now on. Suits me fine, as I usually head out to Regal or Carmike theaters anyway.

Besides, the idea that Milk will be one of the most profitable films of the holiday season strikes me as more than a little naive.

Ha Ha

After Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin dismissed the value of community organizing in her acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention on Sept. 3 -- "I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities," she said to applause -- Obama raised $10 million within 24 hours."

More people have an innate sense of injustice than we might think. Seems so.

Friends As Often As Possible

It's a great movie. It's not too early to say so about A Prairie Home Companion, because, as a coda to an inspiring career, it effortlessly incorporated into its scenes all a dedicated man had ever learned in life.

I admit something similar to what Ebert reveals in his opening paragraph, there: When I think of the diner scene at the end, with Tomlin, Keillor, Streep and Kline, I see Altman sitting next to them. I attribute their lines to him. It's how I remember the scene.

Do You Pray to Jesus with That Mouth?

This "Family Council" guy is proof that the courts are superior to the mob. This is why appointments to those courts must understand what minority rights are, and how that concept is separate from mere identity politics.

Every homosexual in America, including the moronic 27% of you that voted Republican, should be happy Barack Obama won for one simple reason: The Supreme Court.

Remember Remember the 4th of November

I wanted to be in Chicago last week, but couldn't swing it. I probably wouldn't have been in Grant Park, but hell, I still would've loved to have been in the city.

What's It To You?

I do not intend to continuously post Keith Olbermann. I know you could say he's the headliner for MSNBC's Liberal Power Hours, and that he's just a pundit like O'Reilly or Hannity. Well, I'd like to see them come close to anything resembling the kind of perspective, generosity and sincerity evinced in the clip below. If it's all for show-biz, then it's a preferable show-biz to the oblivion of mainstream television.

If he's doing it for the dollars, I say we pay him, and if he's our shouting hard-liner, we could do a lot worse.

Wonderful

I don't care if they're ever funny again.

I Found Blingee

Congratz on your new job, Cuz!

Zombie Stomp

Adam Freeland's Marine Parade label has been one of the highest caliber of the past eight years. It was one of the faces of breaks without being limited to breaks, the result being that artists like ILS and Infusion could never stick around for very long. They produced great work in the early half of the decade, moved on to other labels, and through good albums and bad, found a cookie-cutter mold to stick with.

They haven't budged since. Beber disappeared, as did Apex. Forme, aka Richard File, is still doing thrilling work with UNKLE. Thoroughly excellent as Sta and Alex Metric are, they currently also work with other labels and have produced tracks that might not forever fit Freeland's ever evolving musical style, so give 'em a few years (that isn't a negative thought).

Freeland oughtta be pretty happy this year, because Evil Nine have emerged victorious. They've been with him from the beginning, from the track Special Move, to the album You Can Be Special Too, and now here with their stereo scorching They Live.

And folks, it's the best dance album in a long time. It's genre defining and genre defying. Perhaps it's the Evil Nine genre: Punk rock, nu disco, zombie-punk dancehall, and Halloween breaks. Adam Freeland will change in two or three years, and Evil Nine'll be there to complement him.

The album has the best instrumentals this year, pummeling brilliance into deceptively minimal schemes. They're anthems. Stadium sized.

El-P pumps a measured level of adrenaline into All the Cash. David autoKratz brings on the catchiest vocals of the album, unless you count the zombie in the titular track, They Live, or the uplift of Seraphim's Icicles (a track I dare you not to listen to eight times a day for the first few days). Toastie Tailor returns, and rounds out one hell of a collaboration.

I think there's crossover appeal here. They've recalled an era of music, refashioned it, brought it back from the dead, and made it sufficiently bizarre, fun, catchy, and finally lighthearted.

Rejoice. Brains.

Perestroika

Does your vote count? Yes.

Does the right leadership make a difference? Yes.

Remember who trademarked the phrase "Fair and Balanced".

Remember who benefits from voter apathy.

Remember that sometimes we're individuals, and sometimes we're needed as a unified people. It's called the social contract.

Did we attack people personally for their vote when we questioned their leaders? Maybe, but that's part of the process. Speaking truth to power is our birthright. We must grow a backbone, rattle off our thin skins, and get real.

Do we need to be civil in victory? Yes. Good people have been abused by bad leaders, but, frankly, their feelings aren't as important to me as are the victims of the past eight years of unlawful rule by thugs and theocrats.

They say a new day is dawning for the Democratic party. A new era like the one we saw begin with FDR that ended in Grant Park in 1968.

Still, if we manage to do nothing else but bring the Republican party back to its center, and move it to govern away from the kooks and the gun-nuts and the homophobes, we'll have done a great victory for consensus government in the future.

Beyond those observations, we simply don't know what's going to happen next. How utterly exciting.

---------------------

This space can't be left blank today. I don't know what to say after this, because she said it right, and I'm only posting because I'm out of breath.

Following this election closely has focused me (in an even more persistent monomania than usual!), helped me distract myself from nagging fears and terrible heartbreak.

I'm not trying to be a downer. I'm simply addressing the fact that I wish I had been financially independent and emotionally sound enough to go help out in a place that could use help. Helping out in Ohio or Pennsylvania would've been great. I can't imagine going door to door around here. This ain't a swing-state. We're 15 points behind and voting for the 14th century, because Barack "isn't gonna share his wealth".

That's what I heard my grandmother say. I say nothing, because my family goes Republican way back, far back enough that when the Roosevelt dime was minted, my Granny's Uncle would only take two nickels, or, grocer boy, you'd damned get it.

I used to argue more loosely with Granny and Mom about these sorts of things, but not now, when I believe they've been abused by terrible leadership and a disdain for the Constitution. The stopping-distance, I think, is long enough that it might not hit them very directly in their lifetimes, so their preferred narrative of America can persist. With Rush Limbaugh for Granny and Fox News for my Mom (and Granny), it can definitely persist.

I overheard them talking about a woman at my Mom's workplace, who said that Obama's birth-certificate has been kept from the public, and I got upset. Couldn't contain myself. I thought, surely, surely, you're not buying into that hate-speech? My Mom finished by saying that she had told the lady at work that that was ridiculous, that Obama was a citizen, let's not get crazy. She said this wearing a Sarah Palin button.

In that moment she showed what was obvious to me to begin with, that she has ten times more sense and compassion than the farce on her button. She said she admired Obama, believed he was a very bright man, but disagreed with his policies, and that was it. The negative campaigning isn't working on anyone but rabid nutjobs.

It occurred to me that if McCain had picked a center-right running mate, run a campaign based on low taxes and small government, he'd be doing a lot better, and it would be perfectly honorable (though wrong and impractical in our time of debt and crisis).

In explaining her stance, my Mother showed a calm decency that, however wrongheaded politically I still think she is, gives me hope that an Obama win may be more magnanimous than we can imagine. I hope so. I'm baffled. My Mom and Granny root for their home-team, and were sad for Fulmer today. They have the same attitude towards the G.O.P. They don't like 'em to lose, but they can handle it.

Am I baffled by the Palin button? Disgusted by it, but at Palin, not my Mom. Beyond that, I'm just ready for a real President, and thankful it'll be handled with grace in this household if I get my wish. Other households in TN may not be so lucky.

On November 4th

Don't forget to go....

To your local bookstore!

The proprietor of this site invites you to experience his majesty as if it were your own (which it most surely is not -Ed.)



Triage of hookers has never been explained more lucidly - Annie Potts

I read the first chapter - George Takei

A colossus among goatfuckers - Julie Andrews

I disagree with everything Plummer says in this book, but I absolutely think all actors should read it. - Alec Baldwin

Where Do I Start?

This piece deserves a Nobel Prize for Bullshit-Calling.

Bless the South

As a corollary to this.

Great is Great is Great

After this most luminous summer movie season, could Hollywood be blamed for pushing their big winners? The NYTimes has it here.

Before a volley of message-board lightweights and cineastes denigrate an Oscar season bound to be swept by a hit or two, I will guide my celluloid-based heart toward my end of summer endorsement for that very result.

I think The Dark Knight might be the best picture of 2008. And then I think maybe it's Wall*E.

I do not believe small film equals better film. I've seen small budget films that were far and away better than big budget contenders, and I've seen big budget contenders stamp the small-minded-ness right out of indie films. It's a merit-based game, not a budget-based game.

We had giants walking the earth last year, powered by small budgets, and we have giants walking the earth this year, fueled by lavish ones. As film lovers, we should be excited when the movies are this amazingly good. All other considerations are cant.

For Ad #3

Your Shit, Re: Security of

I can't top this. As hard as I've tried, searches to my site are never quite so, umm, variegated. Go on now, check out Holly's recent list of search hits from a woebegone and sexually confused world.

I can still enjoy the consistency of the searches that get you all here. Be it a search for "Chateau Neuf du Pap" or "You call your music minimal", I get hits from Iran to Estonia to Wichita (Hey, Sis! Hey, Niece!).

Many of you, including a reader from the service provider for the L.A. Times, have read my little bit on Burn After Reading, by doing a search for "Security of your shit". It's the only search from which I've ever managed a number one hit on the Google.

I love it. I love that I wrote the sentence "Brad Pitt is so great". That really sums up this whole enterprise, readers.

As for the usual fishing:

This man fucked the scopes monkey and called him Brian Dennehy:

That's Where the Broken Glass Comes In

David Sedaris's Barack Obama endorsement.

Fervor

Fervor heard by few, barely expressed by the campaign, and undoubtedly shot unheard overmuch into the echoing stretches of the internet, but cooling my spleen all the same:

Can we put to rest this newly picayune crying of "executive experience"? At long last? A governorship does not a mind make, much less does it inherently make a leader. Nothing can adequately prepare you for the most difficult job that exists.

It calls to a select few their greatest, most unexpected powers to shoot up to the surface and make the world known of them.

This last two term yahoo of a an R.K. Maroon cartoon President didn't know shit from shinola as governor of Texas and doesn't know much more at all after eight years of sitting in a room beyond his measure.

That's why it ain't workin' on the campaign trail, you hacks.

My apologies, but sometimes the obvious has to go somewhere so I don't mow down the fishy section in Wal-Mart or something.

Why 30 Rock Is Mandatory

Oh Me Oh Oh My Oh Oh Cleveland...

I wish I could ignore how dangerous they're going to be over the next four to eight years, if Obama wins (and if he doesn't), but I can say for sure that if he does, the right wing is going to be HILARIOUS. Their true, stupid colors were on clear, bright display for the past thirty years. This will kinda be fun.

But perhaps not.

Enough Sarah Palin

This is what SNL should get back to doing, full-time:



Everything unrelated to Sarah Palin in last night's episode was the usual Meh.

Addendum: Except for Mark Wahlberg

Is It Right Where You Are?

This piece addresses the marketing concerns for Zack Snyder's Watchmen, set for release this March.

It prompted me to go to Ain't It Cool News for the first time in awhile and do a search for any updates on the status of the studio war that's underway now, and any new clips or reports on the nature of the film itself. I've read Watchmen, so I'm not concerned with plot-spoilers.

I found this breathless response to twenty-five minutes shown late last month. This is heartening news, because the material deserves great attention to detail and a propensity for balancing two very serious aspects of the story, and we may be getting that.

The visual aspect of Watchmen, with its expansive locations and intricate designs (as well as interdimensional beings!) has been a concern for anyone attempting to tell the story (other than Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, of course). It hasn't taken off as a project until now simply because certain aspects may have been close to unfilmable. The trailer we saw before The Dark Knight put those worries to rest, assuring us that, visually, Zack Snyder is indeed the man for the job. It looks picture-perfect to what we read on the page.

We also have to contend with the more pedestrian interior scenes and self-reflective depression of many of the characters in Moore's story. That alone could be more unpalatable (if not unfilmable) to modern audiences, than anything else going on.

Having said that, the Aint It Cool report, and the trailer, have given me pause. I can't really call myself a fan of the revamped Dawn of the Dead, though I admit to having a marginal affection for 300. If Dawn of the Dead isn't entirely successful, it does have maybe the most audacious first twenty minutes of any zombie movie, and 300 was visually striking enough to indicate an incipient, boldly visual filmmaker, perhaps on the edge of a purged adolescence. To get Watchmen right is not the job of an adolescent, but Snyder has showed a very careful adherence to source material. I'm optimistic. He could be a great director.

Yessir

Done and done, Mr. Keillor.

...

From The Onion

Play Your Part

The Girl Talk set in Knoxville last night was a repudiation of the death of club culture here in the states. Hands down (and way up). It's alive and kickin', covered in confetti, toilet paper and incandescence.

The stage presence of this long haired shirtless twenty-something leaning over a lap-top was more enlivening than some rock concerts I've seen (I'm looking at you, Deathcab For Cutie).

I lost count of the number of youngins in the place. It was a wild, celebratory show, obviously fueled by underground sales of GT's albums and frenzied word of mouth. Having said that, I circled the crowd, getting the full scope of the show and the field of sound GT was using, and I realized 1)The sound could be a lot better, except 2)there are at least 100 people on stage surrounding our DJ, and, as a result, they're muffling the sound by standing in front of the speaker stacks. Everybody's hollering and singing.

It's not just that they're singing along because they're hearing familiar pop songs, classic songs and hip hop songs, because this group is unmistakably aware, in large numbers, the order in which these songs are supposed to go, what snippets GT uses, what samples he uses as intermediaries between tracks, and what versions of mash-ups he's going to play, before he even plays 'em.

And GT mixed it up a lot last night (obviously, but it felt improvised). Word's been spread. What an experience.


(This is not the Knoxville show, but the best one I could find while scouring for a comparable example)

Grown/Up '08

I'm watching this debate and just choking on it. I'm fatigued, and I can stay angry for days at a time, lurching forth to every debate finding new variations on the theme of Evil People Failing.

To you conservatives bemoaning "redistribution of wealth": Do you have any idea the actual planet you live on? The economy we're saddled with? If the next President doesn't raise taxes, we're well and truly fucked, and all that wealth the top percentile has accrued will dry up before it has a chance to never trickle down under the purview of your regimes.

Also, taxes are not inherently more "socialist" just because they're higher rather than lower. Taxes are taxes. They're your ticket to living in this country. Deal. There are legitimate class warfare concerns to be contended with when considering raising taxes on the super-rich, but the relative "wealth" of Joe the Plumber (those millionaire plumbers!) is redistributed into spending on tanks, or programs to encourage our kids to get successfully knocked up, that is, of course, under your regimes.

Again, any political or economic policy not considered in relief against the actual circumstances is bound to fail, just as any version of spirituality that doesn't teach you to find value in people isn't really spirituality at all.

Christ, Republicans. You may be right that government should be small, that taxes should be low, and that states should have the right to their own sovereignty, mostly undeterred by the Federal Government. Certainly, I don't believe in the latter, on some very specific issues. On social issues, on science, on education, on a whole horror-house of perpetually urgent issues, you are the party of Destruction, with a very big D.

Either way, if the above enumerated values are yours, you ought to be disgusted by W. and terrified of McCain/End Times.

Because I Need to Think About Anything Else

But somehow still politics:

Oh. Yeah.

If there's an Olbermensch video of scathing accuracy out there slamming Sarah Failin's Russia-Seein' Hellbeast Bill Kristol-Fuckfest Witch Doctor candidacy, what were the odds I wouldn't post it?

Go Green Yourself

Nader, you do not live in the real world. You're an overgrown, exceptionally bright college sophomore. Furthermore, unequivocally, you can lay a great deal of blame on yourself for the past eight years. Stay the fuck out of professional politics. You're the butt-end of liberal jokes, and you give progressives a bad name (people take Michael Moore more seriously). I've dated your kind. You're insufferable, and do not have people's best interests at heart. Sell your books and stay out of political races. Crackpot.



Addendum: Maher's still got it, though.

SUUURRRRGGGGE!!!!

Just what is the surge, and what is it a cover for? I don't feel comfortable lugging a fifty-cent word around and then not even bothering to define what it means, so it goes without saying that I'm even less comfortable with our leaders doing the same.

A Review I Can't Refuse (To Repudiate)

Finally.

But, seriously, you should atone for this, Ebes. Come on. Three stars for Godfather 2 and three and a half for Part 3?

You include it in your great movies section because it's a cultural watershed. Yes. That's because it was a great movie to begin with, at least an equal to its great and nearly peerless original.

I've never agreed with your dismissal of its "separate" narratives. They're not separate. We see the violent, yet somehow idealistic beginnings of a crime family as it heads towards the events of the first film, even as we jump to the present and deal with that first film's consequences. To quote Pauline Kael:

The second film shows the consequences of the actions in the first; it's all one movie, in two great pieces, and it comes together in your head while you watch.

The daring of Part II is that it enlarges the scope and deepens the meaning of the first film.

I mean, you know I'm all for you, Roger, in possession of over a decade's worth of heartfelt, often tendentious loyalty, but I simply have never followed your reasoning on this one at all.

The Godfather Part II is one of the greatest films by one of the truly great American directors. If ever you had cause to retroactively update a star-rating, it is for this film, and perhaps this film only.

.

OOoooh Look at Me, Readin' the NYORKER!!

Cllassssy.

But I haven't yet found a reasoned defense of McCain's candidacy, and this article has many, many salient points.


For some who oppose him, his equanimity even under the ugliest attack seems like hauteur; for some who support him, his reluctance to counterattack in the same vein seems like self-defeating detachment. Yet it is Obama’s temperament—and not McCain’s—that seems appropriate for the office both men seek and for the volatile and dangerous era in which we live. Those who dismiss his centeredness as self-centeredness or his composure as indifference are as wrong as those who mistook Eisenhower’s stolidity for denseness or Lincoln’s humor for lack of seriousness.

God Bless You, Internets

Finally. Finally. An internet search for FUCKING THE PLUMMER (all caps present in search).

Thank you. Thank you. General Chang fucked a muskrat.



And this man shtupped animals along the entire range of the Alps.

Numberous Reasons

To Post. I've had some Margaritas with my brother, and I'm celebrating the first time I've ever posted enough to equal one post per day in a given month.

I guess all it takes is the world to go bugfuck in a variety of ways, but mostly it helps if culture wars are re-ignited, people are consistently fuckin' stupid, and movies and music get an inversely proportional ratio of better-ness to doomsday scenario tickings down.

Holly done removed her enblogged twitterfeed.

I kinda forgot mine was even there, and this dude's been a mainstay at mine and Holly's blogs for over a month now, and I'd hate to be mean, but that ain't my content. I'm gonna have to follow suit, here.

(My twitterness is here case you hankerin' to join.)

I'm not upset about the copycattery. I can handle Holly makin' the right decision first. What I'm jealous of is the video she posted. Here's *hic* that link again, go watch.


I want to post a video (gosh I lurve postin' videos!), though, so here's Fleet Foxes with their vid for White Winter Hymnal



Movie Sign: Shine a Light, Burn After Reading, The Dark Knight

Republicans are stupid now, but weren't then: The Assault on Reason- Al Gore, Lincoln - Gore Vidal

Booty Move: The Twelves, Cumbia (style of), Diplo/Santogold mixtape