What's bugging me about the Zero Dark Thirty controversy is how it has blocked any discussion of the movie's place in film history. I'm not sure if this is the result of sexism, as if Kathryn Bigelow wouldn't be thinking in those terms, or just political sensitivities (my friends to the left are the ones condemning the film by comparing it to the work of Leni Riefenstahl - an incredibly sexist comparison) but when looked at within the context of Hollywood genre's, ZDT is the increasingly rare beast of an historical epic, at a time when every so-called-epic from Hollywood is a science fiction or superhero story. The last great historical epic was, of course, Titanic, interestingly enough made by Bigelow's former husband.
Where ZDT fits is as the bookend to Lawrence of Arabia. Each movie deals with the West's involvement with Middle Eastern politics, one from the start in the 20th Century, the other for the 21st. Back then it's one British officer struggling through the desert, now it's batteries of U.S. soldiers flying in and out with impunity, but it both cases there's the sense of "other," that the West can never, no matter how embedded, truly understand or have a place in the desert worlds. The threats to Maya's life are essentially urban - an assassination attempt rather than dying of thirst - but there's watching still the lone figure coming from a great distance (a fateful car rather than Omar Sharif), the hero putting on the local headgear to operate in the area, the lonely military outposts in a hostile land.
The question isn't whether the movie endorses torture, it's "Where do you want to go?" which Chastain outed on The Daily Show as the existential last line of the movie. In Lawrence, a man is driven insane by his immersion into this Middle Eastern world. In ZDT it's a nation (with Maya as the metaphor). Lawrence posits that his Western influence helped create the desert nations. ZDT asks if and how we want to be engaged with these very same nations - if, in another twist on the same theme in Lawrence, there a brutalization like torture involved.
ZDT's immediacy is blinding the arguers to the true nature (and greatness) of this movie. Sorry, Bigelow and Boal didn't wait thirty years to tell this huge story. They were brave enough -- and smart enough -- to tell a nine-year epic tale just moments after it concluded.
Janeane from Des Moines is an unusually and cutting new movie that essentially pulls a Borat on the GOP contenders for President in run-up to the 2012 Iowa Caucuses. It opens with a clip from ABC News where Diane Sawyer introduces footage of a desperate and emotional Iowa housewife named Janeane Wilson begging candidate Mitt Romney to "save small families" because they are falling apart. The rest of the movie tells the story leading up to this moment, as we watch Janeane, a religious conservative Republican simultaneously going to candidate events to decide how to cast her vote and trying to keep her personal life from falling to pieces.
The secret is that Janeane Wilson is actually Jane Edith Wilson, a highly-talented Los Angeles-based actress who grew up in Ames, Iowa, and who fearlessly plays this character and takes her straight into the belly of America's political beast, sitting down in a diner with Rep. Michelle Bachmann and Rep. Steve King, questioning Gov. Rick Perry's wife on her way to the campaign bus, lobbing questions to Rick Santorum, Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich on the campaign trail. Off the trail, "Janeane" faces her husband's layoff and their subsequent loss of health insurance, her alienation from her grown children, the potential loss of her house and a serious threat to her own health.
All of this done with a straight face, no winks, the only clues to the deception being the end credits which lists both actors/roles and politicians playing "Himself" or "Herself." Knowing that the politicians have been duped by Janeane creates an initial feeling that the enterprise might be unfair. It's a grueling road through Iowa, pressing the flesh and trying to master retail politics. But as Director Grace Lee had said, the politicians are themselves all acting. When Bachmann attempts to pander to Janeane by blaming President Obama for the rise in tax prices we see that moment when Bachmann looks to King for affirmation of her contention, not sure if she should run with the lie or not. She does.
The main question Janeane ends up asking all the candidates regards healthcare, and the GOP candidates give her nothing to go on, just platitudes about health savings accounts (not a solution for the laid-off) and lowering costs (which Obamacare attempts to address). What Janeane learns is that Planned Parenthood, which she's disparaged as a death-factory, is her provider of last resort, and the Obamacare the candidates want to kill is actually the solution. This may be the first feature film where Obamacare is kinda the hero.
As a friend of Grace Lee and family, I may be biased in favor of her sensibility by familiarity, but from what I hope is an objective filmmaking point-of-view, I think she's created something new. It's a combination of documentary, mockumentary, drama and agitprop, all executed with technical skill and beauty. When seen in the context of Lee's previous features, both The Grace Lee Project, a very funny documentary investigating the proliferation of Asian-American women sharing her name, and American Zombie, a metaphoric mockumentary standing up for zombie rights, Janeane for Des Moines is essentially an essay on "What's the Matter with Kansas?" Why do conservative Middle Americans vote against their own economic self-interest and well-being?
While the passing of the recent election is probably not doing a ton of favors for Janeane's shelf-life, and already the 2012 GOP candidates feel like characters trapped in a time capsule as the media discusses potential 2016 candidates like Rubio, Christie and the younger Paul, conservative Middle America hasn't suddenly vanished with the reelection of their Antichrist, President Barack Obama. This movie will remain relevant and cautionary.
Unless or until, of course, the Affordable Care Act becomes a part of everyday life and the benefits are felt by all.
Stephen Colbert has the largest cajones of any major comedian working today. He was named one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people -- for the second time, as he lets everyone know at the official event. An excerpt:
Of course, all of us should be honored to be listed on the TIME 100 alongside the two men who will be slugging it out in the fall: President Obama, and the man who would defeat him, David Koch.
Give it up everybody. David Koch.
Little known fact -- David, nice to see you again, sir.
Little known fact, David's brother Charles Koch is actually even more influential. Charles pledged $40 million to defeat President Obama, David only $20 million. That's kind of cheap, Dave.
Sure, he's all for buying the elections, but when the bill for democracy comes up, Dave's always in the men's room. I'm sorry, I must have left Wisconsin in my other coat.
I was particularly excited to meet David Koch earlier tonight because I have a Super PAC, Colbert Super PAC, and I am -- thank you, thank you -- and I am happy to announce Mr. Koch has pledged $5 million to my Super PAC. And the great thing is, thanks to federal election law, there's no way for you to ever know whether that's a joke.
By the way, if David Koch likes his waiter tonight, he will be your next congressman.
1. The Republican Yapper I had to block one of these, now she's making a pro-birther movie.
2. The Do-Gooder Slacktivist Like my friends who think bin Laden isn't dead/was already dead/is in a prison somewhere/corpse being warehoused for science.
3. The Low-Information "Swing" Voter Who Consistently Reminds You Of How Low-Information They Are One friend recently responded to a video post of mine with a slew of Mitt Romney lies by saying "All politicians lie." Low-Information false equivalency.
4. The Insider Actually have some value. The Conservative ones I have a little trouble forgiving when they should know better.
5. The Future Candidate Don't think I know any...but happy to support them if I like 'em.
Full explanations in the DailyKos piece by Georgia Logothetis herself.
Newark Mayor Cory Booker was taken to a hospital Thursday night for treatment of smoke inhalation he suffered trying to rescue his next-door neighbors from their burning house.
"I just grabbed her and whipped her out of the bed," Booker said in recounting the fire. Booker told The Star-Ledger he also suffered second-degree burns on his hand.
The fire started in a two-story building on Hawthorne Avenue in the Upper Clinton Hill neighborhood, shortly before the mayor arrived home after a television interview with News 12 New Jersey.
Five people were taken to the hospital for treatment: the mayor, a woman from the house and three members of his security detail. The woman was listed in stable condition at Saint Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston with burns to her back and neck.
...
After being released from the hospital, Booker recounted his experience at the fire and said he thought he might have to jump out of a window because of the heavy flames.
"We got everybody out of the house, but their daughter’s screaming, ‘I’m upstairs!’ " he told The Star-Ledger.
One of his security officers, Detective Alex Rodriguez, tried to stop him from going back in.
..."Now we actually get into a fight because his job is to protect me," Booker said of Rodriguez. Booker said when he reached the second floor, he was engulfed in flames and smoke.
"I suddenly had the realization that I can’t find this woman." Booker said. "I look behind me and see the flames and I think "I’m not going to get out of here. Suddenly I was at peace with the fact that I was going to jump out the window."
Then he heard her cries in a back bedroom.
"I just grabbed her and whipped her out of the bed," Booker said. The two made their way downstairs, where they both collapsed, Booker said.
Rodriguez, who had helped others out of the house said when he saw the mayor go in, he thought his career in protection was over.
"Once he went in, I said, 'Oh my goodness, this is it.' " Rodriguez, 39, said.
...
"Thanks 2 all who are concerned. Just suffering smoke inhalation," Booker tweeted. "We got the woman out of the house. We are both off to hospital. I will b ok."
Shortly after midnight, Booker tweeted an update, lauding the heroics of one of his security officers: "Thanks everyone, my injuries were relatively minor. Thanks to Det. Alex Rodriguez who helped get all of the people out of the house."
Sure feels nice to read about a politician who's a real-life hero.
I don't know what political ramifications might shake out however for Mayor Booker, but he's shown leadership in rebuilding his city from the top to the streets, and good leadership is a highly transferable skill.
Rushing into a burning building like that is pure leadership: leading the self. Without for a moment doubting his instincts, secure in his intellect, physical capability and clearly an alert individual, he directed his body into the heart of the catastrophe with a clear intention to bring that woman out alive.
Then, of course, he got lucky. God surely asks that we make our own luck, but the two of them were lucky to make it out of there alive.
As for tonight's unprecedented two-hour season opener, after an extra year away, I found it promising. I had expected 1966, given the amount of time off, and any further you're in the most amazing year, 1967, Summer of Love, the moment before the fall.
Best line of the night was Roger's wife. He says, "Why don't you sing like that?" and she replies, "Why don't you look like him?"
Yet again on Mad Men, like in Citizen Kane, nobody gets what they really want.
About three-quarters into the great HBO movie, Game Change, I realized what genre the director Jay Roach and screenwriter Danny Strong were playing with. Sure, it's a great political genre movie, up there with their 2008 triumph, Recount, which did great service to the 2000 Florida recount battle which led to George W. Bush becoming President without winning the popular vote (and subsequently led to the debacle in Iraq, the crash of the economy that plays a part in this new movie and, now, the massive GOP amnesia about the eight years they controlled the Executive branch of our government). But it's something more: Game Change is a monster movie.
'
The monster is, of course, 2 1/2 year Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Not only does the movie recreate her origin story as a force of hate-pandering and resentment reinforcing on the national stage, but it does a terrifying job of treating her as both representative and contributing cause to the nightmarish Republican Primary of 2012, as reactionary as any in national political memory. The fact that Willard Mitt Romney, a supposed moderate and former Governor of the generally Liberal state of Massachusetts, has veered psychotically Right trying to outflank and outpander his highly Conservative opponents, the fact that this very week past he was incapable of summoning the courage to strongly vilify Rush Limbaugh for his misogynistic smearing of citizen Sandra Fluke, proves that whatever prairie fire Sarah Palin ignited in 2008 has yet to burn out.
The progression is like something out of a 1950's sci-fi movie, only instead of an unknown virus reeled in by inquisitive scientists, it's an unknown, unveiled GOP Governor from the most remote state in the Union. Coming from the coldest state as well, it hearkens back to The Thing. She's let in through all decontamination barriers almost by accident to positive fanfare, sparking all sorts of activity including massive investment (here a rush of small-donor campaign contributions), then she begins to falter, unable to adapt to this unfamiliar environment.
But have no fear (or, rather, have dread), because like Frankenstein's monster and most others, it has the ability to learn. Palin studies the television coverage as it goes from ridiculing her to reveling in her speaking power, and she goes through a classic movie-monster chrysalis stage. In the middle of the movie Palin (played to genius perfection by Julianne Moore, ditto Ed Harris as John McCain and, carrying the main story with ease, Woody Harrelson as campaign chief Steve Schmidt) goes silent. She doesn't respond to her handlers, sinks into funks, rattles around on her Blackberry, essentially seems to fall into some sort of catatonic state that ends up feeling more like gestational hibernation.
When she emerges she's unstoppable. She can't be controlled by the campaign, takes on her signature disregard for the truth (and outright lying), whips up crowds with various degrees of hate speech and gets that scary Palin gleam in her eye. The movie doesn't hit it too hard -- it's a smart piece of work -- but it's that gleam that haunts.
In the framing device, Steve Schmidt (Harrelson) is interviewed by Anderson Cooper, and it's clear the scientist no longer has any control over the monster, just a wary, chastened point of view he didn't have at the beginning. To Schmidt's credit, he was just as penitent on The Morning Joe Show this a.m. Unlike the party of Romney, Santorum, Gingrich, Perry, Bachmann, Cain, etc. etc. he's emerged as a man of honor. His party could use more of his type of candor and reality.
The payroll tax holiday debacle in the House of Representatives is tearing the GOP apart and smashing to pieces their "anti-tax" brand. The meme is becoming clear: the Republican Party is only interested in political wins and protecting the wealthy.
Here's how they looked today on the House floor when Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) tries to bring up a vote on the Senate compromise bill passed by nearly 90% of the Senate:
Embarrassing optics for the House leadership, where Speaker Boehner kowtows to the Teapublicans to try and keep his job. Per Dana Milbank, the GOP is now in damage control mode. And supposed "leader" of the GOP Presidential pack, Willard Mitt Romney, is too chicken to take a position on the payroll tax holiday at all. Nice leadership skills, Willard.
It's not just this issue -- the GOP are in trouble everywhere with their Teapublicans, like the Major of Troy, Michigan:
Janice Daniels, led a coalition of like-minded tea partiers to kill off a transit center project that was a decade in the making, kissing off $8.4 million in federal investment funds to help make the project happen.
Six in ten Americans believe Congress should raise taxes on Americans earning more than $1 million per year, according to a new CBS News poll, while only 35 percent oppose such an increase.
A narrow majority of Republican primary voters say those making more than $1 million per year should not see an increase -- but they are nearly split on the question. Forty-three percent want to see taxes on millionaires increased, and 51 percent do not.
Most GOP primary voters - 55 percent - don't think such a tax increase would have a negative impact on job creation. Twenty-nine percent say such a tax hike would hurt job creation.
After a year of the tea party House, Mr. Obama and Senate Democrats have had to make no major policy concessions beyond extending the Bush tax rates for two years. Mr. Obama is in a stronger re-election position today than he was a year ago, and the chances of Mr. McConnell becoming Majority Leader in 2013 are declining.
Buried in the news of the Kim Jong-Il's death yesterday and the immediacy of associated diplomacy was the passing of Czech playwright, national leader and savior/hero, Vaclav Havel, who gave the world the Velvet Revolution of 1989. After having been jailed numerous times by the Soviet puppet regime, he eventually became a great leader:
More so than any of the prominent figures from the period of anti-communist dissent, Havel used his position, voice and moral authority to advance present-day struggles for freedom. If he looked backward at all, it was only to find lessons from his own experience that might be useful for freedom-fighters today. Communicating those lessons, he once wrote to the Cuban dissident Oswaldo Paya, was a way of repaying a debt to those who helped him in his own time of need.
He found many ways to repay that debt. In 1991, at a moment when he himself might have received the Nobel Peace Prize for leading the Velvet Revolution, he campaigned successfully for it to be awarded to Burmese activist Aung San Suu Kyi and remained a steadfast supporter of the Burmese democracy movement. He termed Alexander Lukashenko’s regime in Belarus “the disgrace of Europe” and extended moral and practical solidarity to the opposition there. He developed a deep connection with Paya’s Varela Project,which pressed for free elections and other basic rights in Cuba; and he established the International Committee for Democracy in Cuba, recruiting to it ex-presidents, members of parliament and distinguished writers from throughout Latin America and Europe. He co-authored a report applying the “responsibility to protect” doctrine to the totalitarian system in North Korea, And he led the successful international campaign to give the Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo the Nobel Peace Prize, launching it with an open letter to Chinese President Hu Jintao demanding Liu’s release from prison. The letter was delivered on Jan. 6, 2010, the 33rd anniversary of the day Havel himself was arrested for delivering the democracy manifesto Charter 77 to the Prague Castle.
This is the opposite of Kim Jong-Il, selfless rather than selfish. While artists sometimes turn leader with disastrous results, i.e. painter Adolph Hitler, Havel proved to be the right artist to lead his country into freedom.
Best of all, he had awesome taste in popular music, starting with his favorite and friend, Frank Zappa:
Not to mention Lou Reed and The Velvet Underground (like the Velvet Revolution):
And then, of course:
A better leader to remember. Keep on rocking in the free world, Vaclav, wherever you are.
According to a tweet from NBC News’ Jamie Novogrod, Bachmann responded to the recent raiding of the British embassy in Iran, by saying that if she was President, she would close down the U.S. embassy there.
There’s just one problem: The U.S. has not had an embassy in Iran ever since the Iranian hostage crisis, when revolutionaries from the budding Islamic state held 52 Americans for 444 days.
But that was so long ago, how is she expected to remember??
The Associated Press carried the following report on a speech he gave to a crowd at Saint Anselm college in New Hampshire:
[H]e appealed to students who will be at least 21 before Election Day to vote for him. As for those younger than 21, he merely asked them to work hard on his behalf. Doesn’t he want their votes, too? It turns out Perry didn’t know or had forgotten that the voting age in America is 18. The flub caused some whispers in the crowd.
No biggie. In Texas what really matters is the drinking age!
And, finally, Jon Stewart goes all out on Herman "Adam Raised A" Cain, who finally gets nailed on the consensual affair:
Bachmann was never a serious contender, she just had her flash paper moment before confirming to the Republican electorate exactly what everyone else has known for years. She's not a reliable in the political sense. Or the honesty sense.
Cain was another flash, maybe on route to a Vice Presidential candidacy (take that, Barry Obama!) but that won't happen now. Oooh yeah.
And Perry is most interesting of them all, because he's a very successful politician in Texas, the second largest state in terms of both population and landmass, right near the end of the qualifying period he came riding high to save the day, and all leading up to this, earlier in the year, David Axelrod and the Obama Campaign was always very excited whenever anyone mentioned Perry, then not on the heavy radar, as a possible candidate.
It clear that the Obama Campaign was relishing the idea of running against Rick Perry. And maybe they knew something that wasn't general knowledge, like how much Rove and the Bush people hate Perry going back to when he was Lt. Governor under W. Because his implosion as like a series of Japanese nukes going off one after each other, the last revealingly stupid moment just getting to the dying embers before he did something else even more obviously not ready for any 3:00am calls.
We'll miss these clowns when they're gone for the race, but they'll be sure to pop back up again at the GOP Convention next summer, and if Newt does indeed win, or Ron Paul (which would be the smartest Republican choice, the apotheosis of Ayn Randianist), they'll get Administration positions. I always thought Herman Cain was running for Secretary of Commerce, anyway.
Newt will be funny in a different way -- he's got such a sure sense of self, he can instantly rationalize his way out of any of his shenanigans. I think Newt vs. President Barack would be a classic -- Newt as replay/last gasp of the 1990's vs. an Obama who looks all the more young and together because of the contrast. Newt shut down government and then failed to even make that work. Barack has been working his ass off to make government work, from healthcare to terror defense. His gotten a bill passed and taken out Bin Laden et al.
Could he possibly beat Newt by ten percentage points (55%/45%) or better? Could Newt make John McCain look like an Electoral College overachiever?
As for Mitt, don't worry about him:
As Mr. 1%, I now don't expect him to win the nomination -- unless he turns his trajectory around very, very quickly, and not just with the Bush wing of establishment old-school, but with the rank and file Republicans. Remember, if Mitt becomes President, the clock turns back a generation.
Then there's one other possibility. If the Tea Party is strong enough, and Newt manages to damage his electability profoundly (I say 70% chance) by the Convention, you could see a true political rarity, the brokered convention, most famously held by the 1924 Dems, torn apart by the rural/urban Prohibition conflict. In this case it's the Reagan deal with the Southern Religious Right, come home to roost in Tea Party garb, versus the money side, the hawks and the hardcore Libertarians. Aside from the hawks, the other two can get along on the Libertarian cry for smaller government.
The story of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) is about to become as inspiring as possible. She will become a living memorial and reminder of those who did not survive the psycho assassin's bullets that day. She will become a powerful symbol for the Left of resilience and, ultimately, courage in the face of dark, reactionary forces that sometimes scare us out of our convictions.
However, as her mother so correctly notes in the upcoming Diane Sawyer piece with Giffords, her astronaut husband, family, doctors and therapists, she now has a message that rises above, that is larger than politics:
A special person made that much more special by the calamity visited upon her, and by her character as revealed in her recovery from it.
I know there was violence in Oakland (subsequent to earlier police violence). My instinct is that the troublemakers are government or rightwing plants. We've seen as much before, going back to the 1960's in the U.S. and the 1930's in Germany.
In any case, it doesn't discredit the entire movement, it's goals or general innovations in democracy. And with guys like this one inventing their winter power source, I feel a glimmer of hope for this country politically down the line.
Most of all, I'm excited to see where this particular protest goes.
I would make this my ongoing series, but since I usually come down on the side of venal, or perhaps venal stupidity that somehow feeds a huge part of the American psyche and all of the #1 cable news channel, thus shoving a crowbar in the gears of evolution.
For example, there's House Republicans criticizing a new regulation that restricts importing deadly snakes, including the Burmese Python, saying it's going to cost jobs and choke the economy in red tape. So why the regulation?
Politico reports that Florida officials, led by Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), are pushing for the new rules because the Everglades are under attack by 100,000 gigantic Burmese pythons who have been accidentally introduced by negligent pet owners. The outside invaders have been on a rampage, devouring native birds and other creatures. One python grew so big that it managed to devour a six-foot alligator before exploding. No really. This actually happened. There's a photo.
Then there's this weird sick freak GOP puppethead with a diabolical look, Matthew Vadum:
"Section 261 of the bill provides $15 billion for 'Project Rebuild.' Grants would be given to 'qualified nonprofit organizations, businesses or consortia of eligible entities for the redevelopment of abandoned and foreclosed-upon properties and for the stabilization of affected neighborhoods,'" Vadum writes.
"Radical groups like ACORN won't get the whole $15 billion, though, because they will have to compete with state and local governments for the money," he continues.
This is all, of course, contingent upon the fact that ACORN exists. Which it doesn't.
Worst of all, the Super Congress contains an either very stupid or very venal, GOP Representative, Dave Camp (R-MI):
Camp's back of the envelope math during Tuesday's hearing was based on the notion that the Super Committee will reduce deficits by one percent of this year's GDP every year for 10 years.
However, as noted here, IMF economists recently warned that an austerity package of precisely that size will significantly increase unemployment and reduce wages. That's why Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) is starting a drumroll to require the panel to ask CBO to estimate the jobs impact of any of their proposals.
The idea there is to make it difficult to pass deficit reduction legislation without pairing it with some near-term pro-growth spending and tax cuts. But that would mean an even larger medium term consolidation plan. And Camp says that's not looking very likely.
"I'm so disgusted," he told a reporter about the protracted negotiations. "I mean, no, I don't know what you do in the face of that kind of intransigence. So, my heart does go out to the President. He is dealing with a lot."
Still, despite any sympathy, he was furious with the negotiations' outcome, as well as the greater thrust of American economic policy.
"The wealthy are paying less than they paid at ay time else, certainly in my lifetime, and probably in the last century," Damon said. "I don't know what we were paying in the roaring 20's; it's criminal that so little is asked of people who are getting so much. I don't mind paying more. I really don't mind paying more taxes. I'd rather pay for taxes than cut 'Reading is Fundamental' or Head Start or some of these programs that are really helping kids. This is the greatest country in the world; is it really that much worse if you pay 6% more in taxes? Give me a break. Look at what you get for it: you get to be American."
When asked whether he thought tax cuts helped create jobs, he was more than clear in his belief that they do not, and struck again on the inequality in the nation.
"I didn't go start a small business with my tax break, and I don't know anyone else who did. No, everybody's socking their money away," he said. "I was against those tax cuts. I thought they were ridiculous. So little is asked of the upper class anyway. I mean, what percent of them or their kids are fighting in any of these wars? What percent of their day is occupied by the fact that there are men and women in positions over the world, risking their lives. If you walk down 5th Avenue, there's no sense of shared sacrifice."
I wonder if he ever thinks about running for office. I'd vote for him, Affleck as well.
