Haunting the Web Since 1999
In the NYT, author and historian Joseph Loconte writes on the impact of the Battle of the Somme on young J.R.R. Tolkien. “When the Somme offensive was finally called off in November 1916, a total of about 1.5 million soldiers were dead or wounded.” (Among the deceased: my great-grandfather, Alfred Amory Sullivan.)
Uh…yeah, hope springs eternal and all, but this doesn’t seem like it’s going to work. We already did the former-All-Star-PG-on-the-back-half bit with Steve Francis and Stephon Marbury, and those were not good years. And, to put it charitably, both Rose and Noah have Mr. Glass tendencies at this point. I know Rose, at worst, is a one-year-loaner, but wouldn’t it make more sense to build young around Porzingis?
In the Prospect, David Dayen explains how deficit-witch-hunting and hubris paved the way for Brexit. particularly David Cameron and the Tories’ “general belief in expansionary austerity, that you could cut your way to prosperity. For those that don’t recall, this led to the brink of a triple-dip recession, and terrible growth numbers for years and years…What Leave offers, a toxic stew of isolation and racism, isn’t any good either. But when elites spend this long doing nothing for large swathes of the population, they’re willing to listen to anyone with a different idea.”
Since the UK’s faceplant last week, there’s been some talk (and. for some, wishful thinking) that Brexit is the prelude to Trump, fact-free appeals and all, and lord knows we spent far too much time of late playing the austerity game also. But I’ll stand by my “nope, not gonna happen” prediction here: The UK electorate is 90% white, America’s is one-third non-white — That’s a big difference, and the same sorts of nativist appeals just aren’t going to play here anymore — which I am very thankful for.
Still, Brexit is another sterling example of how, when people are justifiably angry about being screwed over, many of them may not vote in their best interests. And it’s emblematic of one of the more insightful comments I’ve heard recently about 2016 (and unfortunately I can’t figure out where I first saw it): When you have Latin American levels of inequality, you’ll end up with Latin American politics.
In TNR, Clio Chang surveys the irritating wrongness of House Dems’ recent sit-in. See also Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor in Jacobin, Alex Emmons and Zaid Jilani in The Intercept, and Alex Pareene in Gawker: As Pareene says, “The move is fantastic political theater. It’s also a tremendous waste of popular support and activist energy in support of a measure that isn’t just ineffective but also actively offensive.“
Honestly, this is why people can’t stand congressional Democrats. There are many, many positive actions we could take to reduce gun violence in America — banning assault weapons and armor-piercing bullets, closing the gun show loophole, funding for CDC gun violence research, mandating gun safety classes with licenses.
So what do Dems do? They almost stumble into the right thing by (finally) taking a stand on universal background checks. But then they instead make the centerpiece of their precedent-destroying gambit — and just wait until the GOP is conducting sit-ins during the Clinton administration — a stupid, racist, and unconstitutional terror watchlist that has no gun violence prevention benefit whatsoever, except as a political stunt. (Apparently, attempts to include an assault weapons ban were nixed at the very top.)
If this is what Clinton means about getting back to the “spirit of 9/12”, no thanks. We don’t need another wasted decade of useless pandering and war on terror capitulation from the ostensible left. And let’s be clear: John Lewis, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie — they’re all at fault on this one. For shame.
As my friend and Columbia colleague Niki Hemmer pointed out, regardless of what you think of Clinton herself, that’s a big effin deal: her nomination represents another step forward in a long struggle for equality and justice in America, one that runs from Abigail Adams’ “Remember the Ladies” to Seneca Falls in 1848 to the battle for suffrage and beyond. (While I harbor some reservations about Clinton, which we’ll get to in a moment — in short, #imwithher, but I really wish #shewasmorewithus — I was tickled to think of how ecstatically Jane Addams, Florence Kelley, Grace Abbott, and my other dissertoral compadres would’ve reacted to last night’s news.)
Whatever Clinton’s many faults, it’s long past time we caught up to the rest of the world and elected a woman to our highest office. This isn’t about tokenism: Studies have repeatedly shown that having more women in political office has a salutary impact on politics. When women — 51% of the population, but still only 20% of Congress — reach 30% of a governing body, new issues get an airing — issues like women’s health and America’s embarrassing lack of quality work and family policies. So, regardless of my own hesitations about Secretary Clinton, I do think her being our nominee — and, in a few months, our first woman president — will have a positive impact on the country, independent of anything else she accomplishes in office.
All that being said…Margaret Thatcher was a woman too, and look how that turned out. So let’s get to the problems here.
The signs of trouble were there from Clinton’s opening townhall in June 2014, when she came out of the gate arguing, among other things, paid maternity leave is just too gosh darn hard, Edward Snowden pals around with terrorists, I’ll let you know later where I stand on Keystone, I couldn’t come out against Iraq because I heart the troops etc. etc. From the start, Clinton emerged as the same triangulating centrist and unrepentant foreign policy hawk we saw in 2008.
Then, to knock out Bernie Sanders’ surprisingly strong progressive insurgency, Clinton resorted to many of the same sort of kitchen-sink, whatever-sticks attacks that made her so unappealing in 2008. So, for example, she tried to run on his Left and his Right at the same time: On one hand, she’s the “progressive who gets things done”…but, oh, by the way, single-payer is “never, ever” going to happen. Her campaign declared Bernie’s “tone” was unacceptable, all the while working mightily to slather him in the blood of Sandy Hook kids. (Remember: eight years ago, she was so absurdly pro-gun that Obama was calling her “Annie Oakley.”)
Meanwhile, Clinton publicly embraced Henry Kissinger, who really should be rotting in a jail somewhere, and showed no repentance for her hawkishness in Iraq, Libya, and around the world. (Trump’s disastrous temperament notwithstanding, that bizarre clip of Clinton’s luxuriating in Qaddafi’s demise doesn’t speak highly of hers either. Shades of her calling for Nader’s head back in 2000.) On Israel, she’s established a position to the right of Trump. As noted above, she’s derided single-payer as the Impossible Dream. She’s also now declared that huge campaign finance contributions aren’t in fact corrupting, which blows many progressive arguments against Citizens United out of the water.
In sum, she doesn’t seem particularly progressive for a “progressive that gets things done.” But, of course, we already knew this. It wasn’t like Clinton was any kind of progressive champion during her years in the Senate. Instead, she spent her time trying to criminalize flag-burning and tsk-tsking Grand Theft Auto with Joe Lieberman. (Before that, as we’ve all been reminded throughout this cycle, it was “superpredators” and welfare reform.) And now #we’re (stuck in the middle) #withher.
Moving on, one of the more annoying memes this season has been “zomg Bernie Bros!” — i.e. Clinton surrogates’ continual insistence that Bernie somehow invented Internet trolls, and is at best indifferent to, and at worst malevolently orchestrating, a marauding army of sexists that march under his banner. Firstly, anybody who’s Internetted over the years knows these asshats have been around since the CompuServe days — they’re a ubiquitous cancer of the Web, not a Bernie-inspired battalion. (Trust me, there’s some terribad Clintonistas out there also.) Second, in all honesty, the internecine Democratic fighting this year has been relatively tame compared to 2008, when Mark Penn was busy trying to “other” Obama into electoral oblivion. (Tho’ it probably seems worse to many more people Because Twitter.) And third, the only Democratic campaign that’s been documented as trying to weaponize trolling this cycle is Clinton’s, through David Brock’s brazen, FEC-flouting “Correct the Record” initiative.
Speaking of trolls, Clinton’s most hackish and obnoxious supporters in the media (Joan Walsh, Peter Daou, Jamil Smith, Amanda Marcotte, to name a few) have once again tried to wield sexism as both sword and shield, and argue that Bernie’s solely the candidate of angry white men. (This too is a holdover from 2008 — eight years ago, the kerfuffle was over “Obama Boys”.) But saying it doesn’t make it so. In fact, it takes a willful blindness, if not outright dishonesty, not to see where the Clinton/Bernie divide has really fallen in 2016.
Despite every attempt to make Bernie’s support primarily about race, sex, or income, all the polling has made it clear since before Iowa that the great chasm between Clinton and Sanders supporters is age. This pattern emerged in the earliest states and has held through until the end: Pre-California polling had Latinos under 50 breaking Sanders 2-to-1. America’s largest Arab community (in Michigan) also went 2-to-1 for Bernie, putting him over the top there (which, by the way, puts the lie to Michael Tomasky and others’ stupid contention that only privileged people back Bernie.) The African-American vote has been more closely split, but Bernie still won over half the under-30s nationwide. And women under 30 chose Bernie over Clinton by 30 points. In total, Bernie even beat out 2008 Obama among voters under 30.
There’s a lot of reasons for this, I think, many of which I talked about in my post about Obama’s youth support in 2008: “To many older liberals and progressives, who’ve experienced one dismal setback after another since the heydays of the New Frontier and Great Society, the Clintonian brand of cautious pragmatism often seems the only viable approach to moving the country forward. Put simply, you get burned enough times, you stop using the stove. This time, irony isn’t the shackles of youth, but of their parents.”
These trends have been compounded by the Great Recession and slow recovery since 2008. While Obama et al spent years fretting about the deficit, we failed an entire generation who graduated into a world of unpaid internships and few-to-no decent jobs. This has consequences. On one hand, more young people are living with their parents than living with a partner for the first time since 1880. On the other, the broken economic system and its attendants, like grotesque inequality, have made Millennials even more amenable to lefty policies and politics. Socialism isn’t the epithet the GOP (and DLC) would make of it anymore, and the left-wing of American social and political thought, which has been hacked off several times over the past century, is regenerating anew, and beginning to test its strength.
And that’s a good thing. It gives me great hope for the future. A stronger, more vibrant left means a wider Overton window, more progressive possibility, and an end to the learned helplessness and soft bigotry of low expectations that too many of today’s scared, insipid Democrats have tried to instill in voters. (“It’s not us! It’s Newt/Bush/Frist/Boehner/Trump!”) Bernie may have made some dumb arguments along the way, and these last campaign throes, as per the norm, aren’t looking pretty. (I’m with Favreau on this one: Gutting Bernie anonymously to Politico to set up your next gig is quintessential DC-asshole behavior.) But he pulled off something altogether amazing this year. Up against a “inevitable” candidate with every possible institutional advantage behind her, a 74-year-old Socialist still ended up winning 23 states(!)
Bernie may have come up short in the end. But, if nothing else, he’s put the Democratic Party on notice: A rising generation wants more from them from now on. The same tired GOP-lite camouflage, and a non-refundable, means-tested tax credit in every pot, aren’t going to get it done anymore. Let’s hope the next President is listening, and that she doesn’t take her left flank for granted.
In the wake of Donald Trump’s nomination, Rolling Stone‘s Matt Taibbi gleefully tramps the dirt down on the Grand Old Party. “Th[e] avalanche of verbose disgust on the part of conservative intellectuals toward the Trump voter, who until very recently was the Republican voter, tells us everything we need to know about what actually happened in 2016.”
At this point, the world doesn’t need any more bloviating and/or hot takes about the 2016 horse race — it’s already a cottage industry. And my hope going forward, in the “be-the-change-you-want-to-see-in-the-world” sense, is that GitM political posts will focus on policies over personalities. But, in the interest of old times and catching up on recent events, let me make a few points about that ubiquitous carnival bunker, reality TV buffoon, and now Republican nominee, Donald J. Trump.
Don’t get me twisted here: A Donald Trump presidency would be a catastrophic disaster for America. However liberal he was until very recently, he has made the calculated decision to run as an openly racist authoritarian, and exploit white anxiety like he’s the second coming of George Wallace. And, true, even if he isn’t a Fascist himself, he’s got white nationalists all happy and energized, and would do until the trouble gets here. But an actual, honest-to-goodness Fascist? No, not really.
Why make this distinction and even try to defend a jackass like the Donald on this point? Because I think it’s important to recognize that:
In other words, Trump is basically just pitching what the GOP’s always been selling — he’s the evolutionary Pat Buchanan. “Frankenstein’s monster” isn’t quite the right analogy here, because the Republicans didn’t “create” Trump, exactly. Rather, Trump is a con man who, seeing the grift at work over the years, decided to execute a hostile takeover of the GOP’s flim-flam operation.
Let’s take Trump’s open racism, which is vile, indefensible, repugnant…and pretty much par for the course from the GOP. Ever hear of the Southern Strategy? Or consider Saint Reagan. In 1976, the Gipper ran on reining in “welfare queens” and in 1980, he sang the praises of “state’s rights” (wink, wink) within spitting distance of the 1964 Chaney-Schwerner-Goodman murders. His successor, George H.W. Bush — the nice, statesmanlike Bush — won his election mainly by threatening a black rapist on every block under Dukakis. Just last cycle, those compassionate conservatives Romney and Ryan were happily dogwhistling about “takers,” “makers”, and the 47%.
(Dems aren’t immune to this sort of pitch either, of course. It wasn’t for nothing that, when he wanted to show he was a different kind of Democrat in 1992, Bill Clinton campaigned at a prison on Stone Mountain of all places. This picture from that event explains the optics of that ridiculousness all too well.)
Same goes for the authoritarianism. For a good half-century now, Republicans have gone out of their way to paint themselves as strongmen father figures who keep ‘Murica safe, and Democrats as bleeding-heart, touchy-feely wimps that are soft on communism, crime, and/or terror. We all remember George W. Bush strutting around an aircraft carrier in military fatigues while his campaign had John Kerry windsurfing like a brie-eating, Swift Boat surrender monkey. When his dad H.W. wasn’t race-baiting with Willie Horton in 1988 election, he was insinuating his opponent looked like a girly-man in a tank. Just this year, we had sneering Ted Cruz promising he would “carpet-bomb” Syria “back to the stone age.”
The point being, racism, authoritarian brow-beating, and catering to white grievance has been the GOP’s bread-and-butter for decades. Trump’s brand of evil is their brand of evil. The Donald just gave up the dogwhistle.
But that’s not all he gave up, and this is where the Trump candidacy gets interesting, and where he may spell doom for the GOP as currently constituted.
Instead, the GOP base seems to be motivated by Buchananism these days: the (correct) sense that the system has been rigged against them — stagnant wages, blue-collar jobs getting outsourced/downsized, the rich getting away scot-free with everything from not paying taxes to destroying the American economy — and the (deeply incorrect) feeling this is the fault of minorities and outsiders. On one hand, as the saying goes, “when you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression,” which is why so many white people whine ridiculously about reverse racism. On the other hand, they are being screwed over, just like everybody else, by rampant inequality, a disappearing middle-class, and an eroding social safety net. Some (though by no means all) Trump supporters are feeling that pressure particularly acutely.
In any event, like southern Populists of old (Tom Watson comes to mind), Trump wrestled power away from the GOP Bourbons by tapping into the economic and racial grievances of angry whites, but then chose to blame minorities for those problems. It’s an age-old trick that got him through the white-people-only primaries, but, as I’ll get to in a moment, it will be his downfall in November.
Still, even after he gets his hat handed to him in a few months, Trump’s ascension could well mean a very different GOP from now on — less “conservative”, more nationalistic. While the freak show types who obsess over public bathrooms will always have a home in their little tent, there may well be less talk of Big Guvmint going forward, and more railing against free trade and outsiders. (But, if they maintain their current trajectory, even that will likely only buy them a decade or two.)
And, of course, Trump gamed the broken fourth estate like there’s no tomorrow, garnering $2 billion in free media as of March 2016 simply by being a loudmouth, racist, (and thus click-baity) douchebag. (Ten Dumb Things Trump Said Today – You Won’t Believe Number 4!) CNN in particular has been covering him like he’s the OJ trial unfolding on a missing Malaysian plane. And now that he’s the actual, honest-to-goodness nominee, the media will normalize every nonsense thing that comes out of his mouth — even flagrantly racist bunkum — all in the spirit of Fair and Balanced.
As I said back in 2011 of Trump and at various other times, this is what our broken, High Broderian “both sides” punditocracy does. It’s the same reason we have Paul Ryan, easily as much of a huckster as the Donald, among us these days, and why we get stories like (I kid you not) “Paul Ryan’s Greatest Weakness: Is He Too Smart To Be President?” Er, no, J.R., he’s not.
Anyway, the real upshot here, after the next several months of sturm und drang, is that:
Graham is right. The Californication I talked about after the 2010 midterms is, at least in presidential years, becoming inexorable. Last time around, Mitt Romney won white people by 20 points (59-39)…and still lost handily. The electorate is even less white now than it was then, and will only grow more so. Even Karl Rove concedes that white people alone can’t get it done anymore.
So, what did the GOP do? Their only possible chance in 2016 was to open the party to people of color — maybe a Rubio or Cruz could’ve gained some headway there, tho’ I doubt it. Instead, like alcoholics to the bottle, they chose to double down yet again on angry white people. Donald Trump is the inevitable result of their demographic implosion.
In any case, to be elected president in November, Trump would have to perform even better among whites than Romney did. That doesn’t seem likely. Trump’s numbers are horrible with women. He doesn’t seem to believe in using 21st century GOTV efforts. He’s extraordinarily thin-skinned and always one or two steps away from a campaign meltdown. And, if anything, his constant racism will energize Latinos and other minorities to come out against him in force.
I’ll go ahead and lay down a marker: This election is not going to be close. In fact, it’s going to be a shellacking. There’s only two conceivable ways, as I see it, that Trump could eke it out. There could be some sort of catastrophic event leading up to the election — a major terrorist attack or financial collapse or somesuch. Or the Democrats, for some reason, decide to choose a really, really unpopular candidate to run against him. And neither of those are going to happ…
(Nah, he’s still going to lose.)
Those are the main things, of late. but let’s see: what else can I tell you? Well, after many years back in the workforce, and freelancing when I can — gradual school: kids, don’t do it — I’ve been able to extricate myself at last from the usual post-grad pit of penury and get back in black. Of course, retirement is only 25-30 years away now, so…
Sounds like a plan. But, so far, buying SunEdison (nee SUNE, now SUNEQ) was an out-and-out disaster — thankfully, I got out a few months before the final collapse. That hasn’t helped the solar ETF (TAN) either. And of the twenty or so stocks I’m currently holding, a good handful of them are just dogs: I’m looking at you, Twitter (TWTR), Fireeye (FEYE), and Teladoc (TDOC). (On the flip-side, my best picks so far are ATVI (Activision), Adidas (ADDYY), and Intuitive Surgical (ISRG).)
Anyway, I’m probably boring you with all this. (I also presume getting more into the markets is a general aging thing — just wait until this turns into a golf, tennis, and back-pain blog.) But, I thought I’d mention it, since, while this isn’t going to be Seeking Alpha anytime soon, I may be inclined to post more Wall street-type stuff here in the future.
But, just in case you’re thinking GitM has put away childish things…
One additional boon of Funko-buying, besides it scratching that old Star Wars figure itch: It really adds structure to your mall-crawls. For decades, I’ve been like, eh, these stores are all boring. Now, I’m all “hey, this mall has a Hot Topic, a Gamestop, and an FYE. To arms!
Next big trip: our honeymoon, which will include a week+ in Vietnam (probably doing Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang/Hue/Hoi An, while leaving Hanoi and Halong Bay for a future trip) and a week+ in Japan (Tokyo, Mt. Fuji, Osaka/Kyoto, and possibly Hiroshima). If you have any travel suggestions, feel free to drop them in the comments.
I saw Weiner, The Lobster, and The Witch over the long weekend, all worth seeing for different reasons. I’ve been picking up new shows in Mr. Robot and Preacher, while keeping up with Game of Thrones, Better Call Saul, The Flash, and the like.
Since Arkham Knight and Fallout 4 are done, and my rogue is all kitted out and waiting for Legion, most of my gaming time these days involves Hearthstone (great for the walk home) and the recently-released Overwatch, a.k.a. Blizzard’s stab at Team Fortress 2. (I mostly play Reaper, even if my name — Jacklowry — isn’t all that Reaper-ish.)
Nope, life is good. Very good. The only real issues these days are the general dismal state of politics, rampant inequality and poverty, encroaching climate change, etc., but those are issues for the rest of the blog.
Prime Minister for Peace tells the story of Milan Panic, a California businessman who’s lived a Zelig-like life of sorts. As a child, he fought with the partisans against the Nazis in his native Yugoslavia. As a young man, he became an Olympic cyclist, and used that opportunity to escape Tito’s Communism and defect to the West. He then started a pharmaceutical business that made him a millionaire several times over.
This book focuses on his experiences in the 1990s, when he went back to the then-fragmenting Yugoslavia to serve as Prime Minister, and, in trying to bring peace to the Balkans, went toe-to-toe with Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic, not to mention cynical Western diplomats and sundry other ethnic nationalists.
Buyer’s Remorse, my sixth collaboration with Bill Press since 2001 — he writes; I research, outline, edit, and fine-tune — covers, in a nutshell, all the many ways Barack Obama’s presidency let progressives down. If you’ve swung by here at any point in the past, you’ve already heard me go on about this at some length, so no need to belabor it here. (This book came pre-researched, in that regard.)
Interesting sidenote: This has been the biggest-selling book I’ve been involved with since the Carville/Ken Starr one in ’99, in part because the Clinton campaign tried to bash Bernie Sanders with it in the early primaries. (Clinton is apparently Obama’s biggest fan, except when she isn’t.)
And The Past and Future City, coming out this October, is what I’ve been working on this past spring, with NTHP president and CEO Stephanie Meeks. It makes the case for historic preservation in the 21st century and argues, in effect, this isn’t your grandparents’ preservation movement anymore.
All over America, historic buildings are helping make cities more desirable, and urban residents happier and healthier. They are spurring economic growth, nurturing start-up businesses, and creating jobs. They are reducing energy costs and environmental impact, and encouraging healthy living practices like walking and cycling. They are helping to provide solutions to challenges like affordability, displacement, and climate change. And they are turning diverse neighborhoods into communities, and helping us come to terms with the difficult chapters in our history. And the best part is, they’re already there — they just need smart, forward-looking policies to unlock their power and potential. On sale soon!
First, up above is me and Amy — whom I’ve mentioned a few times over the years — at my sister‘s wedding last October. And below is us at the Trianon in Versailles (Wilson’s base during the Conference) last summer, a day or two after I proposed.
Speaking of the old man, and as I said here, he and Murf shared this realm for a year or so, during which they went from antipathy to generally ignoring each other before Berk’s end. They had different interests anyway. Berk was into watching, circling, and barking, while Murf is more of a sit-in-your-lap, incessant licking man. To each his own.
Hey, remember 2015? Syrian refugees and the Iran nuclear deal, the Paris attacks and the Paris accords. Taylor Swift had bad blood and The Weeknd couldn’t feel his face. Donald Trump was leading in all the polls, but, lolz, we all knew wiser GOP heads would prevail in the end. And, hey — while it wasn’t a great film year by any means — some movies came out too!
One of the reasons I’ve been thinking about getting back on the horse around here is that I never did write up the 2015 movie list, which seems a shame after fifteen years running. (The 2014 list is still on the front page!) So, yeah, this is real late…but since I caught so many of these On Demand, I couldn’t have written this list up at the end of 2015 regardless. And besides, no matter how tardy I am in posting this each year, there’re always still a few more possible additions languishing unseen in the DVR and Amazon Prime queues — right now it’s Slow West and Chi-Raq on the slow burners. (I’ve also tried to watch Jupiter Ascending twice now, but haven’t made it past the first twenty minutes, right around the point Oscar Winner Eddie Redmayne starts doing his cut-rate Ming the Merciless bit.)
At any rate, of the films I did see, these below were my…
It Follows gets under your skin by making the most of a basic premise that’s been a subtext of the horror genre for years (and one that can carry all kinds of allegorical weight as needed, from aging to adulthood to AIDS): have sex and you’re a goner. And like the original Blob — or Death, for that matter — the creature may move slow here, but it is inexorable. Quentin Tarantino has a point about the problems with the goofy third act (tho’ he doesn’t really have a leg to stand on this year — see below), but man is this film creepy. Extra points for the very John Carpenter-y score by Disasterpeace.
MOST DISAPPOINTING:
WHAT IS THIS I CAN’T EVEN:
THE REST:
Worth On Demand-ing::
Best of Enemies: A good documentary on the 1968 Vidal-Buckley feuds, though, to be honest, watching them debate feels like watching the NBA before Bill Russell. You can tell me Buckley is brilliant over and over again, but it doesn’t make it true. Meritocracy killed the Firing Line star.
The Hunger James: Mockingjay, Part 2: Fine and admirably downbeat like the third book, this still seems like it should’ve been one movie with the first part, and that the franchise overstayed its welcome by a year.
Love and Mercy: Well-done, but see Compton, above.
Our Brand is Crisis: Rather preachy by the end, but I still enjoyed it.
Spy: Better than I expected, but, then again, Paul Feig has been admirably consistent.
Tomorrowland: Brad Bird sure does love Ayn Rand, doesn’t he? Still, worth seeing just for Hugh Laurie’s rant about contemporary pop culture.
Don’t Bother:
Aloha: The kerfuffle over Emma Stone’s casting aside, this film is inert from the first reel. What’s happened to Cameron Crowe?
Black Mass: The world doesn’t need any more gangster movies. This one adds nothing new to the mix. The best scene is the one from the trailers, with Depp’s Bulger bullying a Fed at the dinner table.
Dope: Tries too hard, and I found it cloying in the manner of Diablo Cody. Tho’ I did like the section where Bitcoin gets involved.
Fifty Shades of Gray: Terrible. Not even sexy. And yet still an improvement on the book! C’mon, America, get it together – France did this all better sixty years ago.
Jurassic World: Ho-hum. A by-the-numbers product of the reboot machine. But it’s competently made, so Episode IX has that going for it.
The Last Five Years: A not-very-good adaptation of the recent divorce musical. I was bored by it.
Spectre: This is a pretty good Bond movie for awhile, but it completely skips the rails once 007 and his most recent muse end up at that bus station in Africa. Just as Skyfall Bruce Wayne-ified Bond, now we get Blofeld as The Joker. Doesn’t work, doesn’t make any sense, is egregiously dumb.
Steve Jobs: Typical Sorkin walk-and-talk-fest, all in the service of getting to know a guy whose main claim to fame was marketing gimmickry. Not my cup of tea.
Terminator: Genisys: Kind of a disaster, was ruined by the trailers, and feels made for TV. Also needs more Matt Smith and J.K. Simmons. But at least it’s weird.
Trainwreck: LeBron James is a surprisingly good comic actor. This still wasn’t particularly funny however.
Unseen: 99 Homes, The Age of Adaline, American Ultra, Amy, Beasts of No Nation, Blackhat, Chappie, Child 44, Chi-Raq, Clouds of Sils Maria, Concussion, Cop Car, Daddy’s Home, The Danish Girl, The End of the Tour, Entourage, Far from the Madding Crowd, Furious 7, Get Hard, The Gift, The Good Dinosaur, Grandma, Hot Pursuit, Infinitely Polar Bear, Insidious Chapter 3, Insurgent, The Intern, In the Heart of the Sea, Irrational Man, Jem and the Holograms, Joy, Jupiter Ascending, Kill Me Three Times, Krampus, The Last Witch Hunter, The Lazarus Effect, The Look of Silence, Love the Coopers, Magic Mix XXL, The Man from U.N.C.L.E, Maps to the Stars, Max, The Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Minions, Mortdecai, Mr. Holmes, No Escape, The Overnight, Paddington, Pan, Pawn Sacrifice, The Peanuts Movie, Pitch Perfect 2, Pixels, Point Break, Poltergeist, Rikki and the Flash, Rock the Kasbah, Run All Night, The Runner, San Andreas, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Secret in their Eyes, Self/Less, Sisters, Slow West, Southpaw, The Stanford Prison Experiment, Stonewall, Suffragette, Taken 3, Ted 2, Trumbo, Victor Frankenstein, The Visit, A Walk in the Woods, The Walk, War Room>, We Are Your Friends, Wild Tales, Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death, Woman In Gold
(The Rest of) 2016: The Accountant, Assassin’s Creed, Bad Santa 2, Ben-Hur(?), Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, Collateral Beauty, The Cure for Wellness, Doctor Strange, Fantastic Beasts And Where to Find Them, Finding Dory, The Founder, Ghostbusters, The Girl on the Train, Inferno, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, Jason Bourne, The Legend of Tarzan, Lion, The Magnificent Seven(?), A Monster Calls, Neighbors 2, The Nice Guys, Passengers, Pete’s Dragon, Snowden, Star Trek Beyond, Suicide Squad, Warcraft, War Dogs, X-Men: Apocalypse, and…
What will you do when they catch you? What will you do if they break you?”