Author: KcM

Pac-Man, Lay off the Dots.

An Albany congressman proposes a “fat tax” on junk food, video games, and TV commercials to combat NY’s growing obesity rate. Thinking outside the box, I suppose, but where would this end? There are very few items in American life these days that don’t contribute to obesity, so it seems a bit harsh to pin the blame on Grand Theft Auto.

Willful Disbelief.

Salon examines the reasons for Dubya’s continued public support despite the WMD shenanigans. “Just imagine how much shock and complaining there would be if we learned that ‘American Idol’ had been rigged. But Bush and his comrades can use deceptive means to launch a war and to pass trillion-dollar tax cuts that bust the bank — and then skate away.” In related news, the New Republic offers a concise overview of the story to date.

Lie Down with Dogs…

Rejecting any attempt at rapprochement with Congress on the subject of judicial nominations, Dubya tries to ram a former Starr Chamber aide down the Democrats’ throats. To his credit, it sounds like this fellow Kavanaugh was against including salacious details in the Starr report, but he still comes off as yet another Clinton-hater on the IC’s payroll. And we really don’t need any more freak show conservative witch-hunters on the bench.

Burning Evidence.

As they do with all potentially threatening data, the Dubya White House tries to sweep global warming under the rug by removing key portions of the EPA’s “State of the Environment” report. “The editing eliminated references to many studies concluding that warming is at least partly caused by rising concentrations of smokestack and tail-pipe emissions and could threaten health and ecosystems…In its place, administration officials added a reference to a new study, partly financed by the American Petroleum Institute, questioning that conclusion.” Brilliant. Perhaps I should add the Bugblatter Beast of Traal to Dubya’s advisor pic, since it seems to be his MO they’re constantly following in these cases.

The Chimp stays in the Picture.

Max of Lots of Co. points the way to this very fun movie production game. I’m proud to say my first film, a revolutionary war drama called Republic of Virtue and starring Harrison Ford and Kate Beckinsale (also featuring Colin Farrell, Clive Owen, Helen Mirren, and Maggie Gyllenhaal), went on to make over $100 million. Still, I should have cast the chimp.

The First Estate.


Ever beholden to their wealthy masters, the House GOP try once again to permanently eliminate the estate tax. Thankfully, this probably won’t pass the Senate, but you’d think someone on the Republican side of the House would remember the days of true conservatism and start thinking about balancing the budget, rather than granting further handouts to the filthy rich. A long shot, I know, particularly when you take a gander at the GOP economic team these days. (Ah, fun with Photoshop.)

Life and How to Live It.

Since my cable connection has been spotty over the past day and a half, and as I needed a break from orals reading, I threw another catch-up movie marathon here at Casa Berkeley. Not sure what the underlying subtext of this quadruple billing is…biopics, perhaps (Schmidt, Kahlo, Crane, Wilson)? Or, rather, fanboy villains in the arthouse (Nicholson, Molina, DeFoe, Serkis)? At any rate, here’s what I thought, in the order I watched them:

About Schmidt: I dunno…I’m normally a big fan of Alexander Payne’s movies, and particularly Election, but think I saw this film on the wrong end of the hype machine. Schmidt was mildly enjoyable, but it also dragged in parts and spent too much of its time deriving humor from goofy Midwestern antics (most notably the couple in the Winnebago park and Dermot Mulroney as the son-in-law to be…pyramid schemes and Why Bad Things Happen to Good People? Come on.) While aiming to be a rumination on retirement, time wasted, and the myths surrounding a life lived well, I suppose, I thought the entire film basically revolved around stunt casting – watching Jack play the anti-Jack. Speaking of which, Nicholson was quite good as the befuddled, world-weary Schmidt, but without him playing against type, there doesn’t seem to be much here. Something of a disappointment.

Frida: Perhaps this biopic focuses too much on the Diego Rivera-Frida Kahlo romance, but I enjoyed it, and particularly the narrative lapses into Kahlo’s artistic world (for example, the Day of the Dead hospital sequence by the Brothers Quay). There’s some grotesque miscasting in here – Ashley Judd trips all over her Spanish accent, Geoffrey Rush is oddly hammy as Leon Trotsky, and Nelson Rockefeller is entirely too Nortonesque – but Salma Hayek and Alfred Molina are quite good as the emotional center of the film, and all in all this picture works. After traveling around in the winnebago with Warren Schmidt for two hours, it was nice to spend some time with people who embrace life along with their pain.

Auto Focus: Greg Kinnear is very good as Bob Crane in this Paul Schrader flick, but unfortunately Auto Focus, while very watchable, comes off as a by-the-numbers addiction movie. Between the Angelo Badalamenti score and all the retro-dressed beauties stalking Col. Hogan in various dens of iniquity, this pic seems set in Mulholland Drive Hollywood from the get-go, which ends up being one of the main problems. Other than a shrewish Rita Wilson on his back, it’s hard to understand from this picture what drives Crane into this sordid life. Perhaps it’s unfair to compare these movies to each other, but oh well – When Frida Kahlo has an affair with Josephine Baker or Diego Rivera sleeps with basically everybody in Frida, at least they look like they’re having a good time. The sex scenes in Auto Focus are all filmed like something out of a Bosch triptych – dark, muddled, and hellish. Ok, I know the film is about sex addiction, but still – better movies on addiction (such as The Basketball Diaries) at least give a sense of what the draw was in the first place. As such, Auto Focus, while easy to watch, ends up feeling cold and puritanical. Too bad, really, because the performances are all generally good.

24-Hour Party People: I get the sense this movie would be inscrutable to anyone who didn’t already know the contours of the story, and insufferable to anyone who doesn’t care about Joy Division and such, but I found 24-Hour Party People the most fun of the foursome. Shot in a cinema verite style with real concert footage thrown in [along with postmodern narrative asides by Tony Wilson (Steve Coogan)], 24HPP is an informative and irreverent trip into the history of the Manchester rave, and one that seems to capture the spirit of the post-punk era without wallowing in Studio 24-type nostalgia. If I had my druthers, I would have spent more time on the rise of New Order (or for that matter, the Smiths and Stone Roses) and much less on the Happy Mondays, but oh well. As I said, I’d think this film might be immensely confusing – or just plain boring – if you don’t already know who Ian Curtis, Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, and the Buzzcocks are, but if you do, Party People is rollicking good fun, a movie that manages to take its subject seriously by not taking it seriously, if you know what I mean.

So that’s that, then. I still have Human Nature and The Grey Zone to watch, which should make for one bizarre double feature.

Card-Carrying Conservatism.

While the Democratic party as a whole continues to seem as divided and stymied by the Dubya dip as they do Weaponsgate, several of the candidates lash out on their own, including John Edwards, who calls the Dubya tax cuts the “most radical and dangerous economic theory to hit our shores since Socialism.” I’d think Eugene Debs is probably turning over in his grave at the comparison.