Monthly Archives: October 2008

Culture Shock

As Y’all Reap …

I'm the ghost of Lee Atwater, and I approve this messageCrooks and Liars ran this yesterday, and I couldn’t let it go unnoticed.

At one of his own town halls last night, John McCain took a moment to tell his supporters that Barack Obama is not the slavering Librul Terrist monster of their racist, paranoid nightmares …

… and the crowed booed McCain for defending the enemy.

It’s utterly fucking terrifying. And the video is made even more unsettling by the fact that we can’t see the woman’s face as she reacts to McCain’s reassurances that Obama is not “an Arab” — she just sputters “he’s not? He’s not?” as though she’s collapsing inside.

Watch the clip. This is what O’Reilly and Hannity and Limbaugh and the rest of the right-wing noise machine have wrought — millions of people who believe anything that fits their existing prejudices and respond with unthinking rage when those beliefs are challenged. And right up until yesterday’s refutation, McCain was riding those slurs and insinuations for everything they were worth.

I’m glad to see he’s trying to claw thing back to more reasonable ground, even if it’s an obvious attempt to restore his standing with center-right Republicans now that it’s clear the base alone can’t win the election. Or possibly he’s just rediscovered his sense of shame. (Josh Marshall has some thoughts on that at Talking Points Memo, along with more video of that town hall.)

In any case, John McCain has finally come out and said, on the record, that Barack Obama is not a secret Muslim out to destroy America from within. That should give the two of them some common ground at the next debate.

Movies

DiCaprio II: The Redepartening

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I knew Matt Damon, sir, and you are no Matt DamonIf I were a superstitious man, I would be awfully freaked out by the arrival, precisely two years after the debut of Martin Scorsese’s “The Departed”, of another expensive Warner Bros. movie in which Leonardo DiCaprio runs around being all ferrety and nervous, interacting with a nefarious criminal organization while making furtive phone calls to his beefy, well-heeled puppet master.

I’m not, though. And if nothing else, Ridley Scott’s “Body of Lies” has way more digital explosions than “The Departed” and “Syriana” put together!

Fewer Oscar chances, though.

Also opening this week …

“All Together Now”: In which the magical artistes of Cirque du Soleil struggle to turn the music of the Beatles into something we can all enjoy. Glenn explains.

“An American Carol”: David Zucker applies his undeniable skill with fat jokes and crotch punches to a somber commentary on the class wars in America. With fat jokes and crotch punches. And Chris Farley’s brother. And Kelsey Grammer as … wait, he’s playing Patton? Seriously?

“City of Ember“: Two hundred years after an unspecified apocalypse, a pair of plucky teenagers defy authority to escape the subterranean city that’s become their prison. If you ever wondered what Terry Gilliam might have done with “Dark City” … well, keep wondering, because this ain’t it. (My review should go up on the NOW site sometime this morning. UPDATE: There it is!)

“The Express”: Remember when Gary Fleder was known for edgy projects like “Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead” and that great “Homicide” episode with Vincent D’Onofrio in the subway”? Yeah, well, he’s making inspirational sports movies now. Barrett liked it; Adam, not so much.

“Quarantine”: Sony declined to screen this in advance, so I’ll be catching it later this afternoon, but if it’s half as effective as it was in the original Spanish, I will be awfully happy.

Catch you later …

DVD, Movies

Apprehension / Anticipation

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It's not the mileage, it's the ageSo I’ve ordered a new projector. An Epson 1080UB, to replace my sturdy but tired Sanyo PLV-Z1. It seemed like it was time to upgrade to a system that was capable of 1080p/24, the better to fully exploit my system’s various high-def devices.

Not just the Blu-ray and HD DVD players, mind you. I was really hoping to catch at least one of the presidential debates in true HD, just to see how bad John McCain’s makeup looks. (That comb-over ain’t helping, either.)

I had a plan and everything. I was going to inaugurate the projector — after performing the proper calibrations, of course — with a screening of Paramount’s BD edition of “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”, which I never did manage to see in 35mm.

I tried, I really did, but between getting turned away from the Cannes premiere and coming back to a crammed summer schedule that segued with distressing speed into those merciless August TIFF press screenings, I never quite caught up to it.

So now I have the Blu-ray disc, and a plan to see it in the highest resolution available at home … but it remains just a plan. Though I ordered the projector over a week ago, and was assured that I’d have it early this week, that hasn’t quite worked out; my dealer told me yesterday that the unit was back-ordered, and won’t be shipping out until tomorrow at the earliest.

There’s still a slim chance that I’ll have it on Friday, but it’s more likely that I won’t get it until next Tuesday or even Wednesday, meaning I have to watch the movie in the Z1’s stepped-down (though still pretty good) presentation.

Anyway, in all of this negotiation, I’ve realized something: I’m awfully ambivalent about watching “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”. Is there really going to be anything to say about the character, or the franchise, 19 years later? Is this going to be a polished Spielberg entertainment, or another empty Lucas attempt to squeeze a little more juice out of an aging brand?

Obviously, this is a question to which most of you already know the answer. But I’ve sort of gotten used to being the only guy who hasn’t seen the new “Indy” movie; it’s not a badge of honor or anything, more like a hole in my resume that I just haven’t corrected. And now that I have to watch the film, I’m not entirely sure that I want to. Part of me wants to leave the series as it was, a cherished treasure of the 1980s, with Indy and his dad riding off into the sunset at the end of “The Last Crusade”.

Can’t do that, of course. Gotta watch the new one eventually. Stupid professional obligations.

DVD

New York Stories

And yes, that is John Turturro he's swingingMy latest Sympatico/MSN DVD column takes great pleasure in the fact that “The Visitor” — one of the year’s best movies — comes to disc on the same day as Adam Sandler’s “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan”, offering a choice between two radically different tales of immigrants in New York.

Incidentally, does anyone know where you can find Fizzy Bubbelech in Toronto? Someone’s got to import it …

Culture Shock

Like Dave Kovic, but Way Cuter

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She's even got the robo-wave downOver at his Scanners blog, Jim Emerson puts his finger on something I’ve also noticed about Tina Fey’s impression of Sarah Palin: Fey’s Palin is a lot more likable than the genuine article.

Sure, Palin’s winking and twinkling is artificial and rehearsed, while Fey actually is cute as a button, but that’s not it. Fey’s version of Palin is a caricature, sure, but she’s also self-aware. She knows she’s a joke, and she’s in on the gag.

Meanwhile, the real Palin is desperately trying to posture as a leader, and appear substantial, while frantically avoiding saying or doing anything that would actually be substantial and leadery.

She offers perky, packaged quotes and memorized talking points and calls it “straight talk” — because things are what we say they are nowadays, dont’cha know! — and her boosters praise her for getting through the debate without soiling herself or running offstage in tears. She’s a champ! She’s unbeatable!

Kate and I were talking about this last night, and we realized that if McCain wins next month, Fey’s got the perfect setup for the fourth season of “30 Rock”: McCain is tragically incapacitated — a blood vessel bursts while he’s cursing out his Secretary of Defense, say — and Jack Donaghy comes to Liz Lemon with the greatest challenge of her career: Step in for President Palin and actually run the country while the real one is sequestered in a skee-ball arcade.

It’s a recipe for wackiness: Signing statements with the word “blerg” in them! Pete and Frank writing the State of the Union speech! Tracy Jordan finding out about the scam, and demanding to be made ambassador to Atlantis in exchange for his silence! Jenna using her sexuality to throw the Saudis off their game during pipeline negotiations! Kenneth becoming a militant Alaskan separatist because there’s nothing to do around the office!

Who wouldn’t want to see that? It’d certainly be a lot funnier than an actual McCain-Palin presidency … and so much easier on the world, too.

Incidentally, the second season of “30 Rock” comes to DVD tomorrow, and is brilliant. Bring it home, and see if you don’t love it so much you want to take it out behind the middle school and get it pregnant.

Movies

Post-Toronto Stress Disorder

Is it weird that there's just this one picture out there?You could be forgiven for thinking that the Festival had returned; almost every movie opening today played at TIFF just weeks ago. That’s October for you …

“Blindness“: Yep, they recut it after its grim Cannes premiere. Didn’t help.

“Flash of Genius“: Greg Kinnear sparkles and twitches right on cue as Robert Kearns, the engineer who invented the intermittent windshield wiper and spent a decade or so trying to prove it. The movie around him is just as calculated as the performance.

“How to Lose Friends and Alienate People“: Simon Pegg is a very funny man, and I know he wants to break through to a larger audience, but … really, man, movies like this are not the way to do that, even if they do co-star Kirsten Dunst and Jeff Bridges.

“Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist”: Michael Cera and Kat Dennings are a perfectly adorable couple of hipster young’uns in Peter Sollet’s mostly delightful romantic comedy, which only veers wrong when it panders to the gross-out crowd. (Which only happens once, and it’s over really quickly.)

“Rachel Getting Married””: Jonathan Demme never stopped making interesting movies, but with “The Truth About Charlie”, “The Manchurian Candidate” and “Jimmy Carter Man from Plains” he kind of drifted away from the emotional stuff. This lovely little ensemble piece marks his welcome return.

“Religulous“: Bill Maher’s confrontational documentary feels less like an intellectual examination of the false comfort of faith and more like an excuse to make fun of the faithful. Which is cool, I guess — it’s his movie — but I’m still not sure what I was supposed to take away from it beyond cheap mockery and a sense of Maher’s immense self-regard. YMMV, as they say.

“The Secret of the Grain”: I still haven’t managed to catch up to Abdellatife Kechiche’s festival favorite about small-town dreamers and a floating couscous restaurant, but Rad and Jason are both pretty high on it, so I’m hoping to see it soon.

Also opening today: “Beverly Hills Chihuahua”. Can’t say I’m sorry I’m missing it.

Movies

Talking Heads

So I says to Shiva, I says ...Today’s NOW features my interviews with Bill Maher and Simon Pegg, on the occasion of the release of their respective films “Religulous” and “How to Lose Friends and Alienate People”, as well as lots of other content that we’ll get to tomorrow.

Oh, and if you live in Toronto and haven’t planned out your Nuit Blanche activities yet, do consider Cinematheque Ontario’s program of 1920s silents, which will be running throughout the night.

If you get a little bleary around 5 am, Harold Lloyd might just be the pick-me-up you need …