DAY REAGAN WAS SHOT
25 years ago today. I was in the 6th grade. I don't remember if the teacher had told us or if it came over the loudspeaker. It had only been 2 months since his swearing in and I got into trouble for hanging out in the music room watching it with the 5th grade instead of returning to class after recess. It was certainly one moment of civil disobedience I don't regret. The teacher gave me a stern look when I returned, but later asked me what Reagan said in his speech.
Just a few night ago I watched THE DAY REAGAN WAS SHOT on DVD. It was produced by Oliver Stone so the basis was how Alexander Haig put us on the brink of nuclear war with his pompous attitude. Whatever. Richard Crenna plays Reagan and quite well. He doesn't give that characatured James Brolin impersonation act. Richard Dreyfuss plays Haig crazier than you've ever seen him. I remember the "I'm in charge here" commnent by Haig and even as a kid thought it anything but a power play despite the media's tizzy. Dreyfuss's Haig is like some sort of inquisition cardinal arguing with the rest of priests.
The good news is that with Haig taking all the heat, Ron, Nancy, Howard Baker, George Bush, Cap Weinberger and company all come off as decent people. It made the thing quite compelling despite the conspiracy theories.
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
REMEMBER BACK IN 1992?
I bought a stand-alone DVD burner a few weeks ago and have been in the process of turning the old VHS tapes into DVDS. I threw away about 80% of my VHS in 2001, but kept the things that I couldn't ever buy on DVD.
Tonight I'm recording the 1992 Republican Convention and it's notable for a number of things, Pat Buchanan's infamous speech, Reagan's last major address, and Dan Quayle's last major address. I didn't remember that Bob Dole gave a pretty good speech between Quayle and Bush. These days it seems that VPs and Presidents give their speeches on different nights. George W. Bush can be seen with a full head of brown hair sitting next to Barbara in the box.
Everybody is using the "I didn't inhale" line as part of their shtick, at varying degrees of effectiveness. Reagan even refers to
I noticed that Quayle's oldest son doesn't clap for anything, even his own father, despite the fact that Marylin and the other kids seem to be enthusiastic. Kay Bailey Hutchison shows up as a state office holder in Texas. Condoleza Rice shows up and speaks earlier that night listed as a former assistant NSA person under Bush 41. Even the new people are older than we think.
A bunch of speakers kept calling for term limits, the line item veto and a Republican congress. Little did they know that Bush's defeat would lead to all of this just two years later. Though, of course, Republicans forgot term limits and the court struck down the line item veto. Yeah the only thing we seemed to have gotten was guys with an (R) next to their name that spend a lot of money. I was so idealistic in 1992.
Leading into Bush 41's speech was a little documentary narrated by Robert Mitchum. Always a fan of Mitchum, I forgot this detail and confirmed it on IMDB. I also learned that Mitchum was one of the few
Speaking of
The 1992 convention became notorious in the media, especially because of Buchanan. The media spent two years talking about how it split the party and what not. But this ineffective convention that lead to defeat really set the stage for the 1994 Congressional takeover based on ideas over personalities. The 1992 loss was a blessing in disguise in that we wound up with a decent sized tax cut. But much of what could have been done hasn't been done and since this is the first year where there majority seems to be in trouble, it's criminal how they wasted such an opportunity.
Anyway, 1992 is a classic. I'm glad I didn't throw it away.
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
FEBRUARY 2006 MOVIES
Not much action this month. Too much poker and reading
BALLAD OF CABLE HOGUE (1970) - Sam Peckinpah’s follow-up to THE WILD BUNCH packs just one blood-letting scene and that’s the death of a large dessert lizard intended for food. Jason Robards is his usual solid as the title character and some decent characters actors like Slim Pickens and David Warner help too, but I don’t understand this movie’s reputation as a classic. The overly broad comedy coupled with the overdone death of the west theme doesn’t bring any freshness to either. The great MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE was savaged by critics for much less than this. Of his films I have liked THE GETAWAY most followed by RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY and then the WILD BUNCH, but I didn’t love any of them. I saw STRAW DOGS last year and was pretty disappointed. Either his films are too dated or I just don’t respond.
JUNEBUG (2005) – After torturing Trish with some of my recent art house choices, she was quite happy that I selected this film. The story of a city sophisticate returning to his rural North Carolina roots could be full of Doc Hollywood gags and Hee Haw references but it was instead a very human picture. Amy Adams is getting the buzz because she plays the most hyper of the characters and steals most scenes, but a lot can be said for the rest of the cast that lets her do it gracefully. The underrated Scott Wilson plays the father as a typical southern patriarch dealing with an overbearing wife. Wilson was the other killer in the 60s docudrama IN COLD BLOOD. He was also a victim of Charlize in MONSTER, the one that made me want to see her fry post haste. What’s exceptional about the film is the way Alessandro Nivola’s son character has mixed emotions throughout about family and obligation. Most movies would simply give him anger or cowardice or some simply emotion to play off for 90 minutes. Here we get to see him make the struggle that probably led to his leaving in the first place. Celia Weston is the mother character that you’ll recognize from other movies and TV shows.
+METROPOLITAN (1990) – It was finally released a few weeks ago on DVD, Criterion Collection even. I wonder if that was the holdup, they needed to dig up some extras. It’s a story about some college aged Manhattan kids who are back for Christmas holidays participating in the debutante season. A kid less rich is befriended by the group and he’s in a sense the audience’s eyes and ears to that world. I didn’t even like it when I first rented it in 1995. I thought it was slow and without much point. The following year it came up in conversation at work and I was surprised how many lines I had remembered. I decided that it was deceptively witty and when I revisited it soon after I became a big fan and still am. For all the times I’ve seen it, this was the first time in letterbox. Director Whit Stillman gave commentary joined by the editor and actors Chris Eigeman and Taylor Nichols. The film was made super low budget and they detail that process in the commentary. One of the most interesting things is that these kinds of rich kids are usually the villains in movies. Here they’re quite human despite the money.
LORD OF WAR (2005) – It begins as a comedy on the arms industry and it’s quite effective, but midway through Nick Cage develops a conscience of sorts and this turns the film into a sermon. Shortly after the reform, Cage snaps out of his worry and becomes just as numb as before. You realize later that Cage has a moment of clarity simply because the audience likes him too much and the political points are being lost. But since the movie has no where to go with a reformed Cage he simply reverts. Ethan Hawke shows up as the federal agent assigned to bring Cage down and boy does that guy need a hamburger. The way Cage bounces from concerned husband and father to indifferent crook is a major flaw and the ending doesn’t pack the intended punch. If the filmmakers simply had the guts to make Cage aloof all the way through with no consequences, this could have been a classic black comedy. Otherwise they should have simply made another Syriana.
HIDE AND SEEK (2005) – That horror film where DeNiro’s little girl seems eerie is alright for the genre, but not entirely satisfying. They do a decent enough job of fooling the audience for a spell, but the movie only has one way to end once you guess it. I suppose most will do so somewhere before we’re supposed to be surprised.
Not much action this month. Too much poker and reading
BALLAD OF CABLE HOGUE (1970) - Sam Peckinpah’s follow-up to THE WILD BUNCH packs just one blood-letting scene and that’s the death of a large dessert lizard intended for food. Jason Robards is his usual solid as the title character and some decent characters actors like Slim Pickens and David Warner help too, but I don’t understand this movie’s reputation as a classic. The overly broad comedy coupled with the overdone death of the west theme doesn’t bring any freshness to either. The great MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE was savaged by critics for much less than this. Of his films I have liked THE GETAWAY most followed by RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY and then the WILD BUNCH, but I didn’t love any of them. I saw STRAW DOGS last year and was pretty disappointed. Either his films are too dated or I just don’t respond.
JUNEBUG (2005) – After torturing Trish with some of my recent art house choices, she was quite happy that I selected this film. The story of a city sophisticate returning to his rural North Carolina roots could be full of Doc Hollywood gags and Hee Haw references but it was instead a very human picture. Amy Adams is getting the buzz because she plays the most hyper of the characters and steals most scenes, but a lot can be said for the rest of the cast that lets her do it gracefully. The underrated Scott Wilson plays the father as a typical southern patriarch dealing with an overbearing wife. Wilson was the other killer in the 60s docudrama IN COLD BLOOD. He was also a victim of Charlize in MONSTER, the one that made me want to see her fry post haste. What’s exceptional about the film is the way Alessandro Nivola’s son character has mixed emotions throughout about family and obligation. Most movies would simply give him anger or cowardice or some simply emotion to play off for 90 minutes. Here we get to see him make the struggle that probably led to his leaving in the first place. Celia Weston is the mother character that you’ll recognize from other movies and TV shows.
+METROPOLITAN (1990) – It was finally released a few weeks ago on DVD, Criterion Collection even. I wonder if that was the holdup, they needed to dig up some extras. It’s a story about some college aged Manhattan kids who are back for Christmas holidays participating in the debutante season. A kid less rich is befriended by the group and he’s in a sense the audience’s eyes and ears to that world. I didn’t even like it when I first rented it in 1995. I thought it was slow and without much point. The following year it came up in conversation at work and I was surprised how many lines I had remembered. I decided that it was deceptively witty and when I revisited it soon after I became a big fan and still am. For all the times I’ve seen it, this was the first time in letterbox. Director Whit Stillman gave commentary joined by the editor and actors Chris Eigeman and Taylor Nichols. The film was made super low budget and they detail that process in the commentary. One of the most interesting things is that these kinds of rich kids are usually the villains in movies. Here they’re quite human despite the money.
LORD OF WAR (2005) – It begins as a comedy on the arms industry and it’s quite effective, but midway through Nick Cage develops a conscience of sorts and this turns the film into a sermon. Shortly after the reform, Cage snaps out of his worry and becomes just as numb as before. You realize later that Cage has a moment of clarity simply because the audience likes him too much and the political points are being lost. But since the movie has no where to go with a reformed Cage he simply reverts. Ethan Hawke shows up as the federal agent assigned to bring Cage down and boy does that guy need a hamburger. The way Cage bounces from concerned husband and father to indifferent crook is a major flaw and the ending doesn’t pack the intended punch. If the filmmakers simply had the guts to make Cage aloof all the way through with no consequences, this could have been a classic black comedy. Otherwise they should have simply made another Syriana.
HIDE AND SEEK (2005) – That horror film where DeNiro’s little girl seems eerie is alright for the genre, but not entirely satisfying. They do a decent enough job of fooling the audience for a spell, but the movie only has one way to end once you guess it. I suppose most will do so somewhere before we’re supposed to be surprised.
Sunday, March 05, 2006
PROBLEM WITH THE MOVIES
When movies began to shift to the left it wouldn’t necessarily bother you to see a businessman or corporation as a villain. It was still a fresh idea. Fred MacMurray played a great cad in THE APARTMENT. Steve McQueen managed to be the hero and the villain in the THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR.
The Military Industrial Complex was also ripe for satire and villainy. After so many heroic World War II film, DR. STRANGELOVE was a nice dose of balance.
And who didn’t like to see Sidney Poitier give it to the man in IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT after so many blacks in film history were subservient to whitey?
Wasn’t it fun to watch Katharine Hepburn outsmart and out-lawyer Spencer Tracy in ADAM’S RIB?
Wasn’t it interesting to see Al Pacino play a non stereotypical homosexual in a mainstream movie like DOG DAY AFTERNOON?
None of the above movies were offensive and they were all believable and progressive at the same time. The intention may or may not have been to push the political dialogue to the left, but they didn’t hit you over the head with social policy, they just showed you characters behaving rationally in the context of good storytelling.
From what I’ve read, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN could fit into the same tradition of the aforementioned films. The problem is that BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN was stale before it was even made. Although it’s in some ways very original, it’s not surprising. We already know that society is the villain in this one without reading any further than the premise.
Remember when Jonathan Demme stuck to the novel of SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and let his psycho be a homosexual? He was so in danger of losing his liberal card that he was made to atone by making PHILADELPHIA. And his movies have been right on the PC plantation ever since.
PASSION OF THE CHRIST was ignored by the Academy and called anti-Semitic on the basis of a line or two while others simple dismissed it as too violent. But suicide bomber movies like PARADISE NOW are nominated in all their glory.
The problem with movies isn’t that they’re liberal, but that they’re so reliably liberal that they have nothing original left to say. Given a list of characters and their situations and you can almost write the movie yourself.
A few months ago we were playing poker and I was in the minority defending the war in Iraq. The same guys that talk in the familiar center-left talking points concerning that issue have been relentless in their lampooning of BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN. There was debate as to whether KK, JJ or KJ should be referred to as a Brokeback Mountain hand. Lately in another game I’ve been playing in, a player has been quoting “I don’t know how to quit you” when he’s on a draw and faces a tough bet. He’ll use the accent and he always gets a big laugh. It’s not insignificant that when I first knew him in the late 1990s he invited us all to his birthday party at a pizza joint that he was also using as a charity event for Aids. And the same guy has two gay brothers for crying out loud.
When Ang Lee accused the Christian Right of calculated silence on his movie, he was simply too self-involved to realize that the people offended by movies like his are the least likely to watch movies anyway. The average parent is probably more offended by the kids cussing in BAD NEWS BEARS.
The reason so many people are teasing BROKEBACK is that we’ve been given such a steady diet of the same PC tribulations that they cease to be tribulations anymore. Issue movies are no longer stories with complex heroes and villains, but too often the same black and white good guys and bad guys that the Left has always ridiculed in the old rightwing movies.
The result for people like me who like movies is that I wind up seeing them on DVD or HBO if at all. It’s not a boycott, but casual indifference.
Some people in Hollywood understand this enough that they make more even-handed movies. For as much as a Bolshevik as Tim Robbins is personally, he does a good job of making his rightwing characters real people. Bob Roberts was a much more appealing character than we could have expected even if he was the bad guy. I thought DEAD MAN WALKING was so even-handed that I was surprised to find that the intent was for me to feel sorry for Sean Penn. Even CRADLE WILL ROCK makes Bill Murray’s anti-communist character more human and sympathetic than any others I could name.
Now maybe Robbins is so secure in his beliefs that he doesn’t think he needs to create cartoon villains or obvious heroes to make his points. That so many others do so is maybe a sign of insecurity in those beliefs. One of the Greeks maybe Aristotle said that all ideas should be freely expressed among the educated even those ideas that seem obviously wrong because experience shows that so many seemingly wrong ideas turned out to be right and without discussing bad ideas it’s hard to remember the merits of the good ideas in the first place. In other words, the biggest champion of the truth is an open dialogue.
I don’t mind political movies, even ones I disagree with. I admire someone like Clooney for tackling political subjects although I think his postulating that this act is noble, dangerous, and somehow career threatening is overstated to the point of comedy. What the movies lack is an open-dialogue that doesn’t even need to seek the truth, but it just needs to provide some variety.
When movies began to shift to the left it wouldn’t necessarily bother you to see a businessman or corporation as a villain. It was still a fresh idea. Fred MacMurray played a great cad in THE APARTMENT. Steve McQueen managed to be the hero and the villain in the THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR.
The Military Industrial Complex was also ripe for satire and villainy. After so many heroic World War II film, DR. STRANGELOVE was a nice dose of balance.
And who didn’t like to see Sidney Poitier give it to the man in IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT after so many blacks in film history were subservient to whitey?
Wasn’t it fun to watch Katharine Hepburn outsmart and out-lawyer Spencer Tracy in ADAM’S RIB?
Wasn’t it interesting to see Al Pacino play a non stereotypical homosexual in a mainstream movie like DOG DAY AFTERNOON?
None of the above movies were offensive and they were all believable and progressive at the same time. The intention may or may not have been to push the political dialogue to the left, but they didn’t hit you over the head with social policy, they just showed you characters behaving rationally in the context of good storytelling.
From what I’ve read, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN could fit into the same tradition of the aforementioned films. The problem is that BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN was stale before it was even made. Although it’s in some ways very original, it’s not surprising. We already know that society is the villain in this one without reading any further than the premise.
Remember when Jonathan Demme stuck to the novel of SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and let his psycho be a homosexual? He was so in danger of losing his liberal card that he was made to atone by making PHILADELPHIA. And his movies have been right on the PC plantation ever since.
PASSION OF THE CHRIST was ignored by the Academy and called anti-Semitic on the basis of a line or two while others simple dismissed it as too violent. But suicide bomber movies like PARADISE NOW are nominated in all their glory.
The problem with movies isn’t that they’re liberal, but that they’re so reliably liberal that they have nothing original left to say. Given a list of characters and their situations and you can almost write the movie yourself.
A few months ago we were playing poker and I was in the minority defending the war in Iraq. The same guys that talk in the familiar center-left talking points concerning that issue have been relentless in their lampooning of BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN. There was debate as to whether KK, JJ or KJ should be referred to as a Brokeback Mountain hand. Lately in another game I’ve been playing in, a player has been quoting “I don’t know how to quit you” when he’s on a draw and faces a tough bet. He’ll use the accent and he always gets a big laugh. It’s not insignificant that when I first knew him in the late 1990s he invited us all to his birthday party at a pizza joint that he was also using as a charity event for Aids. And the same guy has two gay brothers for crying out loud.
When Ang Lee accused the Christian Right of calculated silence on his movie, he was simply too self-involved to realize that the people offended by movies like his are the least likely to watch movies anyway. The average parent is probably more offended by the kids cussing in BAD NEWS BEARS.
The reason so many people are teasing BROKEBACK is that we’ve been given such a steady diet of the same PC tribulations that they cease to be tribulations anymore. Issue movies are no longer stories with complex heroes and villains, but too often the same black and white good guys and bad guys that the Left has always ridiculed in the old rightwing movies.
The result for people like me who like movies is that I wind up seeing them on DVD or HBO if at all. It’s not a boycott, but casual indifference.
Some people in Hollywood understand this enough that they make more even-handed movies. For as much as a Bolshevik as Tim Robbins is personally, he does a good job of making his rightwing characters real people. Bob Roberts was a much more appealing character than we could have expected even if he was the bad guy. I thought DEAD MAN WALKING was so even-handed that I was surprised to find that the intent was for me to feel sorry for Sean Penn. Even CRADLE WILL ROCK makes Bill Murray’s anti-communist character more human and sympathetic than any others I could name.
Now maybe Robbins is so secure in his beliefs that he doesn’t think he needs to create cartoon villains or obvious heroes to make his points. That so many others do so is maybe a sign of insecurity in those beliefs. One of the Greeks maybe Aristotle said that all ideas should be freely expressed among the educated even those ideas that seem obviously wrong because experience shows that so many seemingly wrong ideas turned out to be right and without discussing bad ideas it’s hard to remember the merits of the good ideas in the first place. In other words, the biggest champion of the truth is an open dialogue.
I don’t mind political movies, even ones I disagree with. I admire someone like Clooney for tackling political subjects although I think his postulating that this act is noble, dangerous, and somehow career threatening is overstated to the point of comedy. What the movies lack is an open-dialogue that doesn’t even need to seek the truth, but it just needs to provide some variety.
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