Monthly Archives: March 2008

Politics

Posted by jdewitte on

Here’s an interesting theory – Hillary will kneecap Obama in the primaries to insure a McCain victory against him in the general, and run against McCain in 2012. I’m not sure I agree, but I’m just sayin’…

http://www.counterpunch.com/stclair03242008.html

Movies – Angel-A

Posted by jdewitte on
angel-a

Rie Rasmussen and Jamel Debbouze in “Angel-A.” credit: unifrance.org

Luc Besson’s ANGEL-A, in the first ten minutes or so, seemed like it would be insufferable – one of the oldest set-ups in the world (depressed man about to jump off a bridge suddenly spies a beautiful woman about to do the same thing; she jumps first and he saves her! Quel surprise!!), followed by some pretty clueless line readings, posing as her side of a dialogue, from statuesque eye-candy Rie Rasmussen. I fully credit the engaging Jamel Debbouze for investing her with any credibility at all – we grow into believing in her because he does.

But if you stick with this film, it’s surprisingly easy to fall into. Angela is a guardian angel, and she is consigned to awaken André’s belief in himself. And André himself presents difficulties, needless to say. The guilelessness of the whole film is it’s salvation. It’s predictable in it’s I’ll-save-you-no-let-me, I-give-up-oh-yeah-well-so-do-I rhythms and plot ‘twists’. Besson pays shameless sentimental homage to the Capra-esque mechanics of the plot, yet throws in enough rough edges to keep things from getting too maudlin. Rasmussen doesn’t interact with Debbouze particularly well acting-wise, but she has a rock-solid idea of what her function is, and performs it with enthusiasm and integrity. Over ninety minutes, it becomes a genuinely admirable performance. What other film would dare posit that a female emissary from God had just gang-banged a nightclub’s entire male population, for the money? Rasmussen’s persistence, and Debbouze’s likeability, win out, trust me.

Also noteable is Thierry Arbogast’s flat-out gorgeous black-and-white cinematography – Wings Of Desire is the obvious reference, but Arbogast mixes in enough of his own novel imagery and lighting ideas to convince you he’s not just ripping off Henri Alekan.

I won’t kid you – this film is a predictable fairy tale. Think that gang-bang really could have happened? Think André may not be saved by Angela? Think Angela will finish her mission and abandon André, sadder but wiser? Then you’re probably too jaded to enjoy this – all told, it’s pretty fluffy. But it’s beautifully fluffy, well-executed fluffy, fluffy for grown-ups. It’s not for everyone, but there are far worse wastes of time. I considered this a very good, worthwhile waste of time.

For the earthier, this-doesn’t-sound-like-my-kinda-thing types among you, may I recommend ‘The Girl On The Bridge’ – same set-up, with a wonderfully dark and original story of what-happens-next, featuring major-league acting turns from Daniel Auteuil and Vanessa Paradis.

You may also be relieved to know my Netflix list from here consists of a pretty sizeable chunk of American films. I’m a shameless Francophile, but I’ll ease up over the next few weeks.

Movies – The Beat That My Heart Skipped

Posted by jdewitte on

Jacques Audiard’s The Beat That My Heart Skipped (De Battre Mon Coeur S’est Arrêté) (France, 2005) is a remake of a nasty little film from the late seventies called ‘Fingers’. It concerns Thomas, a roughhouse member of a team of enforcer/fixers for his real-estate-slumlord father. They roust squatters, plant rats, and break legs – it’s just what they do, and Thomas does it with angry enthusiasm. A chance meeting, however, redirects Thomas’ priorities. He happens upon the former agent of his late concert-pianist mother, who remembers Thomas as a pianist full of promise himself. Thomas then applies himself to re-learning his former high level of playing with the help of an Asian conservatory pianist who has recently relocated to Paris.

Romain Duris, as Thomas, does a superb job of showing us the layers that make up Thomas. His vocation as enforcer and aspiring real-estate wheeler-dealer is driven by a fierce loyalty to his father, as well as his own unfocused sense of ambition. When the musical alternative presents itself, we learn that Thomas’ mother developed some behavioral conflicts associated with her career, and has passed on. Who Thomas will choose to emulate, and where Thomas’ emotional loyalties really lie, become intriguing questions. He needs to find his own capacity for creative generosity and discipline while remaining loyal to his father, who shares his own testosterone-fueled inclinations for danger and sex. Thomas participates in helping his working cohort lie to his wife about his infidelities – when the arrangement is discovered by the wife, Aline (Aure Atika), Thomas expediently seduces her. Has he coldly manipulated her, or is this connection something he actually needs, and can create? The piano lessons are equally intriguing – his teacher, while obviously a talented and caring musician, speaks absolutely no french, and their communications are sometimes funny, sometimes harrowing. And where they end up at the film’s conclusion is richly ironic.

The original, ‘Fingers’, situated the Thomas character, Jimmy Fingers, as a Mob enforcer, and Harvey Keitel really worked both extremes of the character’s duality, at times profoundly compassionate, and other times amorally cruel. It was James Toback’s first film, and Toback placed Jimmy in a much darker, more malevolently stylized New York than the Paris that Thomas functions in. It’s instructive that in the DVD extras for ‘Heart’, Audiard explains that his co-screenwriter, Tonino Benacquista, hated this movie. They collaborated to create a character that kept Jimmy’s rough, sociopathic edges while investing him with a more empathetic sense of what his choices are and how he pursues them. And Duris is sensational – I’d never seen him, but he also appears in the french films ‘Gadjo Dilo’, ‘L’Auberge Espanol’ and ‘Moliere’.

Highly recommended.

Movies – Big Fish

Posted by jdewitte on

Watched Big Fish last night, a very enjoyable mainstream effort from Tim Burton that eschewed his usual Aubrey Beardsley / Edward Gorey-fied art direction in favor of something a little more expansive and hopeful. A local-boy-makes-good story that wouldn’t be out of place in the Preston Sturges catalog, it draws from a number of ideas – his own ‘Pee Wee’s Big Adventure”, a little ‘Forrest Gump’-ish-ness without the cloying earnestness, a little ‘Barton Fink’ without the dark psychosis, and even a sequence that reminded me a little of ‘A Boy and His Dog’s’ Topeka. Ewan MacGregor enacts the life story of a near-his-deathbed Albert Finney. MacGregor’s one of those actors who delivers admirably when cast and directed well. He’ll never resuscitate a lousy movie, but he’ll make a good one better, and he strikes every right note as the enthusiastic protagonist of Finney’s tall-tale life story. Some other pleasant and unexpected surprises – Billy Crudup is pitch-perfect as the skeptical, resentful son who slowly comes around on ol’ Dad without a single sentimental misstep. Danny DeVito creates a terrific character out of seeming comic-book thin air in very brief screen time. They didn’t give her much to do, but it’s nice to see some solid early work from Marion Cotillard. And I found myself admiring the musical score, and being pleasantly surprised that it was, yet again, Danny Elfman, not sounding anything like his usual semi-goofball self. I wish composers like John Williams and James Newton Howard could figure out how to push their trademark envelopes like this.

A very, very good film. Despite my boredom with his usual spook-house M.O., I’m inclined to take Tim Burton a little more seriously after this. Highly recommended.

Politics / Socioculture

Posted by jdewitte on

Here’s how I reacted to the March 8th post:

Now before anyone gets all in a lather about me quitting to avoid impeachment, or to avoid prosecution or something, let me assure you: There’s been no breaking of laws or impeachable offenses in this office.

Absurd. The outing of Valerie Plame alone should have been grounds to impeach Cheney. What Bush has been really good at, or been lucky to have provided for him, is countless footsoldiers who will do his dirty work and then fall on their swords – Colin Powell, Christine Todd Whitman, Alberto Gonzales, Katherine Harris, Karen Hughes, George Tenet, John Ashcroft, General David Petraeus – you can name your own favorites, there’s plenty.

Let’s start local. You’ve been sold a bill of goods by politicians and the news media. Polls show that the majority of you think the economy is in the tank. And that’s despite record numbers of homeowners, including record numbers of MINORITY homeowners. And while we’re mentioning minorities, I’ll point out that minority business ownership is at an all-time high. Our unemployment rate is as low as it ever was during the Clinton administration. I’ve mentioned all those things before, but it doesn’t seem to have sunk in.

I’ve always been a little paranoid about America’s Home-Owning Mania. I understand the long-term financial sense it makes, but it’s seemed for quite a while now that home ownership is just as important as a status symbol as it is a pragmatic investment. You’re just not a grown-up if you don’t have a mortgage. You’re not a responsible American if you haven’t made a thirty-year commitment to a finance company. And, slowly, as it gets easier and easier to own a home, it also gets easier and easier to borrow against the equity. How many people can honestly say that they’ve made a consistent long-term profit on their investment? And even if they have, what can they get with the money based on how inflated everything else is? Can the kids get the same kind of value their parents got when they bought? A three bedroom house on a decent-sized lot, or a two-bedroom condo in a subdivision with thin walls and PVC plumbing? And invariably both parents work to make the nut. Two working parents seemed to become the norm in early Reaganomics. It’s the American entrepreneurial spirit! It’s excellence! It’s competition! It’s killing yourself for the good life! And now the real-estate crash, and it’s only just begun. The dollar’s in the tank, we’re in surreal debt, and what was the last piece of clothing you bought that was made in the United States?

As for minority home ownership and the growth of minority businesses, well, I think that’s a global economic inevitability. That would have happened whether the President was Bush, Pat Buchanan, Ralph Nader or Alan Keyes.

Despite the shock to our economy of 9/11, the stock market has rebounded to record levels and more Americans than ever are participating in these markets.

Absolutely true, but I don’t see how we should give Bush, or even Alan Greenspan, credit for that. Sometimes the American entreprenurial spirit of excellence and competition works in spite of the policies and people in the administration.

Meanwhile, all you can do is whine about gas prices, and most of you are too damn stupid to realize that gas prices are high because there’s increased demand in other parts of the world…

Again, absolutely true. Americans still pay shamelessly low prices for gasoline compared to the rest of the world. And their continuous greedy bitching over it makes us ripe for boondoggles like ethanol.

…and because a small handful of noisy idiots are more worried about polar bears and beachfront property than your economic security.

Well, they are Republicans, after all. Sigh.

We face real threats in the world. Don’t give me this ‘blood for oil’ thing. If I were trading blood for oil I would’ve already seized Iraq’s oil fields and let the rest of the country go to hell. And don’t give me this ‘Bush Lied; People Died’ crap either. If I were the liar you morons take me for, I could’ve easily had chemical weapons planted in Iraq so they could be ‘discovered.’ Instead, I owned up to the fact that the intelligence was faulty.

The author of this ‘speech’ fantasizes that ‘owning up’ was George’s idea. It wasn’t. He wasn’t happy. The rest of the paragraph simply means he’s been reading too much Tom Clancy (or whatever writers’ coalition ‘Tom Clancy’ is these days).

Let me remind you that the rest of the world thought Saddam had the goods, same as me.

Unless they were affiliated with the U.N., like we were, and the Europeans we now condescend to, and had inspectors telling us what crap that had been two or three years before 9/11.

Let me also remind you that regime change in Iraq was official US policy before I came into office. Some guy named ‘Clinton’ established that policy. Bet you didn’t know that, did you?

Maybe no one in Maine knew that, but a lot of us did. The Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 – the Republican Congress created this – it was a Congressional Act – Clinton urged it forward and signed off on it – but they wanted to do it through international tribunals established collaboratively through the U.N., not through unilateral military action.

You idiots need to understand that we face a unique enemy. Back during the cold war, there were two major competing political and economic models squaring off. We won that war, but we did so because fundamentally, the Communists wanted to survive, just as we do. We were simply able to out spend and out-tech them.

I’m really tired of this ‘We won the Cold War’ bullshit. Did we ever really genuinely compete, economically and politically, with the Soviet Union in any aspect besides Mutually Assured Destruction through the obsessive stockpiling of nukes? Did we spend any capital or goodwill in Eastern Europe, support the breakaway regimes along the southwest and south, even attempt to do any business whatsoever with their manufacturing or national resources industries, in Russia or with the satellites? All we ever did was try to drain them militarily, with nukes and the Afghan conflicts. Their own lousy business sense, their own mishandling of glastnost, their own have-it-both-ways bungling and corruption of their own economy led to their fall. We didn’t have dick to do with it.

That’s not the case this time. The soldiers of our new enemy don’t care if they survive. In fact, they want to die. That’d be fine, as long as they weren’t also committed to taking as many of you with them as they can. But they are. They want to kill you, and the b______s are all over the globe. You should be grateful that they haven’t gotten any more of us here in the United States since September 11. But you’re not. That’s because you’ve got no idea how hard a small number of intelligence, military, law enforcement, and homeland security people have worked to make sure of that.

I have to go along with most of this. But we should also bear in mind the rampant politicization (is that a word?) of the intelligence community since 9/11. (Another grateful shout-out to Valerie Plame). Thank Jah they’re good at this, but nothing the Bush administration has done makes it easier for them.

When this whole mess started, I warned you that this would be a long and difficult fight. I’m disappointed how many of you people think a long and difficult fight amounts to a single season of ‘Survivor.’ Instead, you’ve grown impatient. You’re incapable of seeing things through the long lens of history, the way our enemies do. You think that wars should last a few months, a few years, tops.

From ‘they’ll greet us as liberators’ to ‘bring it on’ to ‘mission accomplished’ – please, you don’t get to say now you were in for the long run then. Take your medicine like a man, boys. Hubris is a bitch.

Making matters worse, you actively support those who help the enemy. Every time you buy the New York Times, every time you send a donation to a cut-and-run Democrat’s political campaign, well, dang it, you might just as well FedEx a grenade launcher to a Jihadist. It amounts to the same thing. In this day and age, it’s easy enough to find the truth. It’s all over the Internet. It just isn’t on the pages of the New York Times or on NBC News. But even if it were, I doubt you’d be any smarter. Most of you would rather watch American Idol.

If we could just get rid of outmoded, dangerous institutions like a free press and fair elections, we’d all be a lot safer.

I could say more about your expectations that the government will always be there to bail you out, even if you’re too stupid to leave a city that’s below sea level and has a hurricane approaching.

I, uhh, ……..whew…..nope, I’m not takin’ the bait……

I could say more about your insane belief that government, not your own wallet, is where the money comes from.

Only lobbyists and, apparently, Maine Republicans, believe that.

No one ever heard of Crawford before I got elected, and as soon as I’m done here pretty much no one will ever hear of it again.

Promises, promises.

Oh, and by the way, Cheney’s quitting too. That means Pelosi is your new President. You asked for it. Watch what she does carefully, because I still have a glimmer of hope that there are just enough of you remaining who are smart enough to turn this thing around in 2008.

Honestly, after you, George, Pelosi wouldn’t bother me. She really wouldn’t. If she’s what’s standing in the way of the next option, Condoleezza, I’ll deal.

So that’s it. God bless what’s left of America. Some of you know what I mean. The rest of you, kiss off.

Don’t let the door hit you in the ass. And here, take these goddamn pretzels with you.

Politics / Socioculture

Posted by jdewitte on

A thought-provoking (some might feel only provoking) e-mail sent to me by a Republican pal (it’s OK to have Republican pals, you guys, lighten up). I found more than a few jawdroppers in here, but, overall, this is actually a far more reasoned argument, as fiction, than I usually hear from the right in real life. I’ll see how many comments this generates, then post my own thoughts in a few days.

————————————————————————-

The following ‘speech’ was written recently by an ordinary Maineiac [a resident of the People’s Republic of Maine]. While satirical in nature, all satire must have a basis in fact to be effective. This is an excellent piece by a person who does not write for a living.

The speech George W. Bush might give:

Normally, I start these things out by saying ‘My Fellow Americans.’ Not doing it this time. If the polls are any indication, I don’t know who more than half of you are anymore. I do know something terrible has happened, and that you’re really not fellow Americans any longer.

I’ll cut right to the chase here: I quit. Now before anyone gets all in a lather about me quitting to avoid impeachment, or to avoid prosecution or something, let me assure you: There’s been no breaking of laws or impeachable offenses in this office.

The reason I’m quitting is simple. I’m fed up with you people. I’m fed up because you have no understanding of what’s really going on in the world. Or of what’s going on in this once-great nation of ours. And the majority of you are too damned lazy to do your homework and figure it out.

Let’s start local. You’ve been sold a bill of goods by politicians and the news media. Polls show that the majority of you think the economy is in the tank. And that’s despite record numbers of homeowners, including record numbers of MINORITY homeowners. And while we’re mentioning minorities, I’ll point out that minority business ownership is at an all-time high. Our unemployment rate is as low as it ever was during the Clinton administration. I’ve mentioned all those things before, but it doesn’t seem to have sunk in.

Despite the shock to our economy of 9/11, the stock market has rebounded to record levels and more Americans than ever are participating in these markets. Meanwhile, all you can do is whine about gas prices, and most of you are too damn stupid to realize that gas prices are high because there’s increased demand in other parts of the world, and because a small handful of noisy idiots are more worried about polar bears and beachfront property than your economic security.

We face real threats in the world. Don’t give me this ‘blood for oil’ thing. If I were trading blood for oil I would’ve already seized Iraq’s oil fields and let the rest of the country go to hell. And don’t give me this ‘Bush Lied; People Died’ crap either. If I were the liar you morons take me for, I could’ve easily had chemical weapons planted in Iraq so they could be ‘discovered.’ Instead, I owned up to the fact that the intelligence was faulty.

Let me remind you that the rest of the world thought Saddam had the goods, same as me. Let me also remind you that regime change in Iraq was official US policy before I came into office. Some guy named ‘Clinton’ established that policy. Bet you didn’t know that, did you?

You idiots need to understand that we face a unique enemy. Back during the cold war, there were two major competing political and economic models squaring off. We won that war, but we did so because fundamentally, the Communists wanted to survive, just as we do. We were simply able to out spend and out-tech them.

That’s not the case this time. The soldiers of our new enemy don’t care if they survive. In fact, they want to die. That’d be fine, as long as they weren’t also committed to taking as many of you with them as they can. But they are. They want to kill you, and the b______s are all over the globe.

You should be grateful that they haven’t gotten any more of us here in the United States since September 11. But you’re not. That’s because you’ve got no idea how hard a small number of intelligence, military, law enforcement, and homeland security people have worked to make sure of that. When this whole mess started, I warned you that this would be a long and difficult fight. I’m disappointed how many of you people think a long and difficult fight amounts to a single season of ‘Survivor.’

Instead, you’ve grown impatient. You’re incapable of seeing things through the long lens of history, the way our enemies do. You think that wars should last a few months, a few years, tops.

Making matters worse, you actively support those who help the enemy. Every time you buy the New York Times, every time you send a donation to a cut-and-run Democrat’s political campaign, well, dang it, you might just as well FedEx a grenade launcher to a Jihadist. It amounts to the same thing.

In this day and age, it’s easy enough to find the truth. It’s all over the Internet. It just isn’t on the pages of the New York Times or on NBC News. But even if it were, I doubt you’d be any smarter. Most of you would rather watch American Idol.

I could say more about your expectations that the government will always be there to bail you out, even if you’re too stupid to leave a city that’s below sea level and has a hurricane approaching.

I could say more about your insane belief that government, not your own wallet, is where the money comes from. But I’ve come to the conclusion that were I to do so, it would sail right over your heads.

So I quit. I’m going back to Crawford. I’ve got an energy-efficient house down there (Al Gore could only dream) and the capability to be fully self-sufficient. No one ever heard of Crawford before I got elected, and as soon as I’m done here pretty much no one will ever hear of it again. Maybe I’ll be lucky enough to die of old age before the last pillars of America fall. Oh, and by the way, Cheney’s quitting too. That means Pelosi is your new President. You asked for it. Watch what she does carefully, because I still have a glimmer of hope that there are just enough of you remaining who are smart enough to turn this thing around in 2008.

So that’s it. God bless what’s left of America. Some of you know what I mean. The rest of you, kiss off.