POTPOURRI

Two notes about links first. #1, I got a hit from whatevs (dot org), which seems like a site I will enjoy, now that I know about it (I especially like their insanely detailed reviews of every Saturday Night Live show of the season) -- but I can not for the life of me figure out where a link to my blog exists on the site. How did someone click to my site, when there is no link to be clicked?

And #2: damn. I knew Mike's blog was popular... or I thought I knew. I mean, he's linked to me before, and I've gotten a decent amount of traffic from it. But with one four word link to my Smallville post from Saturday, "Jimmy did what now?" (that is the entirety of the link), I got a veritable avalanche of hits. And they keep coming. It must be over 200 click-throughs so far, with no sign of abating. Wow. People like Mike. I think the mystery of the link helped -- Who's Jimmy? What did he do? -- but I was, and am, just floored by it. Well, greetings to all of you! Unless you never come back. In which case, Good riddance! Who needs you?? I'll be fine here by myself. All alone. In the dark. Going blind....

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I hate Michael Medved.

I've hated him for a long, long time, because, well, his taste in movies sucks. In later years, I grew to hate him even more, as his reviews became a blatant conduit for his extreme right wing political/religious agenda, all but devoid of any genuine cinematic critique. Sometime in the last few years, in fact, he abandoned altogether any semblance of being an impartial critic when he became a right wing radio commentator in the mold of Rush Limbaugh. But his recent affront against the movie-going public is simply beyond the pale.

Roger Ebert writes about what Medved has done at his site. But before I give you the link, a warning: he discusses in detail Medved's misdeeds. What Medved has done is to spoil the plot of Million Dollar Baby out of pure, unmitigated, unprofessional spite, because it conflicts with his reactionary worldview. To even suggest that there is a spoiler in Million Dollar Baby is perhaps a spoiler in and of itself (as Ebert acknowledges). But the rest of the article really spoils it. So check it out only if you've already seen the movie, or are aware of the plot.

Here is the link.

Limbaugh is guilty of the same crime, but that's less shocking, because Limbaugh is well known to be a big fat idiot. But Medved was once, supposedly, a pro. He allegedly possessed a modicum of journalistic integrity. He clearly does not now, if indeed he ever did. Would he deliberately spoil a first-time viewer's experience of Citizen Kane, or Psycho, or The Sixth Sense? Presumably not. But he has no problem doing so with Million Dollar Baby, has no qualms about revealing every single detail of the plot on Pat Robertson's 700 Club, because his religious and political views are so unreasonable and extreme that he can not settle for anything less than ruining the movie for anyone who might be unlucky enough to encounter his diatribe disguised as review. Here is how around the bend Medved is: his website (which I will not dignify with a link) -- motto: "It's cool to be conservative" (seriously) -- proudly features a link to James Dobson's lunatic attack on Spongebob Squarepants and the We Are Family organization.

The punchline to all this, of course, is that the film is produced and directed by and stars Clint Eastwood, who is a Republican. When Clint Eastwood isn't right wing enough for you, when a guy who recently threatened to kill Michael Moore (jokingly or not) is too liberal for your liking, well, buddy, you are beyond the point of no return.

It baffles me, it really does, the behavior of today's right wing. As Christine Todd Whitman -- a Republican I can respect -- will gladly tell you, in 2005, it's not enough to simply be Republican. Now, you have to be on the extreme right of the extreme right -- or you're as much an enemy as the Democrats.

Well, this got off on more of a political rant that I'd intended. Suffice it to say: Michael Medved sucks ass.

MOVIES: Passion vs. Fahrenheit -- it's a scoreless tie!

I can't believe I neglected to mention it in my previous post, but two of the biggest, most widely praised (and condemned), and certainly the two most divisive movies of 2004 were snubbed by the Oscars: Passion of the Christ and Fahrenheit 9/11.

Passion received three nominations in minor categories, for Best Cinematography, Best Makeup (which is fitting, since those awards usually go to fantasy or horror), and Best Score. Fahrenheit was completely shut out, owing entirely to Michael Moore's hubris in withdrawing it from Best Documentary consideration, in the hopes of nailing (no pun intended, Passion!) a Best Picture nod instead. Frankly, it serves him right.

I loved Fahrenheit. I haven't seen Passion, but I'm not entirely opposed to seeing it at some future date, now that the lunatic fringe equating its viewing with the acceptance of the Lord Messiah Jesus Christ As Your Personal Savior has backed off. I enjoy a number of stories taken from the Bible -- from The Ten Commandments to Jesus Christ Superstar to The Last Temptation of Christ -- but they're only stories to me. I'm willing to see Passion on those terms.

So what does the Oscar snubbery of these two films say? That neither of them is any good? No. I renounce that theory. (And all its works and promises.) I know the quality of one of them, and I'm not yet ready to dismiss the filmmaking quality of the other. That neither of them is good enough to please the majority? More likely.

Did they cancel each other out? I couldn't say for sure, though it is possible. There are plenty of Academy precedences for something like that. "I'll nominate this one, and to hell with the other one! I didn't see it, I don't want to see it, and I'll be damned if I'm going to give it a chance in hell of being nominated!"

But I think it's most likely that the Academy was simply afraid of controversy, in any form, from any political agenda, from any color state. The Oscars have rarely courted the edgy or the polarizing. For all the strides they've made in recent years, choosing younger and more eclectic talents for honor -- even choosing Chris Rock to host this year! -- the Academy is still primarily old white men who don't like having their boat rocked. They probably avoided both movies like the plague (in the major categories, at least), whatever their feelings on either one.

And I think I'm happy with it this way. I would've hated to see it come down to a contest between both of them, because, despite the legendary liberal bias of Hollywood, I've already seen my side lose enough sure things and take enough punishment this last year to last me a lifetime. So I'm content with sitting this fight out.

TV:24 and Committed, yet again

Writing about 24, Bill Sherman at Pop Culture Gadabout has jarred my memory about something that was bothering me in the first episode this season. Bill writes about how the ep's reference to Michael Moore (a slam against him delivered by Secretary of Defense William Devane) detracted from the show's believability rather than enhancing it.

It bothered me, too, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Bill makes a good point about the show's timeline (as you know, I'm a stickler for television timelines), but that wasn't quite it. Then it suddenly struck me: in the 24 world, George W. Bush was never President!

When the show began in 2001, it was in the middle of the Presidential campaign, which immediately established it as outside our reality. In the following season, we saw Dennis Haysbert had been elected President, and was serving his term during the time when Dubya would've been President. Now, we have Geoff Pierson as President, during what would be Dubya's second term. (If it actually is 2005 in their world, and not 2008 or 2009, as Bill postulates.)

No Dubya means no Fahrenheit 9/11. Which means that Michael Moore's prominence would be greatly diminished from what it is currently in our world, where he is the go-to liberal target for conservative pundits and politicians. Prior to that movie, conservatives were somewhat aware of Moore, but he hadn't become the omnipresent object of all-consuming hatred he is to them now. Devane's knee-jerk snipe against Moore makes no sense in the world 24 has established for itself.

Yes, this is the kind of thing that I think about.

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I've also been thinking about: have any of you people who threatened to watch Committed when I was bagging on it gone through with it? An episode was on last night. Have you all become fans of the show? Or do you instead now realize: Tom is always right. We must not question Tom. Make the pain stop, Tom.

MOVIES: Team America: World Police

Team America: World Police wasn't nearly as funny as Trey Parker & Matt Stone's last film, South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut, and, in my eyes, nowhere near as offensive, but a lot more people seem to be taking offense to this one. I imagine it's because Team America targets liberals more explicitly than Parker & Stone usually do, making liberals think that the two of them are revealing themselves to be conservative Bush supporters. Which, #1, I doubt is true, and #2, even if it is, this movie can hardly be used to prove it. So they make Michael Moore, Alec Baldwin, and a host of other outspoken liberal actors out to be idiots, dupes, even traitors. Keep in mind that it's within a movie whose entire premise is an attack on the conservative cowboy mentality that has America invading countries on a whim and a lie. Parker & Stone and this film aren't too conservative -- they're even-handed in their satire, which apparently pisses a lot of folks off.

Roger Ebert, in his one-star review of the film, claims it is too even-handed, and cites his inability to pin down the film's political POV as a reason to dislike the film.

If I were asked to extract a political position from the movie, I'd be baffled. It is neither for nor against the war on terrorism, just dedicated to ridiculing those who wage it and those who oppose it.... I wasn't offended by the movie's content so much as by its nihilism. At a time when the world is in crisis and the country faces an important election, the response of Parker, Stone and company is to sneer at both sides -- indeed, at anyone who takes the current world situation seriously.

Now, I like Ebert, and I'm a liberal. But: what a load of liberal horseshit. He's mad the movie didn't make its politics more clear? Yeah, right. Do you think he would've liked it better if it had been more clearly pro-Bush? Not in a million years. No, he simply hates the movie because it doesn't only attack the conservatives, but offers equal criticism of the flaws on both sides.

And I'm all right with that, even if Ebert is not. Because, above and beyond the politics, this movie is funny. I said it wasn't as funny as South Park, but it certainly had a great number of huge laughs. From the ridiculous Arab "disguise" new Team America recruit Gary dons, to the hilarious songs (like "Pearl Harbor Sucked and I Miss You" or Kim Jong Il's "I'm So Ronery" or the Team's oft-repeated theme song, "America -- Fuck, Yeah!"), to the absurdly ultra-violent demises of Tim Robbins, Janeane Garofalo, Samuel L. Jackson and friends, to Gary's endless drunken vomiting, to, yes, the infamous puppet sex scene (prefaced by this great exchange between Lisa, whose fiancee was killed by terrorists, and Gary: "If you could promise me you'll never die, I would make love to you right now." "I promise I will never die"), I was laughing almost constantly.

Regarding that sex scene: the ratings board are morons. This scene had to be resubmitted, what, twelve times before they would lower the rating from NC-17? I can't imagine what was cut, but what's in the movie is no more graphic than bumping a naked Ken doll and Barbie doll together. It's hilarious to see the different crazy positions they take -- but NC-17 level offensive? Not even close. They don't even have any naughty bits. (Maybe that's what got cut.)

And of course, there's the end soliloquy by Gary, in which he puts the world into three categories: pussies, dicks, and assholes, with assholes being the terrorists, dicks being the Team America cowboys, and pussies being those who think we can all just talk our differences out. I think this is what has offended the most people, and I can see why. It's a foolish over-simplification, and it seems to suggest all diplomatic efforts are worthless, and all war is justified. Seems to suggest, I say, because, call me crazy, but I'm not willing to take a strictly literalist view of a marionette comedy (even if Parker & Stone have parroted the same over-simplification in interviews). And, again, even if Parker & Stone believe every syllable of it, it doesn't really faze me, because it's still funny in the way it's phrased, and the movie as a whole is still funny.

I didn't go to Team America: World Police to be told how to vote, to bolster my political views, or to change my way of thinking. I went to laugh, and I did. Mission accomplished!

MOVIES: Fahrenheit 9/11

I've never had a movie-going experience like Fahrenheit 9/11.

I can't write an objective and analytical review of this film. I'm not hyper-informed enough to pick out the alleged inaccuracies of the film, nor to counter the inaccuracies of those who listed Michael Moore's inaccuracies in the first place. I don't doubt that some of the film has been exaggerated, taken out of context, skewed to support Moore's beliefs. And those beliefs mirror mine, that Bush and his administration are deeply corrupt, deceitful, and dangerous, so I'm more inclined to take Moore's side in any case.

All I can tell you is how I felt, and what I'm still feeling, 24 hours later.

It was an incredibly emotional two hours. I cycled through any number of powerful feelings -- I was furious, I was appalled, I was horrified, I was laughing out loud, I was ashamed, I was sickened, I was guilt-ridden, I was deeply mournful. I was devastated. I literally had tears running down my cheeks at one point: when, in the film's centerpiece, Moore talks to a woman from his hometown of Flint, Michigan, a conservative military booster who lost a son in Iraq -- her world has been destroyed, and she doesn't even know why -- it's overwhelming, just overwhelming. Thinking about it even now, I feel my throat tightening and my eyes watering. You can't watch that segment and be unmoved. You simply can't. Unless you're a robot. In which case you totally deserve to have your ass kicked by Will Smith.

She reads her son's last letter home, and he asks her what he's doing there, why Bush has sent him and so many others to Iraq, and she doesn't have any more idea than he did. But Moore has an idea or two, most of them involving the vast amounts of money the Saudis invest in America. Fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers were Saudis, the Bin Laden family are Saudis, but Bush can't afford to alienate a country with that much money -- especially when they're spending it on companies closely related to him and his family. So instead he picks a scapegoat, trumps up some WMD charges, and off to war we go.

That's what Moore believes to be true, and that's what he sets out to prove. Whether he succeeds or not is up to the individual filmgoer.

But there are things in this film that can not be countered or spun. The human cost, on both sides of this war, is immeasurable. Try to hate the Iraqis, when you see a pickup truck full of dead Iraqi children. Try blaming the U.S. soldiers, when you see a double amputee describe the crushing pain he still feels in his missing hands, or a mother's grief at losing her firstborn son.

I certainly wasn't alone in the audience. When I got emotional, I could hear others around me in the same state: gasping, sniffling, snorting at Bush's clownish pandering to the rich while the poor on both sides were dying. There were even some who, like me, sat through the end credits to hear all of Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World," which was a decompression period, a cathartic release, at the end of such a roller coaster of emotions. There was little else I could think of for hours after I left the theater. This is a film that stays with you.

I couldn't recommend this film more highly. Everyone needs to see it. Even those who hate Michael Moore, who support the president without question (as Britney Spears is shown professing in one hilarious interview segment) -- if only to come out of it saying, "I still support the war, but now I'm fully aware of the human cost involved."