Reviews: CONAN THE BARBARIAN, FRIGHT NIGHT, and ONE DAY
Fright Night (Rating: B)
Conan the Barbarian (Rating: F)
One Day (Rating: C+)
Reviews: 30 MINUTES OR LESS, THE HELP, and Other Movies
30 Minutes or Less (Rating: B)
Bellflower (Rating: D)
The Change-Up (Rating: B-)
The Help (Rating: B-)
Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Rating: B+)
Special Comment: The Four Hypocrisies
Keith Olbermann issued a withering Special Comment last night aimed at the debt deal. It’s a good comment in so far as it uses Olbermann’s eloquence to effectively voice the anger many of us are feeling at Obama and the Democrats’ latest capitulation (or as Matt Taibbi put it, they took a dive). But Olbermann the makes a half-assed rallying cry that progressives and the middle and working class take back the government. Olbermann makes vague appeals to the powers of social networking and calling back the attitudes of the late 60s and early 70s (remind me, who won the 1968 and 1972 elections? His name was Richard-something-or-other).
But ultimately such cries for change are in vein. Obama was the last time most of us will be fooled. So much was riding on his rhetoric and we hoped and prayed we were getting a once-in-a-generation figure. But it was actually image politics at its finest and so many were glad to be getting a guy who spoke in complete sentences because that’s where George W. Bush and Sarah Palin were setting the bar. We made a big deal about Obama being the first black President but he’s shown himself to be as yellow as any other.
And truly, there are no replacements. We won’t change campaign finance laws because people, no matter how well-intentioned, will almost always find their way to the money. They’ll do a stint in congress and then find their way to a high-priced lobbying firm and trade access for fat cash. And since there’s no profit in helping an ill-defined group of middle-class voters (we’ve already seen this year how unions can be destroyed), no organization on the behalf of the middle-class can ever raise enough money to compete with the Goldman Sachs and Koch Brothers of the world. Even if they could, there’s more money to be made helping the richer organizations.
We live in an oligarchy and who we choose as our leaders is about as important as who we choose as the next American Idol.
Reviews: COWBOYS & ALIENS and CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE.
Cowboys & Aliens (Rating: D)
Crazy, Stupid, Love. (Rating: C+)
Reviews: HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS – PART 2 and WINNIE THE POOH
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (Rating: A-)
Winnie the Pooh (Rating: B+)
The Bachmann Nightmare
What does it say about how Barack Obama has run the country that Michelle Bachmann, a Minnesota congressman who was fighting for her seat in 2008 after implying we should institute McCarthyism, is now a serious candidate for the Republican Presidential nomination? Only under his weak-willed governance, half-measures, and consistence ignorance about how to beat Republicans in national politics, could a horrific figure like Michelle Bachmann find a base like the Tea Party and start making a play at the White House.
If you think Michelle Bachmann is just a figure of fun because her belief are so beyond the pale that no one could possibly take her seriously, take a step back and apprise the country of the last four years. People took to town halls and angrily wrote their representative that the gov’ment wuz gonna take away their terrible fucking health care scam. There’s no national anger at the banks anymore but morons keep thinking that if only taxes went down then everything would be okay because who wants to pay for roads and schools and sanitation.
I encourage you to read Matt Taibbi’s recent Rolling Stone article where he voices the same warning about Bachmann. Since he’s done such a terrific job of cataloging just some of her many hypocrisies and hatreds, I’ll add one more that went public today. Michelle Bachmann signed “The Marriage Vow” which is yet another piece of conservative Christian bullshit designed to demonize gay people and pretend like they want to go into your house, split up your marriage, and tell you that you’re going to fuck people of the same sex from now on.
But here’s where it gets really fucked up:
Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American President.
This atrocious statement is on page one. You can click over to Mediaite for their breakdown of the hatefulness and ignorance of this statement. We can laugh at stupidity all we like, but this is where it gets scary. Not only would anyone who paid attention in 6th grade American history know this statement is false, but let’s just break down the statement to what it is: “Hey black people, you know that black guy you elected President? Guess what! He’s made your life worse than when you were slaves. IRONY.”
A person who the mainstream media loves because she’s going to say something batshit insane every time she opens her crazy fucking mouth is considered someone who could sit in the Oval Office and make decisions. It’s tempting to laugh off Bachmann because then we won’t have to face the fact that such a grotesque figure actually has more power than us.
Reviews: LARRY CROWNE and TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON
Larry Crowne (Rating: C)
Transformers: Dark of the Moon (Rating: B-)
Low Road to the High Ground
Congressman Anthony Weiner did a gross thing. He did a stupid thing. He should be publicly chastised on both counts. However, in the range of gross, stupid sexual things that members of higher office have done when it comes to their members, his crime is at the low end. To the best of our knowledge, he never engaged in personal sexual relations outside his marriage. That’s not to say that he didn’t hurt and embarrass his wife with his actions, but it’s the line between thinking about doing something and actually doing it. If Weiner actually wanted to cheat on his wife, he could have gone ahead with it.
But there is no reason he should resign. You can argue that he’ll be less effective now that he has a scandal hanging over his head, but people forget scandals unless you run for higher office. He’ll probably be stuck as a congressman for the rest of his political career, but people will forget and move on to the next scandal. And when the next inevitible scandal comes along, if it’s more salacious, Weiner’s sexual improperity will seem small by comparison. And liberals should not forget that he’s been a loud voice for their causes and that matters in a congress that keeps moving to the right because the extreme right is pulling all of congress to radical conservative values to the point where Obama thinks he’s a centrist when actually his values coincide with 1980s Republicans.
So naturally, Democrats, in their infinite stupidity, are throwing Weiner under the bus. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chair of the Democratic National Committee has joined House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi in the call for Weiner to resign. Keep in mind, Democrats aren’t the party that tries to legislate morality. There is no “moral majority” for Democrats, they don’t align with the religious right, and they don’t argue that the founders made intended America as Christian nation.
Republicans do that, and when they have a sexual scandal, they aren’t in a rush to kick out the adulterers (except for Larry Craig, whose adultery wasn’t a problem but his homosexuality was). Louisiana senator David Vitter fucked prostitutes, and he not only kept his job, but was re-elected last year. South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford disappeared to Argentina so he could fuck his mistress, and all he got was censure, the equivalent to a slap on the wrist.
But Democrats, a party without values beyond what the latest focus group thinks, is willing to throw out a liberal voice because he sexted. They want to throw him out because it tells voters “Hey! Look! We’re moral! We share your values!” It’s a short-term gain at the expense of an accomplished legislator who fights for worthwhile policy matters. The same thing happened with Eliot Spitzer. Yes, his sexual deviance was more extreme, but personal actions should have personal consequences, not professional retribution. Spitzer was one of the toughest regulators modern Wall Street has ever seen and our country once again showed that it was happier to engage in moral superiority and schadenfreude than to defend someone who was trying to protect their interests.
Democrats aren’t saying “Let’s focus on more important matters.” They’re saying, “Yes, let’s engage in this distraction. Let’s acknowledge it as a real thing that’s worthy of the American people’s attention instead of why the price of gas is so damn high.” But none of it surprises me anymore. The media goes for the sensational instead of the substantive, Democrats suck at politics, and Republicans laugh all the way to the hotel where they cheat on their spouses.
I don’t feel bad for Anthony Weiner, but I feel bad for the political and cultural system he and I have to inhabit.
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