Month: May 2011

Rapture Night At The Movies

by digby

Oh, Mama…can this really be the end?

By Dennis Hartley

Just in case you and I are still “here” by the time this gets posted (this being Judgment Day and all), I thought it might be fun to dig up one of my vintage Top 10 lists for your amusement. After all, the entertainment value of Armageddon (hey-there’s an upside to everything) has certainly not been lost on filmmakers over the years, whether precipitated by vengeful deities, comets, meteors, aliens, plagues or mankind’s curious propensity for continuing to seek new and improved ways of ensuring its own mass destruction. With that joyful thought in mind, I’ve assembled my Top 10 End of the World Movies, each with a suggested co-feature (make it a Theme Night!). As per usual, I am presenting the list alphabetically, in no particular preferential order. So-enjoy, erm…while you still can.

The Book of Life

The WMD: An angry God

Hal Hartley’s visually stylish, post-modernist re-imagining of Armageddon as an existential boardroom soap opera may not be everybody’s cup of tea, but I find it oddly compelling. Set on New Year’s Eve, 1999, the story joins a Yuppified Jesus (Martin Donovan) as he jets in to New York with his personal assistant, Magdalena (British alt-rocker P.J. Harvey) in tow (they check in to their hotel as “Mr. and Mrs. DW Griffith”). This is anything but your typical business trip, as J.C. is in town to do Dad’s bidding re: the um, Day of Judgment. The kid has his doubts, however about all this “divine vengeance crap”. His corporate rival, Satan (Thomas Jay Ryan) is also on hand to do hostile takeovers of as many souls as he can during the world’s final few hours. Although it is ostensibly not designed as a “comedy”, I found the idea of Jesus carrying the Book of Life around on his laptop pretty goddam funny (“Do you want to open the 5th Seal? Yes or Cancel”). Clocking in at just 63 minutes, it may be more akin to a high concept one-act play than a fully fleshed out film narrative, but it’s a thought-provoking ride all the same.

Double bill: w/ The Rapture

The Day the Earth Caught Fire

The WMD: Nuclear mishap

Written and directed by Val Guest, this cerebral mix of conspiracy a-go-go and sci-fi from the Cold War era is a precursor to the X-Files, and has always been a personal favorite of mine. Nuclear testing by the U.S. and Soviets triggers a mysterious and alarming shift in the Earth’s climate. As London’s weather turns more weirdly tropical by the hour, a Daily Express reporter (Peter Stenning) begins to suspect that the British government is not being 100% forthcoming on the possible fate of the world. Along the way, Stenning enjoys some steamy scenes with his love interest (sexy Janet Munro). The film is more noteworthy for its smart, snappy patter than its run-of-the-mill f/x, but still makes for a compelling “end of the world” story. Co-starring the great Leo McKern!

Double bill: w/ Until the End of the World

Dr. Strangelove

The WMD: The Doomsday Machine

“Mein fuhrer! I can walk!” Although we have yet (knock on wood) to experience the global thermonuclear annihilation that ensues following the wheelchair-bound Dr. Strangelove’s joyous (if short-lived) epiphany, so many other depictions in Stanley Kubrick’s seriocomic masterpiece about the propensity for men in power to eventually rise to their own level of incompetence have since come to pass, that you wonder why the filmmakers even bothered to make all this shit up. In case you are one of the three people reading this who have never seen the film, it’s about an American military base commander who goes a little funny in the head (you know…”funny”) and sort of launches a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. Hilarity (and oblivion) ensues. You will never see a cast like this again: Peter Sellers (absolutely brilliant, playing three major characters), George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn, James Earl Jones and Peter Bull (who can be seen breaking character as the Russian ambassador and cracking up during the scene where Strangelove’s prosthetic arm seems to take on a mind of its own). There are so many quotable lines, that you might as well bracket the entire screenplay (by Kubrick, Terry Southern and Peter George) with quotation marks. I never tire of this film.

Double bill: w/ Fail-safe

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

The WMD: Alien “highway” crew

The belated 2005 adaptation of satirist Douglas Adams’ classic sci-fi radio-to-book-to TV series made a lot of old school fans (like me) a little twitchy at first, but director Garth Jennings does an admirable job of condensing the story down to an entertaining feature length film. It’s the only “end of the world” scenario I know of where the human race buys it as the result of bureaucratic oversight (the Earth is to be “demolished” for construction of a hyperspace highway bypass; unfortunately, the requisite public notice is posted in an obscure basement-on a different planet). Adams (who died in 2001) was credited as co-screenwriter (with Karey Kirkpatrick); but I wonder if he had final approval, as the wry “Britishness” of some of the key one liners from the original series have been dumbed down. Still, it’s a quite watchable affair, thanks to the enthusiastic cast, the imaginative special effects and (mostly) faithful adherence to the original ethos.

Double bill: w/ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Original 1981 BBC series)

Last Night

The WMD: Nebulous cosmic event

A profoundly moving low-budget wonder from writer/director/star Don McKellar. The story intimately focuses on several Toronto residents and how they choose to spend (what they know to be) their final 6 hours. You may recognize McKellar from his work with director Atom Egoyan. He must have been taking notes, because as a director, McKellar has inherited Egoyan’s quiet, deliberate way of drawing you straight into the emotional core of his characters. Fantastic ensemble work from Sandra Oh, Genevieve Bujold, Callum Keith Rennie, Tracy Wright and a rare acting appearance by director David Cronenberg. Although generally somber in tone, there are some laugh-out-loud moments, funny in a wry, gallows-humor way. The powerful final scene packs an almost indescribably emotional wallop. You know you’re watching a Canadian version of the Apocalypse when the #4 song on the “Top 500 of All Time” is by… Burton Cummings!

Double bill: w/ Night of the Comet

Miracle Mile

The WMD: Nuclear exchange

Depending on your view of the “half-empty/half-full” paradox, this is either an “end of the world” film for romantics, or the Perfect Date Movie for fatalists. Anthony Edwards and Mare Winningham both give winning performances as a musician and a waitress who Meet Cute at L.A.’s La Brea Tar Pits. But before they can hook up for their first hot date, the musician inadvertently stumbles onto a fairly reliable hot tip that Los Angeles is about to get hosed…in a major way. The resulting “ticking clock” scenario is a real nail-biter. This modestly budgeted, 90-minute sleeper offers more genuine heart-pounding excitement (and much more believable characters) than any bloated Hollywood disaster epic from the likes of a Michael Bay or a Roland Emmerich. Puzzlingly, writer-director Steve De Jarnatt stopped doing feature films after this 1988 gem (his only other film was the guilty pleasure Cherry 2000); opting instead for TV work (it probably pays better!).

Double Bill: w/ One Night Stand(1984)

Testament

The WMD: Nuclear fallout

Originally an “American Playhouse” presentation on PBS, the film was released to theatres and garnered a well-deserved Best Actress nomination for Jane Alexander (she lost to Shirley MacLaine). Director Lynne Littman takes a low key, deliberately paced approach, but pulls no punches. Alexander, her husband (William DeVane) and three kids live in sleepy Hamlin, California, where the afternoon cartoons are interrupted by a news flash that a number of nuclear explosions have occurred in New York. Then there is a flash of a whole different kind when nearby San Francisco (where DeVane has gone on a business trip) receives a direct strike. There is no exposition on the political climate that precipitates the attacks; a wise decision by the filmmakers because it helps us zero in on the essential humanistic message of the film. All of the post-nuke horrors ensue, but they are presented sans the histrionics and melodrama that informs many entries in the genre. The fact that the nightmarish scenario unfolds so deliberately, and amidst such everyday suburban banality, is what makes it all so believably horrifying and difficult to shake off.

Double bill: w/ On the Beach

The Quiet Earth

The WMD: Science gone awry (whoopsie!)

This 1985 New Zealand import has built up a cult following over the years. This is one of those films that are difficult to synopsize without risking spoilers, so I will tread lightly for the uninitiated. Bruno Lawrence (Smash Palace) delivers a tour de force performance; particularly in the first third of the film (basically a one-man show). He plays a scientist who may have had a hand in a government research project mishap that has apparently wiped out everyone on Earth except him. The plot thickens when he discovers that there are at least two other survivors-a man and a woman. The three-character dynamic is reminiscent of a 1959 nuclear holocaust tale called The World, the Flesh and the Devil, but it’s safe to say that the similarities end there. By the time you reach the mind-blowing finale, you’ll find yourself closer to Andrei Tartovsky territory (Solaris, The Mirror). Director Geoff Murphy never topped this effort; although his 1992 film Freejack is worth a peek (featuring Mick Jagger as a time-traveling bounty hunter!).

Double Bill: w/ The Omega Man

…or one from column “B”: The Last Man on Earth, I Am Legend)

The Andromeda Strain

The WMD: Bacteriological scourge

What’s the scariest monster of them all? It’s the one you cannot see. I’ve always considered this 1971 Robert Wise film to be the most faithful Michael Crichton book-to-screen adaptation. A team of scientists race the clock to save the world from a deadly virus from outer space that reproduces itself at an alarming speed. With its atmosphere of claustrophobic urgency (all the scientists are ostensibly trapped in a sealed underground laboratory until they can find a way to destroy the microbial “intruder”) it could be seen as a precursor to Alien. It’s a nail-biter from start to finish. Nelson Gidding adapted the script from Crichton’s novel. The 2008 TV movie version was a real snoozer, IMHO.

Double bill: w/ 28 Days Later

When Worlds Collide

The WMD: Another celestial body

There’s a brand new star in the sky, with its own orbiting planet! There’s good news and bad news regarding this exciting discovery. The good news: You don’t need a telescope in order to examine them in exquisite detail. The bad news: See “the good news”. That’s the premise of this involving 1951 sci-fi yarn about an imminent collision between said rogue sun and the Earth. The scientist who makes the discovery makes an earnest attempt to warn world leaders, but is ultimately dismissed as a Chicken Little. Undaunted, he undertakes a privately-funded project to build an escape craft that can only carry several dozen of the best and the brightest to safety. Recalling Hitchcock’s Lifeboat , the film examines the dichotomous conflict of human nature in extreme survival situations, which helps this one rise above the cheese of many other 1950s sci-fi flicks (with the possible exception of a clunky Noah’s Ark allusion). It sports pretty decent special effects for its time; especially depicting a flooded NYC (it was produced by the legendary George Pal).

Double Bill: w/ Deep Impact

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Why do they hate America so much?

by digby

This should be interesting. Journalist and legal scholar Garrett Epps at the Atlantic surveys the constitutional arguments coming out of the right wing and it reminds him of his childhood in the South where similar arguments were advanced to obstruct civil rights. He’s decided to take on some of these arguments and is asking for suggestions:

This summer, I will be posting a series of short essays on what I consider to be the most dangerous unfounded claims about the Constitution currently floating around the airwaves and legislative halls. Each of us, I suppose, could make his or her own list of constitutional myths. The ones I list below are my top ten. I invite nominations from readers of their own.

Nominators should bear in mind that “you are a liberal and therefore you don’t count,” “even to suggest that idea is outrageous,” “my civics teacher taught me the opposite in 1978,” and “you teach creative writing and so you should shut up” don’t (how can I put this politely?) qualify, in the strictest sense, as constitutional arguments. Beware, too, of any argument that includes the phrase “no amendment can change,” unless you are referring to the rule of equal suffrage in the Senate. And don’t try “everybody knows what the founding fathers were really thinking,” unless you can find and cite some pretty dog-nab convincing evidence in the text and the actual historical record.

I’ll be posting explanations of each of my top ten while listening to yours. In constitutional terms, it seems to me silly to wish everyone a good summer. Make no mistake: We are the midst of a very dangerous political crisis. Gridlock in Washington is pushing the United States toward a first-ever default on payments on the national debt. Conservative judges are champing at the bit to strike down the most important piece of progressive legislation since the 1970s, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, on the invented excuse that it somehow “regulates inactivity,” a prohibition mentioned nowhere in the Constitution and never really detected in it by anyone until the day after the passage of the Act. Angry conservative majorities in state capitols are rewriting the social compact, chipping away at federal authority over interstate commerce, reasserting the old Confederate doctrine of state control over American citizenship, and, most alarmingly, creating new and frankly partisan restrictions on the very right to vote.

So if we accomplish nothing else, let’s at least have some fun, discussing the Constitution to divert ourselves from disaster, like Boccaccio’s characters, who told stories of love and adventure while the plague raged outside the villa’s walls.

Here are my top ten:

1. Conservatives believe only in “original intent” and others believe in a “living Constitution,” meaning whatever they want.
2. The Founders wrote the Constitution to restrain Congress and limit its powers.
3. The “Unitary Executive” means all unclaimed federal power flows away from Congress and to the President.
4. The Constitution does not provide for separation of church and state.
5. Corporations have precisely the same First Amendment rights as natural persons.
6. The Second Amendment was “intended” to make government “fear the people.”
7. The Tenth Amendment and state “sovereignty” allow states to “nullify” federal law.
8. The Fourteenth Amendment was written solely to address the situation of freed slaves, and has no relevance today.
9. Election of Senators is unfair and harmful to the states.
10. International law is a threat to the Constitution and must be kept out of American courts.

He’s taking suggestions.

When I looked over all of these and thought about how they all seem to revolve around the idea that the States are primary and the nation as a whole is just a loose framework meaning almost nothing, I realized that these people are the real America haters. They literally loathe the fundamental concept of the United States of America as a nation, preferring to think of themselves as Mississipians or Minnesotans than Americans. Do you think they know that?

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Your Daily Grayson

by digby

Republicans show their true colors:

Gosh I wonder what Daniel Webster, the patriarchal Christian reconstructionist is up to these days?

TAYLOR: What I want to know is, we’ve been able to balance our budget before by raising taxes and lowering spending and we know this because Eisenhower did it, Ford did it, Reagan did it, Bush the first did it, they were all Republicans. I want to know who’s going to pay, who’s going to pay for this? Because I don’t think we should take away Social Security [sic] just because we’re under 55 and public education, we need public education. [Inaudible] That’s wrong.

WEBSTER: The problem is this. Who’s going to pay? Your children and your grandchildren. That’s who’s going to pay. If we continue on this, yes, can we fund a lot of things going up this line? Sure can. But just know, most of it’s borrowed money.

TAYLOR: You need to raise taxes on the corporations! [Inaudible] And stop the wars! Just stop all the warring.

WEBSTER: Just a minute. I can hear, everybody in here can hear. So you’re making a choice of whether you want to stay or not.

TAYLOR: Answer the question!

[Audience cheers] [Two men walk out in protest]

I wonder if he realized that he wasn’t talking to his wife?

According to Think Progress, he’s been getting quite an earful from his constituents. Apparently, they aren’t too pleased with him. The good news is that he’s definitely one of the people scheduled to be Raptured, so they won’t have him to kick around anymore after today.

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Blue America Chat: Ed Potosnak, New Jersey

by digby

From Blue America:

No signs of any rapture in New Jersey this morning yet. In fact at 11am (PT; 2pm in NJ) Ed Potosnak, Blue America-endorsed candidate for the Congressional seat currently being held by healthcare hypocrite Leonard Lance, will be reporting in live from north-central Jersey. Ed will be joining us in the comments section (below) to accept the Blue America 2012 endorsement, live blogging about his campaign and how New Jersey voters are reacting to the right-wing jihad against the middle class, seniors and the whole social compact. Meanwhile, contributions for Ed’s campaign are gratefully being accepted at our Blue America page.

We endorsed Ed last September for the 2010 race against Lance primarily because of his emphasis on education policy and its role in innovation and moving the country forward. Ed himself is a chemistry teacher and small business owner and several years ago he was selected as an Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow.

“In my first year as an Einstein Fellow I helped craft legislation to improve science and mathematics education. This bill was introduced by then-Senator Obama; it passed, and is being implemented. In the second year of my fellowship I worked on legislation to ensure every student has access to a high quality education, establishing a 9-11 like commission to address the urgent crisis in our schools. This also passed and the Equity Commission is currently underway… There is so much more to do and I am running for Congress to once again get the job done.”

The incumbent he’s running against is a garden variety career politician whose decades in office has been more about self-service than public service– something you may have noticed if you were tuned into the fracas between Lance and Blue America over his healthcare hypocrisy which led to this ad:

Ed performed extremely well in a devastating year for Democrats. Not one Democratic challenger unseated a Republican incumbent but, with a feisty under-funded grassroots campaign, Ed managed to hold his own against the red tidal wave. This year looks far more promising nationally– and in NJ’s 7th, where Obama beat McCain 51-48% in 2008 and will probably do a lot better next year against Bachmann or Palin or Romney or Gingrich or Pawlenty or whichever sociopath they come up with on the right. “The issues we care about today are as important as they were this past November,” he told us, “creating jobs, growing the economy, improving education, promoting innovation, and protecting the American dream… Things need to get done in Washington. The GOP has done nothing to address jobs and the economy.”

An openly gay candidate, Ed takes equality and social justice very seriously. “We need better representation in Washington to ensure that America’s policies are fair and just for all. The future of America depends on the education we provide today and we need to act with urgency to improve our schools and foster innovation. We must ensure that every single child in America is prepared to help our nation overcome the challenges of the modern world, innovate, and lead the global economy.”

If you’d like to help Ed’s campaign, you can do so at the Blue America ActBlue page

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Before 6 tonight

by digby

… when naked people start rising bodily into the air — you need to see these 35 pictures.

Here’s one:

Otter holding up her baby

h/t to rp
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Bye!

By tristero

Today is the beginning of Judgment Day, when fundamentalists, Christian Reconstructionists, christianists, talk radio preachers, tv evangelists, and other moral prigs will be raptured up into heaven, leaving the rest of us down here to fend as best as we can for ourselves. Finally.

Have a great trip, people! And please don’t slam the door on the way out.

Love,

tristero

But how do they hope to pay for it?

by digby

Republicans decide that government services are good after all — when they need them, of course.

“It brings into focus why this group came to Washington,” says Rep. Jeff Landry, a Louisiana freshman who, as a sheriff’s deputy in St. Martins Parish during the 1990s, helped sandbag and drain a community flooded by the Mississippi. “I don’t think the freshman class is opposed to spending. I think the freshman class is saying we need to prioritize spending.”

Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks was holding a mobile office event in his district when the tornado sirens went off late last month. He hopped on the highway to get home to his family. An F4 tornado crossed the highway about 30 minutes later.

Brooks said he thought he was fulfilling one of the government’s primary roles. “It’s a proper function of the national government to assist people in times of national disaster. Don’t get me wrong — individuals have responsibilities,” he said, adding that he urges his constituents to keep first aid and food supplies that they can use for up to 72 hours, but “the federal government has a proper role. Some states would not have the capability to deal with the storms on their own.”

I’m all for federal aid in these situations too. If we’re a country, we’re a country and our government should be there step in in emergencies.

But who’s supposed to pay for this? It does cost money. And while this is a major disaster, there are all kinds of unforeseen disasters that happen on a national scale — like a housing crash caused by crooks and a very high unemployment rate that lasts for years or becoming disabled and not being able to work or getting old and needing health care that you cannot possibly save enough money in your lifetime to pay for. Life happens to everyone in one way or another and you never know if you’re going to be hit with a major disaster in your own life. Are you less worthy than these victims of the tornadoes and floods?

It’s very easy to say that your particular disaster is worthy of spending tax payers money. But why you and not them? How do you “prioritize” that?

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What’s Dianne’s excuse

by digby

In case anyone’s wondering who the Democrats were who crossed the aisle to vote for the Bush tax cuts, here they are:

Breaux
Baucus
Carnahan
Cleland
Feinstein
Johnson SD
Kohl
Landrieu
Lincoln
Miller GA
Nelson NE
Torricelli

Five are gone now, for various reasons. It certainly didn’t help Max Cleland. Torricelli ethics problems didn’t go away. The others are the usual suspects.

But what, what in the hell was Dianne Feinstein doing? And why is she going to be re-elected? From California, of all places?

It’s all moot now since the Democrats all voted to extend the damned things, but when that vote was taken, there was absolutely no reason for her to join in. Someone should ask her why she did it.

h/t to debcoop.

Independent Unions

by digby

There’s lots of chatter about Richard Trumka’s speech today reiterating that labor is going to be more independent of the Democratic Party in the future. But I think people may be misunderstanding what that means in practice.

Some people believe that the only way to be independent of the Party is to back people who aren’t Democrats. This means third parties or Republicans. But that isn’t likely. The GOP is as anti-labor right now as it’s possible to be so there’s little hope there and the history of third parties in this country is littered with wasted money and broken dreams.

So is this just PR put out there by another compromised institution to make it look as if they have some way of challenging the status quo? Maybe. But it might mean something else entirely. It’s just possible that labor is going to use its money and ground troops to only support the kind of candidates who are strongly progressive ideologically instead of being the Democrats’ house boys and working to elect anyone the Party chooses. Perhaps the unions have seen that they need solidarity with the rest of the progressive movement as they fight the right’s full blown assault. Certainly in Wisconsin it was a common article of faith that the various groups that came together to support the union were all stronger as a result.

What this means in practice is that unions could stop doing the kind of transactional politics that got Janice Hahn in CA-36 their help and endorsement for past favors and look to the long term health of their movement and the health of liberalism as a whole. They need all the help they can get and they aren’t going to get it from business.

I have no idea if this is what Trumka has in mind. But it is a way for them to be “independent” while still working to elect Democrats. It’s just that their help would be conditional on something other than the fact that the candidates is wearing the blue jersey. We’ll see what happens.

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