In 1976, a Swiss ensemble piece called Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000unwittingly kick-started a Boomer-centric “midlife crisis” movie subgenre that I call The Group Therapy Weekend (similar to, but not to be conflated with, the venerable Dinner Party Gone Awry). The story usually centers on a coterie of long-time friends (some married with kids, others perennially single) who converge for a (reunion, wedding, funeral) at someone’s (beach house, villa, country spread) to catch up, reminisce, wine and dine, revel…and of course, re-open old wounds (always the most entertaining part). It’s usually accompanied by a nostalgic soundtrack spotlighting all your favorite hits from the (60s, 70s or 80s). Like any film genre, the entries range from memorable (Return of the Secaucus 7, The Big Chill) to so-so yet watchable ( The Decline of the American Empire to the downright execrable (last year’s I Melt With You, which I traumatically re-experienced in this review). The latest, Guillaume Canet’s Little White Lies (released in France as Les petits mouchoirs in 2010) falls somewhere in the middle.
Which is a shame, because writer-director Canet has assembled a fabulous cast; the problem is that somewhere around the 90-minute mark of this epic-length (2 ½ hour) comedy-drama, he seems to run out of new and/or interesting things for his actors to do or say. The film begins intriguingly enough; a happy-go-lucky fellow named Ludo (Jean Dujardin, bearing an uncanny resemblance here to the young James Caan) hops on his motorcycle after a night of doing blow at an after-hours Parisian club, and promptly gets T-boned at an intersection by a truck when he runs a red light. As his friends gather at the ICU, we are introduced to our principal players: Max (Francois Cluzet, star of the director’s terrific 2006 mystery-thriller, Tell No One) and his wife Veronique (Valerie Bonneton), Antoine (Laurent Lafitte), Marie (Marion Cotillard), Vincent (Benoit Magimel) and his wife Isabelle (Pascale Arbillot) and Eric (Gilles Lellouche). This unfortunate event has occurred on the eve of an annual vacation getaway for the gang, hosted by well-to-do restaurateur Max and Veronique at their beach house, which is a 3-hour drive from Paris. After a powwow, they decide that while it’s a bummer that Ludo can’t join them this time out, they should nonetheless plow ahead (all feeling a bit guilty).
As events unfold at the beach (and in keeping with the rules of the genre) each player shows their colors as an archetype (the free-spirit with commitment issues, the aging Lothario, the recently dumped single carrying the torch, the harried husband, the sexually frustrated wife, the substance abuser, the sexually conflicted character, etc). However, despite a script overstuffed with clichés and stereotypes, the talented and well-directed ensemble shines with genuine chemistry and warm, authentic performances. Where the director drops the ball is in the relatively tepid third act, deflating most of the dramatic tension with one too many self-pity parties and a subplot that has two characters running around in a sputtering state of gay panic. Still, there are enough compelling reasons to recommend the film; besides the appealing cast, DP Christophe Offenstein nicely captures the sun-dappled beauty of Gironde’s Atlantic coast, and there’s a well-selected soundtrack ranging from contemporary (The Jets, Damien Rice, Ben Harper) to nostalgic (David Bowie, Janis Joplin, CCR). Singer-songwriter Maxim Nucci (in a small role as Cotillard’s latest boy toy) performs a poignant original called “Talk to Me”. While Canet may not necessarily have anything new to say, he at least talks to us like we’re grownups.
Mitt Romney’s campaign took a hard line with the Spanish-language network Univision, making last-minute demands in the run-up to last week’s town hall that helped insure his success in the forum, sources familiar with the broadcast told BuzzFeed.
When the Republican took his place Wednesday night in the first of two back-to-back candidate forums televised on the mega-network, he was greeted by an adoring, raucous crowd that cheered his every word, and booed many of the moderators’ questions. The next night, President Obama was treated to stone cold silence from the audience as he was aggressively grilled on his lackluster immigration record.
The contrast was widely noted by observers who watched both forums — and it was glaring enough to evoke some boasting from the Romney campaign in the immediate aftermath.
“These forums are going to be watched by more Hispanics than watched the conventions,” said Alberto Martinez, a Florida-based Romney adviser. “I think [Romney] did an amazing job, and I think it was pretty clear there wasn’t the same excitement for President Obama.”
But the enthusiasm gap may have been an optical illusion formed by a series of last-minute demands by the Romney campaign, according to Maria Elena Salinas, one of the Univision anchors who moderated the forums.
Salinas told BuzzFeed that tickets for each forum were divided between the network, the respective campaigns, and the University of Miami (which hosted the events) — and she said both campaigns initially agreed to keep the audience comprised mostly of students, in keeping with the events’ education theme.
But after exhausting the few conservative groups on campus, the Romney camp realized there weren’t enough sympathetic students to fill the stands on their night — so they told the network and university that if they weren’t given an exemption to the students-only rule, they might have to “reschedule.”
The organizers relented. One Democrat with ties to the Obama campaign noted that Rudy Fernandez, the university official charged with coordinating the forums, is a member of Romney’s Hispanic steering committee. Fernandez did not respond to BuzzFeed’s questions about whether he gave preferential treatment to Romney’s campaign.
In any case, Romney’s team was allowed to bus in rowdy activists from around southern Florida in order to fill the extra seats at their town hall.
Obama’s campaign, meanwhile, stuck to the original parameters and allowed a large chunk of the tickets to be distributed to interested students on campus. The result was a quiet, well-behaved crowd — and a lot of no-shows. Minutes before Obama’s forum was to begin, producers began frantically directing university staff and volunteers to sit in the empty seats.
And Mitt’s crowd of rowdies refused to obey the rules and Mitt had a little tantrum and forced them start the show over or he wouldn’t go on. For real:
“We were a little bit thrown because it was supposed to be a TV show, it wasn’t a rally,” Salinas said of the outspoken Romney supporters. “It was a little bit of disrespect for us.”
That wouldn’t be the last demand from the campaign: Romney himself almost pulled the plug on the whole thing minutes before the broadcast, Salinas said.
While introducing Romney at the top of the broadcast, Salinas’s co-anchor, Jorge Ramos, noted that the Republican candidate had agreed to give the network 35 minutes, and that Obama had agreed to a full hour the next night. Ramos then invited the audience to welcome Romney to the stage — but the candidate didn’t materialize.
“It was a very awkward moment, believe me,” Salinas said.
Apparently, Romney took issue with the anchors beginning the broadcast that way, said Salinas, and he refused to go on stage until they re-taped the introduction. (One Republican present at the taping said Romney “threw a tantrum.”)
You would think they are more to be pitied than censured at this point — it all looks so desperate. But I think they would have done this even if Mitt had a 10 point lead in the polls. It’s just how they do things.
A rightwing high school “friend” of mine on Facebook posted a disgusting graphic:
I strongly objected to this as utterly untrue, both historically and culturally, to the point of anti-semitism (that’s for starters). Immediately, one of his pals posted:
my feelings are that this country was founded on judeo-christian principles… they go hand in hand…
Catch that? Once the obvious offensiveness of the image was made explicit. at least four goal posts were moved:
1. It’s just a feeling, not a fact. Opinions differ!
2. We’re not talking about the present, but the founding of the country.
3. I’ll throw some Jews into that Christian Nation idea, but only since you insist.
3. These are religious principles, not religious practices.
Truly remarkable. Now, to state the very, very obvious:
The question posed in the picture isn’t about feelings but about a fact. And it is a fact that this country’s Constitution quite deliberately puts the kibosh on the notion that this is a Christian Nation or any other kind of religious nation. (Christians obviously live here but that is not the issue.) And the picture doesn’t pose an historical question about our founding, but one concerned with the here and now. Nor do I see a Star of David in that picture and no Jew I know accepts the symbol of the cross as synonymous with judeo-christian anything, including mere principles. And finally, “principles” are what is being asserted – the question clearly implies religious practice and expression: Christian religious practice and expression, not Jewish, not Muslim, not Buddhist, not Jainist, not atheist, not even Deist.
This is oh so typical of much rightwing discourse – to make a bumper sticker assertion that is both patently untrue and obnoxious, if not bigoted, and then pretend the bumper sticker stands for something very different than what it says – and which also happens to be patently untrue and thoroughly obnoxious, if not bigoted.
This can go on for quite a while. And that is its point – to waste everyone’s time so that real issues are never reached or grappled with. Nobody serious really believes the notion that America is a Christian Nation. The phrase is virtually meaningless and the extent it means anything it is deeply wrong and offensive.
Enough. It is pointless to argue with the modern rightwing. They need to be mocked and jeered at, driven back to the periphery of the mainstream discourse, where they so clearly belong.
I thought Mitt was just being a creep when he said that he was keeping Ann off the trail so people didn’t get sick of her. But I’m beginning to see that it was actually another example of him telling an uncomfortable truth. It’s bad enough that Mitt insults half the electorate as a bunch of loser parasites behind closed doors, but even he didn’t doesn’t do it in front of the press.
Fellow Republicans:
“Stop it. This is hard. You want to try it? Get in the ring,”
Women:
“Women, you need to wake up”
Latinos:
“You [Latinos had] better really look at your future and figure out who’s going to be the guy that’s going to make it better for you and your children, and there is only one answer.”
Democrats:
“My horse has more style and more class in its hoof than the [Democrats] do in their whole deal.”
All voters:
“We’ve given all you people need to know and understand about our financial situation and how we live our life.”
This is a person people could get tired of, for sure.
I tend not to be too critical of the first ladies because this is one of those throwback female “jobs” that doesn’t really have a good job description. And the sexism that usually goes with the criticism on all sides is usually too much for me to take.
But this is Ann Romney behaving very imperiously on the campaign trail and betraying a sense of superiority that’s very hard to deny. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a political spouse be quite this condescending. Even Barbara Bush, who was not exactly a shrinking violet in this way, always had a certain down to earth humor that cut the upper class bias a bit. Ann Romney just seems pissed that the little people are failing to grasp just how superior her husband is and fall in line with the program — as if she can’t believe they have to get their permission in the first place.
Whenever I blog about food, food industry apologists insist that there are no health problems associated with obesity. So let’s get this straight: Thatisjustsofuckingnottrue. If you really think these people are all wrong, I suggest you write them and explain to them the error of their ways. When they admit they are wrong, be sure write me and I will offer an apology to you.
And that is why this study is so important, and why banning supersized portions of soda – note: NOT banning sodas, just insanely large sizes – is a pretty good idea. It’s not as good as taxing soda, but that is all but impossible politically.
Gitcher lurid rightwing character smears right here
by digby
During the 90s there were endless lurid Clinton pseudo-scandals created by the nutballs and scam artists that dwell in the most fetid regions of the right wing fever swamps. One of the more famous was a video called The Clinton Chronicles which was flogged heavily by Christian Right icon Jerry Falwell in his church and on TV. It purported to proved that Clinton was a murderer and a drug runner among other things. Who knows how many people saw it?
Lest anyone think this con game has gone away, think again:
An anti-Obama movie claiming — without evidence — that President Barack Obama’s real father is an obscure African-American communist has been mailed to 1.5 million voters across the country, its creator told BuzzFeed Friday.
A reader in Ohio emailed this photo of his free copy of the film Dreams From My Real Father, which claims that the Chicago activist Frank Marshall Davis is actually President Obama’s father. He received it in the mail this week.
The film’s director and producer, Joel Gilbert, said that the film was sent out to more one million voters in Ohio; 200,000 after a mid-summer conference, and a million after that. He said that 50,000 copies had been sent to voters in Nevada and 100,000 to voters in New Hampshire.
I guess the right sees Michael Moore’s film Fahrenheit 411 in the same light, which it isn’t, of course, since it’s not a character smear or filled with lies. But even if it were, I can’t think of leftwing equivalents to this sort of thing. I suppose there could be some, but I’m unaware of anyone sending out DVDs “exposing” some nefarious deeds by Mitt Romney or John McCain or George W. Bush or flogging them at union meetings (or whatever.) Yet this has been a factor in American far right conservatism forever. The John Birch society published books and pamphlets back in the day and there’s always been this underground network of character assassination, usually featuring some lurid sexual/racial angle that appeals to certain lizard brains.
I don’t know if this still exists in other cultures (it certainly did in Europe in the 20s) but it’s still a prominent feature of the dark underbelly of American conservatism.
Take a break from the hair-raising Randism of the rightwing this morning and enjoy the most famous Czech composition and one the greatest pieces of music of all time, Smetana’s Moldau from Ma Vlast, performed by the City of Prague Philharmonic. It’s a Romantic-era symphonic poem evoking the Moldava river, and an intentional act of Czech musical patriotism during the wonderful period of nationalistic character breaking free from the unifying conventions of the Classical era.
I’ve never been to Prague, and my heart aches to see the pictures. I have a strong aversion to being the “ugly American” when traveling overseas, and usually refrain from visiting countries whose language I can’t do at least a mediocre job of getting by in. But one day soon I’ll either have to learn some Czech or bite the bullet and be the ugly American in Prague. Life’s too short not to visit a city so beautiful, assuming I can afford to go.
When one concentrates too much on the ugliness of the world, it’s important to be reminded of the extraordinary beauty that lies within it as well.
Mother Jones has obtained exclusive audio of an interview McCain conducted with military vet and citizen journalist Meg Lanker-Simons at the Republican National Convention in Tampa last month. In the exchange, McCain said getting vets back to work was job No. 1. (The jobless rate for former service members is up to 31 percent higher than for civilians.) “The fact is, it’s a national disgrace that veterans’ unemployment is 14 percent,” McCain said. “That’s a national disgrace. And we’ve got to try to find more ways and better ways to hire veterans. And that has got to be our highest priority.”
But last week, in floor remarks criticizing the now-dead Veterans Job Corps bill, McCain took a dramatically different stance. He declared that fiscal austerity trumped joblessness among former soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines. “We already have six veterans job-training programs, but what the heck? Let’s, ah, let’s have another one,” he said in a sarcastic tone.
Besides the entire Democratic caucus, the bill got votes from five Republican senators: Scott Brown (Mass.), Susan Collins (Maine), Dean Heller (Nev.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), and Olympia Snowe (Maine). But 58 senators out of 100 were not enough to overcome McCain and his colleagues, who filibustered and argued that the bill was election season politicking that still didn’t meet their budget standards.
McCain is just a jerk. Always has been. Despite his history as a POW and son of a famous Admiral, I’m fairly sure he could not care less about Veterans. The next war, any war, is what gets his juices flowing.
I think Jon Stewart dispatched this GOP hypocrisy on Veterans quite handily:
One of Mitt Romney’s problems is the fact that he believes in a pre-Youtube ethic of being able to say things to one audience that he wouldn’t say to another. Now, one could argue that that’s because he’s an old-school politician. Or one could say that he’s steeped in a culture of lying endemic to the leadership of the Church of Latter-Day Saints.
Consider the story of Ken Clark, former Latter Day Saints bishop and coordinator for the Church Education System:
I began this list when I was a full time employee of the LDS Church Education System (CES). I worked as a Seminary Principal/teacher, Institute teacher/Director, and Stake CES Coordinator from 1975 – 2002. My last assignment was brief. I signed a Letter of Agreement with CES to serve as the Director of the Pullman, Washington LDS Institute of Religion adjacent to Washington State University in July 2002. I resigned from CES a month later. I carry fond memories of the students, ward leaders and others I grew to respect in the LDS Church. I started this list in an effort to defend the church from its detractors. I was insulted that critics accused LDS church leaders of dishonesty. I “knew” the criticisms could not be true…
Evidence presented in this essay establishes that when the church image or its leaders needed protection it was and is, okay to fib, deceive, distort, inflate, minimize, exaggerate, prevaricate or lie. You will read quotations by church leaders who admitted that deception is a useful tool to protect the church and its leaders “when they are in a tight spot,” or “to beat the devil at his own game.” They admit engaging in moral gymnastics; that God approves of deception – if it’s done to protect the “Lord’s Church” or “the brethren” as the leaders are called…
D. Michael Quinn called the use of deception by LDS church leaders, “theocratic ethics.” (The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power, page 112) Smith lied to protect himself or the church; which was an extension of himself. Dan Vogel in his excellent work, Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet, described Smith’s viewpoint; he was a pious deceiver. Smith used deception if in his mind; it resulted in a good outcome. Smith had Moroni, an ancient American prophet and custodian of the gold plates declare, “And whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do good is of me; for good cometh of none save it be of me. ( Moroni 4:11-12). Translation: if deception was necessary to do good, or bring a soul to Christ, then it was worth it, as long as God approves. Smith believed he knew when God approved of lying.
Clark lists over a hundred examples of baldfaced lies knowingly told by the church hierarchy, justified because they believe it serves the greater good. It is a cultural ethic deeply embedded in the LDS system. Consider the way Latter Day Saints missionaries are trained:
As John Aravosis points out regarding these lies and the common (and secretive) LDS practice of posthumous baptisms for countless individuals, including Anne Frank and Adolf Hitler:
It’s ghoulish to be sure, but it’s neither rare nor a mistake. It’s what the Mormons do. And when they get caught, they lie about it, just as they’re lying to our President today, and just as they’ve been lying to the Jews for over a decade.
Why does this matter? Because the Mormons are “the” bankers of the religious right. Last fall, the Mormons dropped $20 million into California and singlehandedly turned a losing battle into the successful repeal of marriage rights for gay couples in that state. The Mormons have bankrolled hate initiatives in Alaska and Hawaii and across the northwest and midwest for the past decade. They are not some fringe “religion” to be shrugged off. The new anti-gay marriage coalition, National Organization for Marriage, keeps finding, seemingly out of nowhere, $1.5m for this ad campaign, then another $1.5m for that ad campaign. Where are they finding this sudden infusion of cash? Inquiring minds want to know.
This isn’t just a broadside on Mitt Romney’s religion. It’s important to remember that Mitt Romney has a very important and prominent position in the LDS hierarchy as a stake president:
In ticking off his credentials on the campaign trail — management consultant, businessman, governor — Mitt Romney omits what may have been his most distinctive post: Mormon lay leader, offering pastoral guidance on all manner of human affairs from marriage to divorce, abortion, adoption, addiction, unemployment and even business disputes…
From 1981 through 1994, he was a powerful figure in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is run almost entirely by volunteers beyond its headquarters in Salt Lake City.
First as bishop of his own congregation, and later as Boston “stake president,” overseeing a region akin to a Roman Catholic diocese, he operated as clergyman, organization man and defender of the faith, guiding the church through a tumultuous period of rapid growth.
He confronted anti-Mormon sentiment and management challenges, supervising youth programs, the church’s social welfare system, missionary training and outreach to Hispanic, Portuguese and Southeast Asian converts, including Cambodian and Laotian refugees whose teenagers were joining the church in droves.
Later, when his official duties were complete, he contributed handsomely to the construction of the grand — and controversial — Boston Temple, high on a hilltop in Belmont, its steeple topped by a golden angel, just minutes from the Romney home. “Mitt’s Temple,” some local residents called it derisively.
It’s critically important to remember that Romney’s lies aren’t just a feature of his personality. They’re a feature of his cultural and religious training.
The only difference is that he’s switched from serving a religious Lord to serving Mammon and our modern-day plutocratic House of Lords.
