By pointing to McKinley’s presidency to justify his economic plan, Trump gives away the game. The McKinley years were those of the Gilded Age, in which industrialists amassed fortunes that they spent in spectacular displays. Cornelius and Alva Vanderbilt’s home on New York’s Fifth Avenue cost more than $44 million in today’s dollars, with stables finished in black walnut, cherry, and ash, with sterling silver metalwork, and in cities across the country, the wealthy dressed their horses and coachmen in expensive livery, threw costly dinners, built seaside mansions they called “cottages,” and wore diamonds, rubies, and emeralds. When the daughter of a former senator married, she wore a $10,000 dress and a diamond tiara, and well-wishers sent “necklaces of diamonds [and] bracelets of diamonds, sapphires, and rubies.”
Americans believed those fortunes were possible because of the tariff walls the Republicans had begun to build in 1861. Before the Civil War, Congress levied limited U.S. tariffs to fund the federal government, a system southerners liked because it kept prices low, but northerners disliked because established industries in foreign countries could deliver manufactured goods more cheaply than fledgling U.S. industries could produce them, thus hampering industrial development.
So, when the Republican Party organized in the North in the 1850s, it called for a tariff wall that would protect U.S. manufacturing. And as soon as Republicans took control of the government, they put tariffs on everything, including agricultural products, to develop American industry.
The system worked. The United States emerged from the Civil War with a booming economy.
But after the war, that same tariff wall served big business by protecting it from the competition of cheaper foreign products. That protection permitted manufacturers to collude to keep prices high. Businessmen developed first informal organizations called “pools” in which members carved up markets and set prices, and then “trusts” that eliminated competition and fixed consumer prices at artificially high levels. By the 1880s, tariffs had come to represent almost half a product’s value.
Buoyed by protection, trusts controlled most of the nation’s industries, including sugar, meat, salt, gas, copper, transportation, steel, and the jute that made up both the burlap sacks workers used to harvest cotton and the twine that tied ripe wheat sheaves. Workers, farmers, and entrepreneurs hated the trusts that controlled their lives, but Republicans in Congress worked with the trusts to keep tariffs high. So, in 1884, voters elected Democrat Grover Cleveland, who promised to lower tariffs.
Republicans panicked. They insisted that the nation’s economic system depended on tariffs and that anyone trying to lower them was trying to destroy the nation. They flooded the country with pamphlets defending high tariffs. Cleveland won the popular vote in 1888, but Republican Benjamin Harrison won the electoral votes to become president.
After the election, steel magnate Andrew Carnegie explained that the huge fortunes of the new industrialists were good for society. The wealthy were stewards of the nation’s money, he wrote in what became known as The Gospel of Wealth, gathering it together so it could be used for the common good. Indeed, Carnegie wrote, modern American industrialism was the highest form of civilization.
But low wages, dangerous conditions, and seasonal factory closings and lock-outs meant that injury, hunger, and homelessness haunted urban wage workers. Soaring shipping costs meant that farmers spent the price of two bushels of corn to get one bushel to market. Monopolies meant that entrepreneurs couldn’t survive. And high tariffs meant that the little money that did go into their pockets didn’t go far. By 1888 the U.S. Treasury ran an annual surplus of almost $120 million thanks to tariffs, seeming to prove that their point was to enable wealthy men to control the economy.
They don’t want to govern. They want to rule. Problem is, a lot of these freedom-obsessed MAGAs want to be ruled.
Got cases of bottled water here. Still without power and flushing/washing water (nine days so far); there’s power in three houses across the street. I’m fine here in the most accessible city in the region, just inconvenienced. Others are far worse off Many who have lost homes (here too) or jobs and businesses will need longer-term support. People need hazmat gear to do cleanup along the rivers. Rescuers are still getting to people still cut off in hundreds of isolated coves and by washed-out bridges. In some cases, it’s one home at a time.
This woman lives in my county and works in the next county south. She addresses the uys for memalicious BS you’re seeing in social media. Screw those guys for me, please.
Western NC paramedic: “I’ve never made a post before, but I’m engaged at the lies— the government IS here, and I find it ironic the same people who fight to cut all these programs are the same ones criticizing the government.”
In North Carolina, more than 760 Guard members, supplemented by over 140 Guardsmen from Alabama, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Ohio, New York and South Carolina, cleared roads, transported commodities and conducted search and rescue missions with helicopters. The North Carolina Air National Guard delivered over 100,000 pounds of food, water and other critical supplies for Hurricane Helene victims on a C-17 Globemaster III from Charlotte-Douglas International Airport to Asheville Regional Airport, which has become a central distribution hub due to impassable roadways caused by flooding and debris.
North Carolina Air National Guard hauls over 100,000 pounds of supplies from the Federal Emergency Management Agency in a C17 to Western North Carolina as a part of Tropical Storm #Helene support. pic.twitter.com/QYa1UA2ASa
As it applies to vintage cinema, it could be argued that “forgotten” ain’t what it used to be. From the advent of video stores in the 1980s to the glut of streaming platforms available today, the idea of an “obscure film” has become, well…obscure to several generations of filmgoers now. However, for those of us of a certain age, there was a time when the options were more limited. As I wrote in a 2017 piece about the death of neighborhood theaters:
Some of my fondest memories of the movie-going experience involve neighborhood theaters; particularly during a 3-year period of my life (1979-1982) when I was living in San Francisco. But I need to back up for a moment. I had moved to the Bay Area from Fairbanks, Alaska, which was not the ideal environment for a movie buff. At the time I moved from Fairbanks, there were only two single-screen movie theaters in town. To add insult to injury, we were usually several months behind the Lower 48 on first-run features (it took us nearly a year to even get Star Wars).
Keep in mind, there was no cable service in the market, and VCRs were a still a few years down the road. There were occasional midnight movie screenings at the University of Alaska, and the odd B-movie gem on late night TV (which we had to watch in real time, with 500 commercials to suffer through)…but that was it. Sometimes, I’d gather up a coterie of my culture vulture pals for the 260-mile drive to Anchorage, where there were more theaters for us to dip our beaks into.
Consequently, due to the lack of venues, I was reading more about movies, than watching them. I remember poring over back issues of The New Yorker at the public library, soaking up Penelope Gilliat and Pauline Kael; but it seemed requisite to live in NYC (or L.A.) to catch all these cool art-house and foreign movies they were raving about (most of those films just didn’t make it out up to the frozen tundra). And so it was that I “missed” a lot of 60s and 70s cinema.
Needless to say, when I moved to San Francisco, which had a plethora of fabulous neighborhood theaters in 1979, I quickly set about making up the deficit. While I had a lot of favorite haunts (The Surf, The Balboa, The Castro, and the Red Victorian loom large in my memory), there were two venerable (if a tad dodgy) downtown venues in particular where I spent an unhealthy amount of time in the dank and the dark with snoring bums who used the auditoriums as a $2 flop: The Roxie and The Strand.
That’s because they were “repertory” houses; meaning they played older films (frequently double and triple bills, usually curated by some kind of theme). That 3 years I spent in the dark was my film school; that’s how I got caught up with Francis Ford Coppola, Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman, Hal Ashby, Terrence Malick, Woody Allen, Sidney Lumet, Peter Bogdanovich, Werner Herzog, Ken Russell, Lindsay Anderson, Wim Wenders, Michael Ritchie, Brian De Palma, etc.
Of course, in 2017 any dweeb with an internet connection can catch up on the history of world cinema without leaving the house…which explains (in part) why these smaller movie houses are dying. But they will never know the sights, the sounds (the smells) of a cozy neighborhood dream palace; nor, for that matter, will they ever experience the awesomeness of seeing the classic films as they were originally intended to be seen-on the big screen.
That said, I would argue that there are still plenty of vintage films that don’t get enough love. So if you want to do a little exploring for movie night, here are 25 recommendations from my favorite movie decade…in alphabetical order. Enjoy!
Americana (1973/1981) – David Carradine and Barbara Hershey star in this unique, no-budget 1973 character study (released in 1981). Carradine, who also directed and co-produced, plays a Vietnam vet who drifts into a small Kansas town, and for his own enigmatic reasons, decides to restore an abandoned merry-go-round. The reaction from the clannish townsfolk ranges from bemused to spiteful. It’s part Rambo, part Billy Jack (although nowhere near as violent), and a genre curio in the sense that none of the violence depicted is perpetrated by its war-damaged protagonist. Carradine also composed and performed the song that plays in the closing credits. It’s worth noting that Americana predates Deer Hunter and Coming Home, which are generally considered the “first” narrative films to deal with Vietnam vets.
The Day of The Dolphin (1973) – “Fa loves Pa!” This offbeat 1973 sci-fi film marked the third collaboration between Buck Henry and director Mike Nichols. Henry adapted the script from Robert Merle’s novel. George C. Scott is excellent in the lead role as a marine biologist who has developed a method for training dolphins to communicate in human language. Naturally, there is a shadowy cabal of government spooks who take keen interest in this breakthrough. I like to call this one a conspira‘sea’ thriller (sorry).
Dodes’ka-den (1970) – this 1970 film by Akira Kurosawa rarely gets mentioned in the same breath as, say, The Seven Samurai; nonetheless, it stands out as one of the great director’s most unique efforts. This was the first film Kurosawa shot in color (27 years into his career, no less)-and it shows; the screen explodes with every imaginable hue you could create from a painter’s palette.
Perversely, the subject matter within this episodic tale of life in a Tokyo slum (mental illness, domestic violence, rape, alcoholism, starvation, etc.) is as dark and bleak as its visuals are bright and colorful. It’s a challenging watch; but the film slowly and deliberately sneaks up on you with its compassion and humanity, packing a real (if hard-won) emotional wallop by the devastating denouement.
Don’s Party (1976) – Director Bruce Beresford (Breaker Morant) sets his story on Australia’s election night, 1969. Outgoing host Don and his uptight wife are hosting an “election party” for old college chums at their middle-class suburban home.
Most of the guests range from the recently divorced to the unhappily married. Ostensibly a gathering to watch election results, talk politics and socialize, Don’s party deteriorates into a primer on bad human behavior as the booze kicks in. By the end of the night, marriages are on the rocks, friendships nearly broken and guests are skinny dipping in the vacationing neighbor’s pool.
Yet, this is not just another wacky party film. David Williamson’s script (which he adapted from his own play) offers many keen observations about elitism, politics, and adult relationships. Savagely funny, brilliantly written and splendidly acted.
The Duellists (1977) – If you can get past Harvey Keitel’s anachronistic Brooklyn wise guy stance and Keith Carradine’s oddly mannered take on a 19th-century “popinjay”, there’s a lot here in director Ridley Scott’s sumptuously photographed 1977 debut (adapted from a Joseph Conrad story) for cineastes to revel in. Keitel and Carradine play a pair of officers in Napoleon’s army who engage in a series of duels spanning three decades (some people just don’t know when to “let it go”).
Happily, the existential futility of this purloined stalemate becomes moot, as it is cloaked in one of the most visually stunning period pieces you’ll ever feast your eyes upon this side of Barry Lyndon (all the more impressive when you consider the $900,000 budget, which is coffee and a doughnut compared to the $130,000,000 spent on his dreary-looking Prometheus).
FM (1978) – John Alonzo’s 1978 comedy-drama (written by Ezra Sacks) centers on fictional L.A. rock station “Q-Sky” FM, which has just shot to number one, to the elation of hip program director Jeff Dugan (Michael Brandon), who leads a team of colorful DJs (Martin Mull, Cleavon Little, Alex Karras and Eileen Brennan). While Dugan sees the win as validation for his “free form” approach, corporate HQ views it as a potential cash cow for landing big accounts like the U.S. Army. The battle lines between art and commerce are drawn…and it’s on.
Granted-the film is uneven, but the cast is game, the soundtrack is great, and Linda Ronstadt and band are in fine form performing several live numbers. It’s a nice snapshot of the era when “underground” FM was making a shift to the more corporate “Layla-Free Bird-Tom Sawyer” format that flogs to this day.
Gumshoe (1971) – This relatively obscure U.K. gem from 1971 was produced by its star Albert Finney and marked the feature film directing debut for Stephen Frears (My Beautiful Laundrette, Prick Up Your Ears, The Grifters, High Fidelity, et. al.). Finney is wonderful as an emcee who works in a seedy Liverpool nightclub and models himself after Philip Marlowe. He decides to indulge his long-time fantasy of becoming a private detective by placing a newspaper ad offering his services-and gets more than he bargains for with his first case.
Screenwriter Neville Smith’s clever dialog is infused with just enough shadings of Chandler and Hammet to deflect suspicion of plagiarism (and Finney thankfully doesn’t overdo his Bogey impression-which isn’t half-bad). Nice supporting turn from Billie Whitelaw, and Frears’ use of the gritty Liverpool milieu lends an appropriate “noir” vibe.
The Hired Hand (1971) – Peter Fonda’s 1971 directorial debut is a lean, poetic neorealist Western in the vein of Robert Altman’s McCabe and Mrs. Miller and Jan Troell’s Zandy’s Bride. Gorgeously photographed by the great Vilmos Zsigmond, it stars Fonda as a taciturn drifter who returns to his wife (Verna Bloom) after a prolonged absence.
Embittered by his desertion, she refuses to take him back, advising him to not even tell their young daughter that he is her father. In an act of contrition, he offers to work on her rundown farm purely as a “hired hand”, no strings attached. Reluctantly, she agrees; the couple slowly warm up to each other once again…until an incident from his recent past catches up with him and threatens the safety of his longtime friend and traveling companion (Warren Oates). Well-written (by Alan Sharp), directed, and acted.
Kings of the Road (1976) – Wim Wenders’ 1976 bookend of his “Road Movie Trilogy” (preceded by Alice in the Cities and The Wrong Move) is a Boudu Saved from Drowning-type tale with Rudiger Vogler as a traveling film projector repairman who happens upon a suicidal psychologist (Hanns Zischler) just as he decides to end it all by driving his VW into a river. The traveling companions are slow to warm up to each other but have plenty of screen time in which to bond (i.e., at 175 minutes, it may try the patience of some viewers). If you can stick with it-I think you will discover it’s worth the trip.
The Last Valley (1971) -Films set in Germany during The Thirty Years War are a niche genre…but as far as films set in Germany during the Thirty Years War go, one could do worse than this nearly forgotten but worthwhile drama from writer-director James Clavell.
The “outsider” is a recurring theme in Clavell’s work; and this tale is no exception. In this case the “outsider” is a two-headed beast in the form of an apolitical war refugee (Omar Sharif) and the ruthless Captain (Michael Caine) of a small contingent of mercenaries who both stumble upon a “hidden” valley whose residents have somehow managed to remain unscathed by the ravages of war and the Plague.
The Captain is ruthless (he would just as soon slit your throat as look at you) but also pragmatic; he decides against his initial impulse to kill Sharif, pillage the sleepy hamlet and move on after the quick thinking and silver-tongued Sharif convinces him it would be better all-around to spare the residents in exchange for putting his battle-weary soldiers up for the winter. The villagers, who seem malleable and complacent at first, come to reveal their own brand of pragmatism. A well-mounted period piece that also works as a timeless observation of human behavior in survival situations.
Little Murders (1971) – This dark, dark comedy from 1971 is one of my all-time favorite films. It was directed by Alan Arkin and adapted by Jules Feiffer from his own self-described “post-assassination play” (referring to the then-relatively recent murders of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy). That said, it is not wholly political; but it is sociopolitical (I see it as the pre-cursor to Paddy Chayefsky’s Network).
Elliot Gould is at the peak of his Elliot Gould-ness as a nihilistic (and seemingly brain-dead) free-lance photographer who is essentially browbeaten into a love affair with an effervescent sunny side-up young woman (Marcia Rodd) who is bound and determined to snap him out of his torpor. The story follows the travails of this oil and water couple as they slog through a dystopian New York City chock full o’ nuts, urban blight, indifference and random shocking acts of senseless violence (you know…New York City in the 70s).
Many memorable vignettes, and nearly every cast member gets a Howard Beale-worthy monologue on how fucked-up American society is (remember…this was 1971). Disturbingly, it remains relevant as ever. But it is very funny. No, seriously. The cast includes Vincent Gardenia, Elizabeth Wilson, Doris Roberts, Lou Jacobi (who has the best monologue) and Donald Sutherland. Arkin casts himself as an eccentric homicide investigator-and he’s a hoot.
92 in the Shade (1975) – This quirky, picaresque 1975 black comedy is acclaimed writer Thomas McGuane’s sole directorial effort. (I consider it a companion piece to Frank Perry’s equally oddball Rancho Deluxe, which was also written by McGuane, features several of the same actors, and was released the same year).
Peter Fonda stars as a trustafarian slacker who comes home to Key West and decides to start a fishing charter business. This doesn’t set well with a gruff competitor (Warren Oates) who decides to play dirty with his rival.
As in most McGuane stories, narrative takes a backseat to the characters. In fact, the film essentially abandons its setup halfway through-until a curiously rushed finale. Still, there’s a bevy of wonderful character actors to savor, including Harry Dean Stanton, Burgess Meredith, William Hickey, Sylvia Miles and Louise Latham.
Also in the cast: Margot Kidder (McGuane’s wife at the time) and Elizabeth Ashley (his girlfriend at the time)-which begs speculation as to what was going through his mind as he directed a scene where Kidder and Ashley exchange insults and then get into a physical altercation!
Prime Cut (1972) – This offbeat 1972 “heartland noir” from director Michael Ritchie features one of my favorite Lee Marvin performances. He’s a cleaner for an Irish mob out of Chicago who is sent to collect an overdue payment from a venal livestock rancher (Gene Hackman) with the unlikely moniker of “Mary Ann”.
In addition to overseeing his meat packing plant (where the odd debt collector ends up as sausage filler), Mary Ann maintains a (literal) stable of naked, heavily sedated young women for auction. He protects his spread with a small army of disturbingly uber-Aryan young men who look like they were cloned in a secret Nazi lab.
It gets even weirder, yet the film has an strangely endearing quality; perhaps due to its blend of pulpy thrills, dark comedy and ironic detachment. It’s fun watching Hackman and Marvin go mano a mano; and seeing Sissy Spacek in her film debut.
Rancho Deluxe (1975) – This criminally underappreciated 1975 Frank Perry comedy-drama sports a marvelously droll original screenplay by novelist Thomas McGuane. Jeff Bridges and Sam Waterston star as modern-day cattle rustlers in Montana. Loose and episodic…just like life on the range, I’d reckon (with the odd foray into sex and drugs tossed in just for giggles).
Wonderful ensemble work from a cast that includes Elizabeth Ashley, Slim Pickens, Clifton James, Charlene Dallas, Patti D’Arbanville, Richard Bright and Harry Dean Stanton (memorable as a love-struck cow hand). Outstanding cinematography by Willam A. Fraker.
Rockers (1978) – Admittedly, this island-flavored take on the Robin Hood legend is short on plot, but what it may lack in complexity is more than compensated for by its sheer exuberance (and I have to watch it at least once a year). Grecian writer-director Theodoros Bafaloukos appears to have cast every reggae luminary who was alive at the time in his 1978 film. It’s the tale of a Rasta drummer (Leroy “Horsemouth” Wallace) who has had his beloved motorcycle stolen (customized Lion of Judah emblem and all!) by a crime ring run by a local fat cat.
Needless to say, the mon is vexed. So he rounds up a posse of fellow musicians (Richard “Dirty Harry” Hall, Jacob Miller, Gregory Isaacs, Robbie Shakespeare, Big Youth, Winston Rodney, et. al.) and they set off to relieve this uptown robber baron of his ill-gotten gains and re-appropriate them accordingly. Musical highlights include Miller performing “Tenement Yard”, and Rodney warbling his haunting and hypnotic Rasta spiritual “Jah No Dead” a cappella.
Saint Jack (1979) – Peter Bogdanovich’s least “commercial” project is my favorite of his, after The Last Picture Show. Adapted from Paul Theroux’s novel by the author, Howard Sackler and Bogdanovich, this 1979 drama is a low-key character study about an American (Ben Gazzara) hustling a living in Singapore during the Vietnam War era.
Gazzara plays Ben Flowers, an ingratiating fellow who specializes in showing visiting foreigners (mostly Brits) a good time. His modest brothel and bar isn’t exactly Rick’s Cafe, but he dreams of expanding, making a bundle and heading back to the states with a comfortable nest egg.
Unfortunately, this has put him on the radar of the local triad, who are escalating their harassment by the day. Flowers is wary, but too good-natured to go to the mattresses, as it were (he’s the antithesis of a “mobster type”, which is what makes the character so interesting). Eventually, however, he’s forced to seek another avenue-running a CIA-sanctioned brothel for soldiers on R&R from tours of duty in Vietnam.
I haven’t seen all of his films, but Gazzara’s performance is surely one of (if not “the”) best he ever delivered. The film is also a late-career highlight for the perennially underrated Denholm Elliot, who was nominated for a BAFTA award in 1980 (but didn’t win). Keep your eyes peeled for George Lazenby in the penultimate scene-a wordless, yet extraordinary sequence. Bogdanovich casts himself as a mysterious government spook. Leisurely paced but completely absorbing, it’s one of those films that has an immersive sense of “place” (beautifully shot on location by the late great Robby Müller).
That Sinking Feeling (1979) – Sort of a Scottish version of Big Deal on Madonna Street, this was the 1979 debut from writer-director Bill Forsyth (Local Hero, Comfort & Joy). An impoverished Glasgow teenager, tired of eating cornflakes for breakfast, lunch and dinner, comes up with a scheme that will make him and his underemployed pals rich beyond their wildest dreams-knocking over a plumbing supply warehouse full of stainless steel sinks.
Funny as hell, but with a wee touch of working class weltschmerz; this subtext makes it a precursor to films like The Full Monty, Waking Ned Devine and Brassed Off. Nearly all of the same principal cast would return in Forsyth’s 1982 charmer, Gregory’s Girl.
Slade in Flame (1974) – Akin to Mott the Hoople, it may be arguable among music geeks as to whether Slade was truly “glam” (they were a bit on the “blokey” side- as the Brits would say), but they are nonetheless considered so in some circles, and this 1974 film was released during the heyday of space boots and glitter, so there you go.
The directorial debut for Richard Loncraine (Brimstone and Treacle, The Missionary, Richard III) the film is a gritty, semi-biographical “behind the music” drama about a working-class band called Flame (suspiciously resembling the four members of Slade, wink-wink) who get chewed up and spit out of the star-making machine (this just in: managers and A & R people are back-stabbing weasels). Far from a masterpiece, but better than you’d expect, considering its non-professional cast (with the exception of Tom Conti, in his first film!).
Sorcerer (1977) – The time is ripe for a re-appraisal of William Friedkin’s 1977 action-adventure, which was greeted with indifference by audiences and critics at the time. Maybe it was the incongruous title, which likely led many to assume it would be in the vein of his previous film (and huge box-office hit), The Exorcist. Then again, it was tough for any other film to garner attention in the immediate wake of Star Wars.
At any rate, it’s an expertly directed, terrifically acted update of Henri-Georges Clouzot’s classic 1953 nail-biter, The Wages of Fear (I say “update” in deference to Friedkin, who bristles at the term “remake” in a “letter from the director” included with the Blu-ray I own).
Roy Scheider heads a superb international cast as a desperate American on the lam in South America, who signs up for a job transporting a truckload of nitroglycerin through rough terrain. Walon Green wrote the screenplay, and Tangerine Dream provides a memorable soundtrack.
Stardust (1974) – Michael Apted directed this 1974 sequel to Claude Whatham’s 1973 film That’ll Be the Day. David Essex reprises his role as restless seeker Jim MacLaine, who has finally found his true passion: music.
The first third traces MacLaine’s Beatle-like rise to fame with his beat combo “The Stray Cats” (it’s a safe bet Brian Setzer and band mates saw this film back in the day and “re-appropriated” the name).
With massive success comes the inevitable backstage squabbles and jealousies; eventually MacLaine is surrounded by music company weasels and yes-men whispering in his ear to dump his “backup” band and pursue a solo career as a rock god (who can say “no” to that?). Then comes the inevitable decline: too much drugs, sex and rock ‘n’ roll excess.
One of the best (and most realistic) films ever made about the music business. Clever casting of a number of veteran UK rockers like Adam Faith, Dave Edmunds, Keith Moon, Marty Wylde and Paul Nicholas adds greatly to the authenticity.
The Seven Per Cent Solution (1977) – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s super sleuth Sherlock Holmes has weathered an infinite number of movie incarnations over the decades, but none as fascinating as Nicol Williamson’s tightly wound coke fiend in this wonderful 1977 Herbert Ross film.
Intrepid sidekick Dr. Watson (Robert Duvall), concerned over his friend’s addiction, decides to do an intervention, engineering a meeting between the great detective and Dr. Sigmund Freud (Alan Arkin). Naturally, there is a mystery afoot as well, but it’s secondary to the entertaining interplay between Williamson and Arkin.
Screenwriter Nicholas Meyer (who adapted from his own novel) would repeat the gimmick two years later in his directing debut Time After Time, when he placed similarly odd bedfellows together in one story by pitting H.G. Wells against Jack the Ripper.
The Shout (1978) – This unsettling 1978 sleeper was adapted from a Robert Graves story by Michal Austin and its director, Jerzy Skolimowski. The late John Hurt is excellent as a mild-mannered avant-garde musician who lives in a sleepy English hamlet with his wife (Susannah York). When an enigmatic vagabond (Alan Bates) blows into town, their quiet country life begins to go…elsewhere. This is a genre-defying film; somewhere between psychological horror and culture clash drama. I’ll put it this way-if you like Peter Weir’s The Last Wave (which would make a great double-bill) this one is in your wheelhouse.
Wanda (1970) – This 1970 character study/road movie/crime drama is an under-seen indie gem written and directed by its star Barbara Loden. Wanda (Loden) is an unemployed working-class housewife. It’s clear that her life is the pits…and not just figuratively. She’s recently left her husband and two infants and has been crashing at her sister’s house, which is within spitting distance of a yawning mining pit, nestled in the heart of Pennsylvania’s coal country.
When the judge scolds her for being late to a child custody hearing, the oddly detached Wanda shrugs it off, telling His Honor that if her husband wants a divorce, that’s OK by her; adding their kids are probably “better off” being taken care of by their father. Shortly afterward, Wanda splits her sister’s house and hits the road (hair still in curlers), carrying no more than her purse. Her long, strange road trip is only beginning.
Wanda is Terrance Malick’s Badlands meets Barbara Kopple’s Harlan County, USA; like Malick’s film it was inspired by a true crime story and features a strangely passive female protagonist with no discernible identity of her own, and like Koppel’s documentary it offers a gritty portrait of rural working-class America using unadorned 16 mm photography. A unique, unforgettable, and groundbreaking film. (Full review).
The Wild Rovers (1971) – Blake Edwards made a western? Yes, he did, and not a half-bad one at that. A world-weary cowhand (William Holden) convinces a younger (and somewhat dim) co-worker (Ryan O’Neal) that since it’s obvious that they’ll never really get ahead in their present profession, they should give bank robbery a shot. They get away with it, but then find themselves on the run, oddly, not so much from the law, but from their former employer (Karl Malden), who is mightily offended that anyone who worked for him would do such a thing. Episodic and leisurely paced, but ambles along quite agreeably, thanks to the charms of the two leads, and the beautiful, expansive photography by Philip Lathrop. Ripe for rediscovery.
Wizards (1977) – Within the realm of animated films, Ralph Bakshi’s name may not be as universally recognizable (or revered) as Walt Disney or Studio Ghibli, but I would consider him no less of an important figure in the history of the genre. During his heyday (1972-1983) the director pumped out 8 full-length features (including Fritz the Cat, The Lord of the Rings and American Pop) using his signature blend of live-action, rotoscoping, and traditional cel animation.
While I grant it is not for all tastes, I’ve always had a particular soft spot for his 1977 film, Wizards. Tanking at the box office during its original theatrical run due to a combination of lackluster promotion by 20th Century Fox and an unfortunate proximity to the release of that same studio’s Star Wars (much to Bakshi’s chagrin, as he bitterly recounts on the commentary track of the Blu-ray i own) the film has nonetheless picked up a devoted cult following over the decades, thanks to home video.
It’s an elemental tale of two warring brothers, one good and one evil, who are both endowed with the magical powers of natural-born wizards. A familiar trope, to be sure, but Bakshi renders the story with originality, verve, and a fair amount of dark (and adult) humor.
Probably not a good idea if you care about what’s happening in the Middle East.
“Hit the nuclear first and worry about the rest later.” Trump is reckless, stupid, and unfit. Here’s how he thinks Israel should hit back at Iran. (Video: RSBN) pic.twitter.com/Jxd19n2pmP
I appreciate him revealing his decision making process — “hit first and worry about the rest later.” What could go wrong?
The Miller Center has an interesting overview of Trump’s foreign policy in the first term. It was all over the place. He is an isolationist who nonetheless built up the military and approved any number of military actions. He was heavily involved in Syria and his vaunted outreach to North Korea resulted in Kim Jong Un continuing his nuclear and ballistic missile program even as Trump boosted his prestige on the international stage. We all know what he did with Russia. His treatment of our allies was outrageous and completely gratuitous.
In my opinion, he reversed as much of Obama’s policies as he could mainly because he didn’t know anything and that was an easy choice. (People around him were happy for him to do it because they genuinely disagreed with the policies like the Paris Accords and the Iran nuclear deal. If Obama had been against them, Trump would have been for them.)
There was no coherence to his actions. He seemed to do everything by impulse. As you can see by that comment above, he has not changed.
His foreign policy was puerile and stupid and I think it’s clear that he has not learned anything since then. After all the man stuck classified nuclear documents in a bunch of junk files and stored them in the toilet at Mar-a-Lago. He is not a serious person. He’ll be even worse in the next term. Why? Here’s a list of Trump’s top 10 foreign policy advisers. Stephen Miller, Ric Grenell and Kash Patel are among them. The rest aren’t much better.
You may have heard that Republican Congrssman Mike Lawler of New York has been found to have dressed up as Michael Jackson when he was in college, including the blackface. Yeah, Not good. The NY Times reports that Lawler was a Michael Jackson super fan — and I mean super fan, so you’d think he’d know better.
But get a load of this:
In 2005, as a high school senior, Mr. Lawler flew from New York to California to attend parts of Jackson’s criminal trial. The pop star had been charged with molesting a 13-year-old boy at his Neverland Ranch; the case ended in acquittal.
J. Randy Taraborrelli, a Jackson biographer, helped get Mr. Lawler into the courtroom and recalled in his book that the young fan had been “so disgusted” by testimony against Jackson “that he couldn’t help but mutter something derogatory under his breath.” Mr. Lawler was removed from the courtroom, according to Mr. Taraborrelli’s biography, “Michael Jackson: The Magic, the Madness, the Whole Story.”
I’ve always gotten a strange vibe from this guy. There’s just something off about him. I mean, many people travel to see their musical idols perform, there’s nothing odd about that. But this was a high school senior who was such a fan that he traveled across the country to attend the molestation trial of his idol and hackled the witnesses! What?
I know we should be forgiving of what people do when they’re kids. But this is just creepy.
But it won’t be. The rest of the media has hardly mentioned it
“Here is a true smoking gun. People that worked for Trump, speaking openly about what ought to be a truly impeachment-level offense: an American president refusing to sign off on disaster aid to people he thought weren’t sufficiently supportive of his political ambitions.”
They literally had to bring him data showing Republican voters in Orange County before he would sign the emergency declaration for California’s devastating wildfires. We knew he’d threatened to do it. We didn’t know he actually did it and had to be talked out of it by staff.
For people who think all this talk about how he was held back by the adults in the room in the first term is overblown, this should put that to rest. And guess what? There won’t be any adults in the room next time. .
Marco Rubio used to be a normal politician. Yes, he was a conservative and he was full of shit in many different ways. But he was taken seriously on foreign policy as someone who understood the issues, even if people disagreed with him ideologically. He worked on immigration reform and had collegial relationships across the aisle. And at one time he was considered one of the prime GOP contenders for the presidency.
Now he routinely panders to the dumbest MAGA conspiracy theorist, pushing whatever the cult demands.
Literally in this jobs report, the lukewarm reports of the past two months were revised upward https://t.co/XFNxmEB48n
It’s unclear if he’s just become one of them, buying into every nonsensical bit of BS the fever swamp spits out or if he’s just cynically exploiting it for power. It actually doesn’t matter which because in the end it illustrates that the GOP is now fully merged with MAGA and whether Trump wins or not, there is no going back. They’ve trained tens of millions of their followers to think like this and they are now stuck in the same delusional rabbit hole and can’t get back out.
Will it take generations to purge this from the body politic? Will it even be possible?
These findings suggest that Harris has been effective at improving voters’ perception of how she would handle various economic issues, including top issues like reducing inflation, and by extension, reducing the cost of housing and groceries. While a plurality of voters think Vance won the recent vice presidential debate, voters still have a more favorable opinion of Walz than Vance overall, and choose Harris over Trump by 3 points in a head-to-head race.
Even Fox is having a hard time spinning the economy:
I guess this is good news? More people have decided that they can believe their eyes over GOP propaganda? Good news. But damn, it should not be this close.
Look at this guy.
While we're still awaiting Biden's 1929 style depression, Trump is out here insisting that if Kamala wins there will be a 1929 style depression pic.twitter.com/Qg9XAGqjea
Trump in Milwaukee says he will have Elon Musk in his administration to cut trillions of dollars of federal spending but reassures people that "nobody will feel a thing" pic.twitter.com/swLfF8B1W0
Q: What specific legislation will you commit to to make child care affordable?
Trump: Well, I would do that and we're sitting down, you know, I was, somebody, we had Marco Rubio and my daughter, Ivanka… But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I'm talking about… pic.twitter.com/v8gqLUHS2v
Today, more than 6,600 National Guard Soldiers and Airmen from 17 states continue to support federal, state and local #Helene response efforts across the Southeast. pic.twitter.com/glhsMzhLZW
MAGA Republicans are now lying about the federal response to Hurricane Helene in much the same way they lied about Haitian migrants bringing chaos and disease to Springfield, Ohio. Both disinformation efforts are flat-out lies, and both are designed to demonize immigrants. Immigration was the issue Trump was so eager to run on that he demanded Republican lawmakers reject the strong border bill a bipartisan group of lawmakers had hammered out.
The federal response to Hurricane Helene has drawn bipartisan praise, with Republican governor Henry McMaster of South Carolina thanking Biden by name for what McMaster called a “superb” response.
But on Sunday, September 29, two days after the hurricane hit, the right-wing organization started by anti-immigrant Trump loyalist Stephen Miller posted: “Billions for Ukraine. Billions for illegal aliens. And what for the Americans? Reprogram every single dollar that FEMA has dedicated to support illegal aliens to go towards Americans who are facing unprecedented devastation!”
Yesterday, in Saginaw, Michigan, Trump echoed Miller, claiming that the Biden administration is botching the hurricane response because it has spent all the money appropriated for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) on “illegal immigrants.” “They spent it all on illegal migrants.… They stole the FEMA money just like they stole it from a bank, so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them,” he said. Today, he claimed that “a billion dollars was stolen from FEMA to use it for illegal migrants, many of whom are criminals, to come into our country.”
Early this morning, X owner Elon Musk posted to his more than 200 million followers: “Yes, they are literally using YOUR tax dollars to import voters and disenfranchise you! It is happening right in front of your eyes. And FEMA used up its budget ferrying illegals into the country instead of saving American lives. Treason.” On Wednesday, Dana Mattioli, Joe Palazzolo, and Khadeeja Safdar of the Wall Street Journal broke the story that Musk has been financing groups with ties to Miller since 2022.
But of course, it is NOT happening in front of anyone’s eyes.
Trump has a habit of assuming other politicians act in the same way as he would. So we wondered why he would accuse Biden of raiding the FEMA disaster fund to handle undocumented migrants.
It turns out that’s because he did this. In 2019, the Trump administration, in the middle of hurricane season, told Congress that it was taking $271 million from DHS programs, including $155 million from the disaster fund, to pay for immigration detention space and temporary hearing locations for asylum seekers who had been forced to wait in Mexico. “The U.S. is facing a security and humanitarian crisis on the Southern border,” the administration said in its notice that it was redirecting the funds.
The monthly reports issued by the FEMA disaster fund show $38 million was plucked and given to Immigration and Customs Enforcement in August that year — just before the prime storm period of September and October.
I suppose it was inevitable that they’d try to turn this into Kamala’s Katrina. But they’re actively interfering with the rescue efforts and hurting their own voters in the process. Musk has been especially malevolent, reaching into Alex Jones territory.
Don’t believe the bullshit @elonmusk is spreading around Twitter. Here’s a Republican US senator from North Carolina talking about the Hurricane Helene response. https://t.co/VZeV5TMyTc
That’s a total lie. And Valentina Gomez is one of the most disgusting Republicans on the planet, just coming off of a losing primary race in which her platform was grotesque assaults on LGBTQ people. It figures that she is on Musk’s radar.
Ron DeSantis refused to meet with Biden, no doubt trying to avoid the Chris Christie curse (the rightwingers excoriated him for meeting with Obama after Hurricane Sandy in 2012) but for the most part local Repubican officials are beside themselves over the disinformation which is making it impossible to help people. From mayors to county executives to Governors, they’re all begging people to knock it off but it’s falling on deaf ears.
Social media is awash in disinformation led by Republicans and no doubt foreign bots have joined in the action. It’s sick.
This guy is on the ground correcting the record every day:
Yesterday as we were delivering food and water to Bat Cave we found a @fema Urban Search and rescue unit NY-TF1 after a long day airlifting people, etc..a team 18 people and 3 dogs. People like them are heroes all over NC….@DHSgov this what government does and we don’t realize… pic.twitter.com/6eAoXxpcfl
Reporting from Bakersville,Mitchell county we @wckitchen landed to provide meals to @Bakersville to the city and @NationalGuard doing amazing work, and even under the circumstances and damage that their city and county had…they have water, food, medicines @fema… pic.twitter.com/zwgCYCU3NZ
Update: I should have mentioned local media which has been doing a fantastic job:
What a front page. Our state and local newspapers are going to save our democracy. THIS is how it’s done. Bravo, Winston-Salem Journal pic.twitter.com/MrVp59LJhQ
Trump: I don't sleep that much. I toss and turn. I think. I think. I think. I'm always thinking. Do you ever do that? You're sweating and you're thinking and you're trying to figure out how to beat this one, that one… I toss and I turn pic.twitter.com/seE4BalGsM
