Flying is already unpleasant enough. Judging by the crashes and near misses lately, it’s gotten more dangerous. Maybe not statistically so, but enough to make the cost and inconvenience more of a nuisance. So something I just ran across may make us even more reluctant to enter an airport.
It is the case of Ranjani Srinivasan, an Indian doctoral student at Columbia who learned that, for reasons unknown, her visa had been revoked about the time immigration agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil. Agents came twice to her door, and the Fulbright recipient pursuing a Ph.D. in urban planning did not answer. Before they could return with a judicial warrant, she packed some belongings and hopped a flight to Canada at LaGuardia Airport.
The Department of Homeland Security issued a statement that characterized Ms. Srinivasan as a terrorist sympathizer and accused her of advocating violence and being “involved in activities supporting Hamas, a terrorist organization.” The department did not provide any evidence for its allegations.
Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, posted surveillance footage on social media that showed Ms. Srinivasan lugging a suitcase at LaGuardia as she fled to Canada. Secretary Noem celebrated Ms. Srinivasan’s departure as a “self-deportation.”
Noem is ghoulish enough, especially after her Frau Schmerz video from El Salvador’s Terrorist Confinement Center, but it’s that surveillance footage in the tweet below describing Srinivasan as a terrorist sympathizer that’s really unnerving.
“I’m glad to see one of the Columbia University terrorist sympathizers use the CBP Home app to self deport,” Noem says. I guess that means CBP didn’t have a chance to check Srinivasan for tattoos.
It is a privilege to be granted a visa to live & study in the United States of America.
When you advocate for violence and terrorism that privilege should be revoked and you should not be in this country.
WTF? Does the CBP Home app trigger a video capture of a departing foreigner? It doesn’t mention that on the website. Or is CBP surveilling everyone in the airports? (I’m naive, I know.)
It seems Srinivasan had her visa revoked for not reporting dismissed tickets on her visa renewal. And those summonses were for what?
Ms. Srinivasan’s current situation can be traced back to last year, when she was arrested at an entrance to Columbia’s campus the same day that pro-Palestinian protesters occupied Hamilton Hall, a university building. She said she had not been a part of the break-in but was returning to her apartment that evening after a picnic with friends, wading through a churning crowd of protesters and barricades on West 116th Street, when the police pushed her and arrested her.
She was briefly detained and received two summonses, one for obstructing vehicular or pedestrian traffic and another for refusing to disperse. Her case was quickly dismissed and did not result in a criminal record, according to her lawyers and court documents. Ms. Srinivasan said that she never faced disciplinary action from the university and was in good academic standing.
“She was taken in with roughly 100 other people after being blocked from returning to her apartment and getting stuck in the street,” said Nathan Yaffe, one of her lawyers. “The court recognized this when it dismissed her case as having no merit. Ranjani was just trying to walk home.”
Ms. Srinivasan said she did not disclose the summonses in the visa renewal form later in the year because her case had been dismissed in May and she did not have a conviction.
You know, in answer to “Have you ever been arrested or convicted for any offense or crime, even though subject of a pardon, amnesty, or other similar action?”
Apparently, “crimes against the American people” extend to being in the wrong place at the wrong time, jaywalking, or a parking ticket. You are a terrorist sympathizer or an actual terrorist if DHS says so, and no further evidence required. The Trump 2.0 administration and freaks like Stephen Miller and Noem have us well on our way to being a police state.
“The defining feature of American democracy, you could be forgiven for having thought, is that you can say what you think without having to fear that you will be arrested, locked up or deported for it.”
What everybody needs to know, and I think they already know this about President Trump, is he doesn’t bluff. His words have meaning. And when he’s done, he is done and he’s moving onto plan B. The president is always looking down the road. He always has alternative plans. He wants to do plan A, plan B, plan C. But if that doesn’t work, he’ll go to plan D. And where we’re at right now is diplomacy with Russia hasn’t been working because Putin hasn’t been negotiating on good terms.
The president now with you, and the American people, he’s putting Putin on warning, saying, “Hey, listen. You better pay attention here. If you don’t come to the table and negotiate an end to the killing like I said I wanted to do, then we’re going to have alternative plans here and this is the first alternative. And by the way, we have three more plans behind this if this doesn’t work.”
KRISTEN WELKER:
We also talked about tariffs, the president saying these auto tariffs that he has just announced are permanent. And, of course, he’s continued his vows to make Canada the 51st state after imposing these new auto tariffs. I want to play for you a little bit of what Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney had to say in response to these tariffs.
[BEGIN TAPE]
PRIME MINISTER MARK CARNEY:
The old relationship we had with the United States based on deepening integration of our economics and tight security and military cooperations is over.
[END TAPE]
KRISTEN WELKER:
Senator, has the United States lost Canada as an ally?
SEN. MARKWAYNE MULLIN:
No. We haven’t lost ally – Canada as an ally. They need us more than we need them. The fact is we have been subsidizing their economy by the tunes of billions of dollars every single year and they know that. What President Trump is saying is, is enough is enough. Right? If you want to have a relationship with the United States, it’s going to be an even playing field, a two-way street. We want reciprocal tariffs. We want to be treated the same. We want to have access to your economy like you have access to us. And if you want to have fair and balanced trade, then that’s fine. But our economy is not subsidizing your economy anymore. What Canada knows is that the United States has given them a sweetheart deal for them to have access to us, access to our economy. At the same time, we protect them.
Now they do fight with us. They are an ally of us in every war that we’ve had. We appreciate that. But at the same time, we need to be treated equally. And if they don’t want to come to the negotiating deal and realize that we are in this fight together, our economies, our border, national security means national security for all America, not just – not just the United States. And if they want to have that type of negotiation and that type of deal with us, we’re willing to do that.
But they’re not wanting to. They’re wanting to keep the same old sweetheart deal they’ve had in place and President Trump is willing to say, “Enough’s enough.” It’s about time. Because what President Trump is doing is he’s protecting America’s future. America’s economy going down the road. Our workers have suffered, our farmers have suffered, our manufacturers have suffered because we’ve had weak leadership in the White House and President Trump isn’t putting up with it anymore. So, thank goodness we have a tough leader finally that’s standing up against these people.
A tough leader who is finally standing up to “these people.” The Canadians.
God Bless Dear Leader.
By the way, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. It’s worth watching the whole interview if you have time. The stuff he said about the Signal security breach is unbelievable.
I am sure that Oklahoma could do better than this. This man is very, very dim.
This isn’t a new movement by any means, but now it has money behind it. Rich Silicon Valley incels are all about populating the earth with their “superior” genes.
Organizers behind a pronatalist conference with far-right ties in Austin, Texas, this weekend have set up matchmaking events for attendees that include the option of getting married onsite as part of their greater effort to repopulate the world, WIRED has learned.
According to its website, the sold-out Natal Conference, taking place March 28-29 at a hotel operated by the University of Texas at Austin, has “no political or ideological goal other than a world in which our children can have grandchildren.” But the event, an earlier version of which was promoted by Elon Musk, features speakers like Pizzagate conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec and Crémieux, an online pseudonym linked, according to The Guardian, to Jordan Lasker, who discusses falling birthrates and promotes eugenics.
Natal Conference organizer Kevin Dolan, a father of at least six, according to Politico, has previously stated that eugenics—the belief that white people are genetically superior—and the pronatalist movement are “very much aligned.”
The Tesla mogul and his former wife, author Justine Wilson, welcomed son Nevada Alexander Musk in 2002. Nevada died of sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, at only 10 weeks. After losing their firstborn, Musk and Wilson turned to IVF to grow their family. She gave birth to twin sons Griffin and Xavier Musk in April 2004. The couple also used IVF to welcome triplet sons Kai, Saxon and Damian in January 2006.
Later on, Musk began dating singer Grimes, who gave birth to their son X AE A-XII. Earlier in March, Grimes revealed that she and the SpaceX founder had welcomed their first daughter, Exa Dark Sideræl Musk, via surrogate in December 2021. And there are claims that Elon and Amber Heard had a legal battle around the cryopreserved embryos.
In recent weeks rumors surfaced that he had two more kids with the board member of OpenAI and executive at Neuralink. Sex of the babies was not disclosed. Considering how busy Elon is, business ethics of such a relationship, and the fact that there are two babies, there is a chance that he just served as a donor.
The article speculated that all of those babies being boys suggested that he was doing sex selection. I wouldn’t be surprised.
He’s the techno-Warren Jeffs. And there are a whole bunch of his acolytes also pushing natalism to keep women pumping out white babies as fast as they can.
When Trump took office in 2017, tariff revenue was about 1.5% of total U.S. goods imports. By 2019, he had roughly doubled that to 2.9%, according to an analysis of federal data by the Yale Budget Lab.
If the across-the-board tariffs implemented on Canada, Mexico and China this week remain in place the remainder of the year, that number is on track to soar to 9.5%, the highest since 1943.
You may recall that we were in the middle of WWII in 1943.
The 2018 to 2019 tariffs were implemented by invoking Sections 232 and 301 of trade statutes, the former giving the president authority to impose duties on national security grounds and the latter to combat unfair trade practices.
Those laws demand a process of studies and appeals, which slowed their implementation while preventing unintended consequences.
By contrast,this week’s new round of tariffs invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which gives the president broad powers with few checks “to deal with any unusual and extraordinary threat.”
And, by the way, that 9.5% doesn’t include the “liberation day” catastrophe that’s about to happen next week. The unusual and extraordinary threat we face is Donald Trump.
On March 18, the official White House account on X posted two photographs of Virginia Basora-Gonzalez, a woman who was arrested earlier this month by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The post described her as a “previously deported alien felon convicted of fentanyl trafficking,” and celebrated her capture as a win for the administration. In one photograph, Basora-Gonzalez is shown handcuffed and weeping in a public parking lot.
🇺🇸Virginia Basora-Gonzalez, a previously deported alien felon convicted of fentanyl trafficking, was arrested by @ICEgov in Philadelphia after illegally reentering the U.S.
The White House account posted about Basora-Gonzalez again yesterday—this time, rendering her capture in the animated style of the beloved Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki, who co-founded the animation company Studio Ghibli. Presumably, whoever runs the account had used ChatGPT, which has been going viral this week for an update to its advanced “4o” model that enables it to transform photographs in the style of popular art, among other things. The White House did not respond directly to a request for comment, instead referring me to a post by Deputy Communications Director Kaelan Dorr that says, in part, “The arrests will continue. The memes will continue.”
It’s worth pausing here: The internet has been flooded with AI-generated images in this exact Studio Ghibli style. Some people have used it for images of pets or family members. Others opted for a trollish register, leading ChatGPT to spit out cutesy renderings of JFK’s assassination, planes hitting the World Trade Center, and the torture at Abu Ghraib. On X, the prevalence of these images became an event unto itself, one in which the White House decided to participate by sharing a cartoon of a woman crying in handcuffs.
This is how the White House account operates now. In previous administrations (including much of Donald Trump’s first term), the account was used to post anodyne updates, highlight press releases, and share information about the administration. It was, to be fair, often painfully dull or written in the stilted language of a brand. Now the account exists to troll its political enemies and delight the MAGA faithful.
This isn’t Trump’s personal account. It isn’t some MAGA influencer. This is the official White House account. It makes me want to vomit.
On Wednesday, the account posted a picture of Vice President J. D. Vance shooting a tactical rifle, referring to the bullets he fired as “freedom seeds,” a term popular among gun YouTubers. When Google Maps adopted the “Gulf of America” language pushed by the administration, the White House account celebrated by sharing a video in which the words Gulf of Mexico are wiped off the globe. In February, it posted an AI-generated picture of Trump as an American monarch, wearing a crown. The image’s caption reads, “Long live the king.”
After the disastrous Oval Office ambush of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the account posted a photo of Vance staring at Zelensky with the caption “Have you said thank you once?” Although the account sometimes shares actual news, it’s frequently preoccupied by rapid-response engagement bait for MAGA diehards. Less information, more content. The intent is not to inform but to go viral.
I guess Big balls and the DOGE boys aren’t the only adolescents they’ve hired in the second Trump administration.
It’s not a huge majority but it’s more than enough to ratchet up the cruelty to entertain the folks.
By the way:
Sorry. Unless we go into a deep recession and we get stagflation not seen since the 1970s and massive suffering ensues among his own people, I’m not sure anything can stop him. (According to that poll, most people still blame Biden for inflation, although that may change once the tariffs really kick in. People don’t like them.)
We have a cultural problem that transcends politics — a large number of our family, friends and neighbors have lost all sense of decency. I don’t know if it’s worse than it’s been in the past but our government has made it operational and it’s dominating our society. This is how fascism takes hold.
Hundreds of “Tesla Takedown” demonstrations are taking place in the United States, Canada and Europeas activists ramp up their opposition to CEOElon Musk’s efforts to slash federal government staffing and budgets.
Since joining the Trump administration, Musk has aggressively pushed policies to reduce spending, curb regulations and downsize the workforce as the head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, all while repeatedly misleading the public about federal spending.
More than 200 demonstrations are planned at US Tesla locations on Saturday as part of the “Tesla Takedown” movement, which called for a “global day of action” aiming for 500 protests worldwide. The campaign wants people to sell their Tesla vehicles and their shares of Tesla stock as a way to denounce Musk, the world’s richest man, whose wealth is overwhelmingly linked to his Tesla holdings.
Thousands of anti-Tesla protesters took to the streets Saturday March 29th in opposition to Elon Musk and his efforts with DOGE to eliminate humanitarian aid, close federal agencies, and fire government workers. It was the culmination of nearly two months of steady, almost daily demonstrations aimed at hurting Tesla’s sales — and ultimately Musk himself. Today was billed as a “Global Day of Action” with protests targeting hundreds of Tesla locations in the US, Canada, and Europe.
The Verge attended protests from London to Akron, Ohio to Long Beach, California.
"We don’t want your Nazi cars / take a one-way trip to Mars" is a pretty good chant
“For a supposed genius, Elon Musk sure does a lot of stupid shit,” write Adam Parkhomenko and Sam Youngman at thealtmedia. “But nothing … is as dumb as Musk thinking he could fuck with the American people and get a pass.”
You see Elon is from South Africa. His family left when they did away with apartheid. He doesn’t understand our country or what makes it tick. When he claims on Fox News that he’s leading a “revolution,” he doesn’t understand that we take that shit pretty seriously.
He thinks he can call us parasites. He thinks he can wreck our systems. He thinks he can buy our votes. And he thinks we’re so dumb and he’s so smart that we’ll thank him for the privilege. Like we said, he doesn’t understand Americans.
It’s important for us to say here that we are opposed to violence and vandalism. Unlike Republicans, we actually are members of the law and order party, and so we are against people bombing and burning Teslas and Cybertrucks even if we think it’s funny to see them in flames on social media. But more than being hilarious, these acts of less than civil disobedience are creating a teachable moment (even if the methods should be condemned). The lesson is you can’t hurt Americans and expect them to just sit there and take it.
Hell, Londoners are not gonna take it. They have longer memories.
I love London even more now…
When the world’s richest man flirts with Nazis, Londoners make sure his brand wears it. No hiding from this. pic.twitter.com/xjFRYzXVsG
More satirical ads taking aim at the likes of Donald Trump and Elon Musk have been put up on London's public transport, this time labelling them the Inglorious Bad Turds 😅
The wheels may not be coming off the Trump administration just yet, but it’s sure starting to feel wobbly. J.D. Vance’s visit to Greenland last week was a joke. That’s not right. Vance was the joke.
But let’s not obscure what there is to care about. Inflation has hit cruelty futures. Cruelty was the point seven years ago. Now it’s become sadism, argues John Stoehr:
First, consider that US Attorney Pam Bondi has suggested strongly that there will be no investigation of the nation’s highest-ranking national security officials inviting a journalist to a discussion of highly classified military operations on an unsecured messaging platform.
Then consider that a longtime employee of the US Department of Homeland Security “inadvertently sent unclassified details of an upcoming Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation to a journalist in late January,” according to a report by NBC News.
Days later, the employee was placed on leave pending an investigation, the officials said. She was asked to take a polygraph test and surrender her personal cellphone, which she declined. She was then notified that the agency intends to revoke her security clearance, the officials said, which could keep her from working in the homeland security space again.
This is a pretty clear picture of unequal treatment before the law. As my senator, Chris Murphy, told MSNBC’s Mike Barnicle, on the subject of Signalgate, but not on the DHS employee who’s being investigated: “There has to be criminal investigations as well here. If the criminal code doesn’t apply to powerful people, if it only applies to people without power, then we don’t have rule of law in this country.”
Takeaway: we don’t have rule of law in this country.
Kristi Noem’s “Frau Schmerz” performance in El Salvador got the attention she wanted. She’s running TV ads now warning non-citizens who stick a toe inside U.S. borders “we will hunt you down” if you commit “crimes against the American people.” Evidence suggests that those could be anything from entering illegally, asking for asylum, or speaking your mind.
Stoehr adds:
Andrew Sullivan had the righteous man’s reply: “These wannabe fascists publicly delight and revel in their acts of domination in a manner that even despotic regimes avoid. For the DHS secretary, Kristi Noem, to posture in front of a third-world gulag, with a $50,000 Rolex on her wrist, in order to scare any brown person with a tattoo in the US, is an exercise in authoritarian pornography. It is fascistic in its essence.”
Trump may be losing it, but we’re still at risk of losing the country. So remember this. Challenge Trump strongly (you know he admires strongly) and he backs down.
Not gonna pretend like I know anything about Carney’s politics because I don’t, but I watched his speech yesterday and he essentially told Trump to fuck off and now Trump’s speaking about him with a modicum of respect. I feel like there’s a lesson in there somewhere.
I know. April Fool’s Day isn’t until this coming Tuesday. But then again, in the grand scheme of things, does that really matter? What is reality, anyway? Besides, this piece is about film, which is scant more than a (to quote Orson Welles) “ribbon of dreams” to begin with. So with that in mind, I’ve curated my top 10 narrative films wherein the characters and/or the movie audience are fooled, conned, surprised, or shockingly betrayed. Alphabetically…
Barry Lyndon – Stanley Kubrick’s beautifully photographed, leisurely paced adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray’s rags-to-riches-to-rags tale about a roguish Irishman (Ryan O’Neal) who grifts his way into the English aristocracy is akin to watching 18th-century paintings sumptuously spring to life (funnily enough, its detractors tend to liken it to “oil paintings” as well, but for entirely different reasons). The cast includes Marisa Berenson, Patrick Magee, Leonard Rossiter and Leon Vitali.
This magnificent 1975 film has improved with age, like a fine wine; successive viewings prove the stories about Kubrick’s obsession with the minutest of details were not exaggerated-every frame is steeped in verisimilitude. Michael Hordern’s delightfully droll voice over work as The Narrator rescues the proceedings from sliding into staidness. The most elegant “long con” in cinema…from both a narrative and visual standpoint.
Carny–This oddball affair (Freaks meets Toby Tyler in Nightmare Alley) is set in the seedy milieu of a traveling carnival. Robbie Robertson and Gary Busey star as longtime pals and carnies who take a teenage runaway (Jodie Foster) under their wing and give her a crash course in the art of the con (i.e. hustling customers out of their hard-earned cash).
The story is elevated above its inherent sleaze factor by the excellent performances. Busey’s work here is a reminder that at one time, he was one of the most promising young actors around (up until the unfortunate motorcycle mishap). Director/co-writer Robert Kaylor also showed promise, but has an enigmatic resume; a film in 1970, one in 1971, Carny in 1980, a nondescript Chad Lowe vehicle in 1989, then…he’s off the radar.
Certified Copy – Just as you’re lulled into thinking this is going to be one of those brainy, talky, yet pleasantly diverting romantic romps where you and your date can amuse yourselves by placing bets on “will they or won’t they-that is, if they can both shut up long enough to get down to business before the credits roll” propositions, Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami throws you a curve ball.
Then again, maybe this film isn’t so much about “thinking”, as it is about “perceiving”. Because if a “film” is merely (if I may quote Mr. Welles again) “a ribbon of dreams”-then Certified Copy, like any true work of art, is simply what you perceive it to be-nothing more, nothing less. Even if it leaves you scratching your head, you get to revel in the luminosity of Juliette Binoche’s amazing performance; there’s pure poetry in every glance, every gesture. (Full Review)
The Master– As Inspector Clouseau once ruminated, “Well you know, there are leaders…and there are followers.” At its most rudimentary level, Paul Thomas Anderson’s film is a two-character study about a leader and a follower (and metaphorically, all leaders and followers).
It’s also a story about a complex surrogate father-son relationship (a recurring theme in the director’s oeuvre). And yes, there are some who feel the film is a thinly disguised take down of Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.
I find it a thought-provoking and original examination of why human beings in general are so prone to kowtow to a burning bush, or be conned by an emperor with no clothes; a film that begs repeated viewings. One thing’s for sure-Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix deliver two fearless lead performances. Like all of Anderson’s films, it’s audacious, sometimes baffling, but never dull. (Full Review)
Nightmare Alley– “How can a guy get so low?” Even within the dark recesses of film noir, this cynical 1947 entry is about as “low” as you can get. Directed by Edmund Goulding and adapted from William Lindsay Gresham’s novel by Jules Furthman, the film was a career gamble for star Tyrone Power, who really sinks his teeth into the role of carny-barker-turned “mentalist” Stanton Carlisle.
Utilizing his innate charm and good looks, the ambitious Carlise ingratiates himself with a veteran carnival mind-reader (Joan Blondell). Once he finagles a few tricks of the trade from her, he woos a hot young sideshow performer (Coleen Gray) and talks her into partnering up to develop their own mentalist act.
The newlyweds find success on the nightclub circuit, but the ever-scheming Carlisle soon sees an opportunity to play a long con with a potentially big payoff. To pull this off, he seeks the assistance of a local shrink (Helen Walker). While not immune to Carlisle’s charms, she is not going to be an easy pushover like the other women in his life. Big trouble ahead…and a race back to the bottom. Full of surprising twists and turns.
Paper Moon – Two years after The Last Picture Show, director Peter Bogdanovich had the audacity to shoot yet another B&W film-which was going against the grain by the early 70s. This outing, however, was not a bleak drama. Granted, it is set during the Great Depression, but has a much lighter tone, thanks to precocious 9 year-old Tatum O’Neal, who steals every scene she shares with her dad Ryan (which is to say, nearly every scene in the film).
The O’Neals portray an inveterate con artist/Bible salesman and a recently orphaned girl he is transporting to Missouri (for a fee). Along the way, the pair discover they are a perfect tag team for bilking people out of their cookie jar money. Entertaining road movie, with the built-in advantage of a natural acting chemistry between the two leads.
Also with Madeline Kahn, John Hillerman, P.J. Johnson, and Noble Willngham. DP László Kovács (my 2007 tribute) is in his element; he was no stranger to road movies (Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces). Screenwriter Alvin Sargent adapted from Joe David Brown’s novel, “Addie Pray”. (Bogdanovich passed away in 2022; I wrote this tribute .)
The Servant – Joseph Losey’s brooding and decadent class-struggle allegory features the great Dirk Bogarde in a note-perfect performance as the “manservant” hired by a snobby playboy (James Fox) to help him settle into his upscale London digs. It soon becomes apparent that this butler has a little more on the agenda than just polishing silverware and dusting the mantle. Sara Miles is also memorable in one of her earliest film roles.
Cinematographer Douglas Slocombe’s striking chiaroscuro composition and clever use of convex mirrors (which appear to “trap” the images of the principal characters) sustains a stifling, claustrophobic mood throughout. If you’re an aficionado of the 60’s British folk scene, keep your eyes peeled for a rare (and unbilled) screen appearance by guitarist Davey Graham, featured in a scene where Fox walks into a coffeehouse. Harold Pinter’s screenplay was adapted from the novel by Robin Maugham.
Siesta – Music video director Mary Lambert’s 1987 feature film debut is a mystery, wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma. Ellen Barkin stars as an amnesiac who wakes up on a runway in Spain, dazed, bloodied and bruised. She spends the rest of the film putting the jagged pieces together, trying to figure out who she is and how she got herself into this discombobulating predicament (don’t let your attention wane!).
Reviews were mixed when the film came out, but I think it’s high on atmosphere and beautifully photographed by Bryan Loftus, who was the DP for another one of my favorite 80s sleepers, The Company of Wolves. Great soundtrack by Marcus Miller, and a fine supporting cast including Gabriel Byrne, Julian Sands, and Isabella Rossellini. The script is by Patricia Louisianna Knop, who would later produce and occasionally write for her (now ex) husband Zalman King’s Red Shoe Diaries cable series that aired in the ‘90s.
The Sting – George Roy Hill’s caper dramedy is pretty fluffy, but a lot of fun. Paul Newman and Robert Redford reunited with their Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid director in this 1973 star vehicle to play a pair of 1930s-era con men who set up the ultimate “sting” on a vicious mobster (Robert Shaw) who was responsible for the untimely demise of one their mutual pals. The beauty of screenwriter David S. Ward’s clever construction is in how he conspiratorially draws the audience in to feel like are in on the elaborate joke…but then manages to prank us too…when we’re least expecting it!
The Usual Suspects –What separates Bryan Singer’s tightly-directed sophomore effort from the pack of otherwise interchangeable Tarantino knockoffs that flourished throughout the 90s is a great cast (Kevin Spacey, Gabriel Byrne, Chazz Palmenteri, Benicio Del Toro, Kevin Pollack and Stephen Baldwin), smart screenplay (co-written by Singer and Christopher McQuarrie) and a real doozey of a twist ending.
The story unfolds via flashback, narrated by a soft-spoken, physically hobbled milquetoast named “Verbal” (Spacey), who is explaining to a federal agent (Palmenteri) how he ended up the sole survivor of a mass casualty shootout aboard a docked ship. Verbal’s tale is riveting; a byzantine web of double and triple crosses that always seems to thread back to an elusive and ruthless criminal puppet master named Keyser Soze. The movie has gained a rabid cult following, and “Who is Keyser Soze?” has become a meme.
