And a true leader
What an excellent choice to lead the military.
"what digby sez..."
Digby's Hullabaloo Posts
I sill leave it to others to analyze what’s happening in Syria and the ramifications for the region and the rest of the world. I’ll link to good ones I run across later. But one thing does seem clear. The Russian government is on a losing streak and for good reason. Charlie Sykes offered this concise take:
Let’s start with V. Putin’s crappy weekend, shall we? The fall of Vlad’s Syrian bitch extends a remarkable run of reverses for the Russian czar-manque.
Phillips P. OBrien notes that since his invasion of Ukraine, Putin’s actions have “caused Sweden and Finland to join NATO and it looks like Russia [is going] to lose its base in Syria because it can’t keep enough forces in the area.” And since we’re toting up the butcher’s bill, Putin has managed to seize only “a relatively small part of Ukraine,” while Russia has “suffered more than 750k casualties and seen millions of young, educated people flee the country. Oh, and they squandered billions and billions of dollars and dislocated their economy.”
Another commenter put this into context: Since invading Ukraine, Putin has lost:
1. Black Sea Fleet, and Sevastopol;
2. Kursk region;
3.Finland and Sweden ending neutrality, joining NATO;
4. Syria, navy port in Tartus;
5. Georgia in process of decoupling;
6. Romania drifting away.
As he says,
And yet, Vlad always has Donald, Tulsi, and Pete…
On Meet The Press this morning, Trump was very weird when asked about whether he had spoken to Putin:
This continues to be very weird. In his comments yesterday on Truth Social he didn’t mention his good pal Erdogon and his interests in Syria and neither did he seem to understand that the US has been involved there for years, including when he was president. But then he doesn’t really care about any of that either so it’s not surprising. He did seem to be directing his Truth Social post to Putin saying something about how now is the time for the Ukraine war to end but it was incoherent. The whole thing is very odd.
He appeared on Meet The Press this morning. I’m sure it’s the last thing many of you want to see. But here are a few highlights you should probably watch.
I don’t know about you but I felt my energy and anger return at seeing that miscreant say that he’s going to deport American citizens and well … everything else. He’s feeling his oats and he clearly wants revenge. And he’s obviously is counting on his henchman and hencwoman Patel and Bondi to help him get it. There is simply no doubt about it.
(By the way, I still have to use twitter for these because Blue Sky videos don’t render properly on this platform. Yet.)
WTF is he talking about?
Huh???
He’s right that Assad has been deposed and that Russia and Iran basically said “we’re out” and let it happen. Other than that, this is the usual contradictory, puerile nonsense he spews when he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s over in Paris acting like the president so he’s putting out statements like they are official US policy. They are not, at least not yet. He should just keep his mouth shut but he is incapable of that.
BTW, the US has almost a thousand troops in Syria but whatever…
Celebrating a murder
This story sent chills (TMZ):
Internet sleuths believe they have found the jacket worn by the gunman who killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson … and now it is morbidly flying off the shelves.
On Reddit, a user speculated the suspect’s jacket was a Sherpa Lined Two Picket Hooded Trucker Jacket by Levi’s … sold at Macy’s for the retail price of $225.
The jacket’s popularity has since spread like wildfire on the company’s website … where more than 6,000 people were viewing the jacket at the same time — and nearly 700 were sold in the past 48 hours, according to an item popularity tool on Macy’s site.
The New York Times follows up (Gift link):
A grainy image of his face drew comparisons to Hollywood heartthrobs. A jacket similar to the one he’s wearing on wanted posters is reportedly flying off the shelves. And the words written on the bullets he used to kill a man in cold blood on a sidewalk on Wednesday have become, for some people, a rallying cry.
Three days after a gunman assassinated a top health insurance executive in Midtown Manhattan and vanished, the unidentified suspect has, in some quarters, been venerated as something approaching a folk hero.
The authorities have pleaded for help from the public to find the person who killed the UnitedHealthcare executive, Brian Thompson, who was a husband and father of two children. But in a macabre turn, some people seem to be more interested in rooting for the gunman and thwarting the police’s efforts.
Look, we’re all traumatized by what the Second Coming of Trump represents. Yes, wealth inequality that was bad got worse over the Reaganomics decades. Venture capitalist and early Amazon investor Nick Hanauer is famous for his almost-banned TED talk and his caution a decade ago to “Fellow Zillionaires” that pitchforks are coming for them. His message then:
Wake up, people. It won’t last.
If we don’t do something to fix the glaring inequities in this economy, the pitchforks are going to come for us. No society can sustain this kind of rising inequality. In fact, there is no example in human history where wealth accumulated like this and the pitchforks didn’t eventually come out. You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state. Or an uprising. There are no counterexamples. None. It’s not if, it’s when.
Hanauer has been preaching that message ever since, including in his Pitchfork Economics podcasts. But until this week the pitchforks always seemed metaphorical. Vivid imagery harkening back to 1931’s pre-Code Frankenstein, but metaphorical.
The celebration of a health insurance company CEO’s murder, even if a fringe phenomenon, lifts the lid on a submerged mood in the country that Hanauer saw ten years ago. It’s not unrelated to the racial and xenophobic animus that peeked out from under the sheets with the T-party after the election of Barack Obama. Donald Trump identified that mood and exploited it to get himself elected in 2016. Then after losing reelection in 2020 he threw accelerant onto it and loosed a MAGA mob against the seat of government in Washington, D.C. I’m still traumatized by that.
I’m as big a critic of the modern corporation as anyone. We make Douglas Adams-inspired jokes about corporate bozos being “the first against the wall when the revolution comes.” But calling forth a real revolution with guns or guillotines and targeted murder against elites is a path this country should try to avoid.
It is as chilling as pitifully ironic to see blood lust for corporate moguls bubbling up on the website of Macy’s.
This story is breaking … elsewhere
- Syria’s armed opposition says its fighters have captured the capital, Damascus, and that President Bashar al-Assad has fled. His whereabouts remain unknown.
- The commander of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Abu Mohammed al-Julani, says all state institutions will remain under the supervision of al-Assad’s prime minister until they are handed over officially.
- The announcements come hours after the opposition groups seized several cities in a lightning offensive.
- Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Turkiye and Russia issued a joint statement earlier in the night, describing the crisis as a “dangerous development” and calling for a political solution.
Seems the Islamist rebels already have their solution. The autocrat is gone. What comes next is the question. ISIS? A Taliban? Al-Qaeda?
More from Al Jazeera:
Cars flooding into Syria after al-Assad’s ouster
Nour Qormosh, reporting near Idlib, Syria
We are here, by the N-5 Highway. Cars are moving on the highway with people returning to their homes in Syria for the first time in 14 years.
The joy of the people is insurmountable. We’ve talked to the civilians here as they transport their belongings back into the country. Their joy is shared across the Syrian geography – from Idlib to Hama, Homs, Damascus, and Deraa.
This is the most significant moment in the history of the Syrian revolution.
Two senior Syrian officers told Reuters that Assad had fled Damascus, his destination unknown. The report could not be independently verified.
The senior Emirati diplomat Anwar Gargash declined to say whether Assad was fleeing to the United Arab Emirates.
“When people ask where is Bashar al-Assad going to, I say, you know, when you really look at this, this is really at the end of the day a footnote in history,” he told reporters at a conference in Bahrain.
When opposition forces threatened Assad a decade ago, other government worried that an Islamist government might replace him (Washington Post):
What if Assad fell, analysts asked, only to be replaced by groups that Washington regarded as terrorists? The scenario was given a name: the “catastrophic success.”
The same question is being asked with urgency as intelligence agencies around the world contemplate the sweeping gains over the past week by the Syrian rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS — an Arabic name that translates to the Organization for the Liberation of the Levant.
The group’s pedigree is well known, with historic links to both the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. From Jerusalem and Amman to Washington and Paris, governments are bracing for the real possibility that Damascus could come under the sway of a militant faction that the United States has officially labeled a terrorist organization.
Updates are rolling in every few minutes. It’s too early to know much more. Not that the Sunday talkies won’t spend the morning asking “experts” to speculate. So if speculation your jam, have at it. The dust won’t clear for days.
The Steve Bannon plan is to overwhelm the media with Trump’s horrible nominees. What gets to the MSM, that makes them disqualified, isn’t the same as what makes it to late night comedy shows, or to Fox News, or RW social media.
Part of what we can do with our audiences is to show how weird these people are. There are serious reasons these people are horrible, that would disqualify them to normal people like us. But we need to also point out stuff that the MAGAs have a hard time with, but we can’t reach their channels. If we tried they’d say, “I thought you were COOL WITH DEI, gays, and leather daddies!” So we put stuff out saying, “We’re cool them being gay or leather daddies, but we are not cool with their policies to destroy our national security, are you?”
Frankly I don’t know which weird, corrupt, sick, incompetent or illegal activity of Trump’s nominees will knock them out of the process. But we need to find them and share them. And if we don’t succeed in knocking them out, we need to prepare for weaknesses in the crappy choices number 2 & 3.
Marcy Wheeler was on the Nicole Sandler show talking about all the things the Dems need to point out in other candidates, like Pam Bondi, that we can hammer on during the nomination process.
What we find disqualifying, like failing to protect the people of Florida from bank fraud, THEY like! Such as when Bondi fired the Florida AG staff who were prosecuting the banks offering fraudulent loans. She got donations from one of the companies behind the fraud. The corporations would LOVE and AG that gives them a pass for fraud. So, we have to show all the Trump supporters who were harmed by Bondi’s failure as Florida AG, that she is not going to protect them in the future. (Sadly, people who lost their homes to mortgage fraud, and the attorneys who resigned or were fired don’t have a big lobbying arm, but they are available to talk on camera during a nomination hearing.
Maybe that’s not sick enough, so I look forward to retelling the story of the time Pam Bondi delayed an execution so she can party
Cross posted to Spocko’s Brain @spocko.bsky.social @spocko@mastodon.online
Yes, I know. That’s an oddly generic (some might even say silly) title for a post by someone who has been scribbling about film here for 18 years. Obviously, I love movies. That said, I am about to make a shameful confession (and please withhold your angry cards and letters until you’ve heard me out). Are you sitting down? Here goes:
I haven’t stepped foot in a movie theater since January of 2020.
There. I’ve said it, in front of God and all 7 of my regular readers.
*sigh* I can still remember it, as if it were yesterday:
It turns out that it is not just my imagination (running away with me). A quick Google search of “Seattle rain records” yields such cheery results as a January 29th CNN headline IT’S SUNLESS IN SEATTLE AS CITY WEATHERS ONE OF THE GLOOMIEST STRETCHES IN RECENT HISTORY and a Feb 1st Seattle P-I story slugged with SEATTLE BREAKS RECORD WITH RAIN ON 30 DAYS IN A MONTH. Good times!
February was a bit better: 15 rainy days with 4.1 hours a day of average sunshine. But hey-I didn’t move to the Emerald City to be “happy”. No, I moved to a city that averages 300 cloudy days a year in order to justify my predilection for a sedentary indoor lifestyle.
In fact it was a marvelously gloomy, stormy Sunday afternoon in late January when I ventured out to see Japanese anime master Makato Shinkai’s newest film Weathering with You (yes, this is a tardy review gentle reader…but what do you expect at these prices?). Gregory’s Girl meets The Lathe of Heaven in Shinkai’s romantic fantasy-drama.
That excerpt is from my review of Weathering With You, published February 9, 2020. If I had only known of the more insidious tempest about to make landfall, I would have savored that “…marvelously gloomy, stormy Sunday afternoon in late January” (and every kernel of my ridiculously overpriced popcorn) even more.
Of course, I’m referring to the COVID pandemic, which would soon put the kibosh on venturing to movie theaters (much less any public brick-and-mortar space in general) for quite a spell. Keep in mind, I live in Seattle, which is where the first reported outbreak of note in the continental U.S. occurred; I think it’s fair to say that the fear and paranoia became ingrained here much earlier on than in other parts of the country (and justifiably so).
Well, that’s all fine and dandy (you’re thinking)…but hasn’t the fear and paranoia abated since everything “opened up” again in (2022? 2021? I’ve lost track of the time-space continuum)? Here’s the thing-even before the pandemic, I had been going to theaters less and less frequently due to physical issues. I won’t bore you with details, suffice it to say I had both knees replaced (the first in 2014, the second in 2016)…but it didn’t quite “take”. And admittedly, I still mask up whenever I go to any public venue (including the grocery store). Perhaps that all adds up to “functional agoraphobia” (maybe one of you psych majors can help me out here?).
And you know what? I’m also tired of dealing with traffic, parking hassles, fellow theater patrons who are oblivious to people with disabilities, and astronomical ticket prices (add the $7 box of Junior Mints, and it’s cheaper to wait several months and just buy the Blu-ray).
And get off my lawn, goddammit.
Anyhoo, I haven’t been dashing out on opening weekend to see many first-run films in recent years; at least not the major studio releases that are playing on a bazillion screens. But thanks to “virtual” film festival accreditation, I am still able to screen and review a number of “new” movies (albeit many that have yet to find wider distribution).
So that is my long-winded way of explaining why I have decided not to entitle this (obligatory) end-of-year roundup as “the best” 10 films of 2024. Rather, out of the new films I reviewed on Hullabaloo this year, here are the 10 standouts (sans sand worms or wicked witches). I’ve noted the titles now streaming …hopefully the rest are coming soon to a theater near you!
Bonjour Switzerland (original title: Bon Schuur Ticino) – Bananas meets The Mouse That Roared in this refreshingly old-school political satire directed by Peter Luisi. Beat Schlatter (who co-wrote the screenplay with the director) stars as a mild-mannered German-speaking federal agent who gets tasked with overseeing implementation of a controversial new Swiss law that mandates French as the country’s official language (in true Peter Sellers fashion, Schlatter also plays the high-profile media demagogue who pushed for the law). Problems quickly pile up for the hapless agent; he can barely speak French, his dear old mom becomes radicalized, and he finds himself falling for an Italian woman who belongs to a separatist group he’s been assigned to infiltrate. OK, I’ll say it: This is a hilarious, good-natured romp.
The Dog Thief (original title: El ladrón de perros) – The future doesn’t look so bright for orphaned, semi-literate working class teenager Martin (Franklin Aro). Cruelly ridiculed by his bourgeois schoolmates, Martin ekes out a meager living as a shoeshine boy on the streets of La Paz and is only afforded lodging by the good graces of his late mother’s friend, who works as a maid in the spacious home of an ailing widow. Martin’s most loyal shoeshine customer is well-to-do tailor Mr. Novoa (Alfredo Castro). Novoa is an empty-nester who spends his off-hours training and pampering his prized German Shepherd.
One day, Martin has a sudden brainstorm for a get-rich-quick scheme; he will kidnap Mr. Novoa’s dog and then enlist his best bud to “find” it and collect the reward. As Martin ingratiates himself into insular Mr. Novoa’s life (initially as part of the scheme), an unexpected bond develops between the two, greatly complicating Martin’s not so-masterminded caper.
Reminiscent of P. T. Anderson’s Hard Eight, writer-director Vinko Tomičić Salinas’ film makes excellent use of the La Paz locales, rendered in a decidedly neorealist style (not so surprising, given the title’s wordplay on Vittorio De Sica’s neorealist classic Bicycle Thieves). Keep an eye on this filmmaker.
Hacking Hate – Move over, Lisbeth Salandar…there’s a new hacker in town, and she’s stirring up a hornet’s nest of wingnuts. Simon Klose’s timely documentary follows award-winning Swedish journalist My Vingren as she meticulously constructs a fake online profile, posing as a male white supremacist. Her goal is to smoke out a possible key influencer and glean how he and others fit into right-wing extremist recruiting.
Vingren is like a one-woman Interpol; her investigation soon points her to U.S.-based extremist networks as well, leading her to consult with whistle-blower Anika Collier Navaroli (the former Twitter employee who was instrumental in getting Trump booted off the platform) and Imrab Ahmed (another one of Elon Musk’s least-favorite people, he was sued by the X CEO for exposing the rampant hate speech on the platform).
This isn’t a video game; considering the inherently belligerent nature of the extremist culture she is exposing, Vingren is taking considerable personal risk in this type of investigative journalism (she’s much braver than I am). Especially chilling is the shadowy figure at the center of her investigation, who is like a character taken straight out of a Frederick Forsyth novel. In light of the results of our recent presidential election (and the ancillary right-wing extremist threats to our democracy), this could be the most important documentary of 2024.
In Our Day (original title: Uriui haru) – Look in the dictionary under “quiet observation”, and you’ll find a print of auteur Hong Sang-soo’s character study of two artists (a 40-ish actress and an aging poet), each at a crossroads in their creative journey. Sang-soo’s beautifully constructed narrative chugs along at the speed of life; I understand that this may induce drowsiness with some viewers-but the devil is in the details, and those who pay close attention to them will be richly rewarded.
(Available on Google Play and Apple TV)
Linda Perry: Let it Die Here – Initially bursting onto the music scene in the early 90s by creating and belting out the most distinctive “yeah yeah yeah” hook this side of The Beatles’ “She Loves You” (“What’s Up”), Linda Perry has long since slipped the surly bonds of “4 Non-Blondes’ lead singer with the hat” to become an in-demand songwriter and producer for a number of notable artists (Adele, Christina Aguilera, Brandi Carlisle, Miley Cyrus, Celine Dion, Gwen Stefani, et.al.).
What makes this otherwise by-the-numbers music doc (directed by Don Hardy) really pop is its subject herself: charismatic, indomitable and boundlessly creative. One sequence, which observes Perry as she improvises, produces and arranges one of her own songs (essentially directing an orchestra on the fly) is one of the most riveting captures of the creative process I’ve seen on film since Godard’s Sympathy for the Devil.
The Old Oak – The bookend of a triptych of working-class dramas set in Northeast England (preceded by I, Daniel Blake in 2016 and Sorry We Missed You! in 2019), The Old Oak marks 87-year-old director Ken Loach’s 28th film.
The story (scripted by Paul Laverty) is set in an economically depressed “pit town” on the Northeast coast of England in 2016 (which was 2 years into the implementation of the UK’s Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme), and centers on TJ (Dave Turner), a former labor organizer barely making ends meet as owner and proprietor of “The Old Oak” pub.
One day, a busload of Syrian refugees appears and disembarks in the center of town. Unfortunately, not all the locals appear willing to roll out the welcome wagon. When xenophobic catcalling escalates into a scuffle that results in a young Syrian woman’s camera getting damaged, TJ intervenes and defuses the situation.
What ensues is rife with Loach’s trademarks; not the least of which is giving his cast plenty of room to breathe. The ensemble (which ranges from first-time film actors to veteran players) delivers uniformly naturalistic performances. Hovering somewhere between Do the Right Thing and Ikuru, The Old Oak is raw, uncompromising, and genuinely moving (rare at the multiplex nowadays), with an uplifting message of hope and reconciliation. If this is indeed its director’s swan song-what a lovely, compassionate note to go out on. (Full review)
(Available on Google Play, Amazon Prime, Fandango at Home and Apple TV)
Rainier: A Beer Odyssey –“Raaay-neeEER-BEEERrrrr….” If you lived in Alaska or the Northwest in the 70s and 80s, you’ll “get” that-and likely start chuckling. That said, you don’t have to have lived in Alaska or the Northwest to get a chuckle out of Isaac Olsen’s documentary. Olsen recounts the origin of the small (and unconventional) Seattle ad agency led by madmen Terry Heckler and Gordon Bowker that dreamt up a series of now-iconic Rainier Beer TV ads. A many-tendrilled odyssey indeed, with some unexpected sidebars (like cross-pollination with the inception of the Starbucks empire, and the story behind Mickey Rooney’s involvement with the campaign). A fascinating, entertaining look at the process behind the creative side of marketing, bolstered by a generous helping of the original TV ads.
Restless -Writer-director Jed Hart’s audacious and blackly comic debut feature is driven by a terrific performance by Lyndsey Marshal, who plays a mild-mannered elder care nurse who likes nothing better than spending her off-hours baking, listening to light classical music, and settling in with her cat for some reading and quiet time. Imagine her chagrin when it becomes abundantly clear that her new next-door neighbor likes nothing better than hosting all-night ravers…every night of the week.
Her first few polite requests (usually made around 4am) for the young man and his friends to keep it down are initially met with bemusement, but the situation takes a more sinister turn once she threatens to call the police. The woman’s steady descent into madness and desperation turns a “neighbor from hell” story into a modern Edgar Allan Poe tale. A satisfying revenge fantasy for anyone who’s “been there”, and a solid reinforcement for the old adage, “Watch out for the quiet ones.”
Solitude (original title: Einvera) – Ah, look at all the lonely people. Ninna Pálmadóttir’s quiet drama concerns an unassuming farmer named Gunnar (Thröstur Leó Gunnarsson) who reluctantly sells his beloved horses and relocates to Reykjavik after getting pushed off his land by a hydroelectric project. He has received a generous settlement, which enables him to offer cash for a condo.
For Gunnar, moving to the city is tantamount to getting drop-kicked into the 21st Century; he is overwhelmed by the stimuli. He strikes up a sweet friendship with a bubbly 10-year-old paperboy named Ari. The boy’s parents are separated. While they try to share equal time with their son, squabbles arise over scheduling conflicts, frequently leaving Ari in the lurch. As a result, Gunnar becomes his de facto babysitter. Gunnar’s naivety eventually leads to a misunderstanding that could have serious consequences for him. A beautifully acted treatise on the singularly destructive power of “assumption”.
Under The Grey Sky (original title: Pod szarym niebem) – This “ripped from the headlines” political drama is set during the 2020 Belarusian election. In a genuinely tense and unnerving opening scene, a journalist (Aliaksandra Vaitsekhovich) opposed to the current regime is in a friend’s apartment, live streaming an aggressive police action against demonstrators on the streets below.
Soon after an ominous pass of a police camera drone, the authorities burst in and arrest her. As her Kafkaesque nightmare ensues in the oppressive government’s court system, her husband (also a journalist) suffers his own travails as he is harassed by the police and eventually arrested on trumped-up charges. Based on a true story, writer-director Mara Tamkovich’s film is a sobering reminder that Orwellian totalitarianism is not dead…hell, it’s never even been resting. And yes…it could happen here.
…and just for giggles
Holy Krampus…have I really been writing reviews here for 18 years?! I was but a child of 50 when I began in November of 2006 (I was much older then, but I’m younger than that now). Here are my “top 10” picks for each year since I began writing for Hullabaloo.
(You may want to bookmark this post as a handy reference for movie night).
[Click on title for full review]
2007
Eastern Promises, The Hoax, In the Shadow of the Moon, Kurt Cobain: About a Son, Michael Clayton, My Best Friend, No Country for Old Men, Pan’s Labyrinth, Paprika, Zodiac
2008
Burn After Reading, The Dark Knight, The Gits, Happy Go Lucky, Honeydripper, Man on Wire, Milk, Slumdog Millionaire, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, The Visitor
2009
The Baader Meinhof Complex, Inglourious Basterds, In the Loop, The Limits of Control, The Messenger, A Serious Man, Sin Nombre, Star Trek, Where the Wild Things Are, The Yes Men Fix the World
2010
Creation, Inside Job, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, Little Big Soldier, A Matter of Size, My Dog Tulip, Nowhere Boy, Oceans, The Runaways, Son of Babylon
2011
Another Earth, Certified Copy, The Descendants, Drei, Drive, The First Grader, Midnight in Paris, Summer Wars, Tinker/Tailor/Soldier/Spy, The Trip
2012
Applause, Dark Horse, Killer Joe, The Master, Paul Williams: Still Alive, Rampart, Samsara, Skyfall, The Story of Film: an Odyssey, Your Sister’s Sister
2013
The Act of Killing, Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me, Computer Chess, 56 Up, The Hunt, Mud, The Rocket, The Silence, The Sweeney, Upstream Color
2014
Birdman, Child’s Pose, A Coffee in Berlin, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Kill the Messenger, The Last Days of Vietnam, Life Itself, A Summer’s Tale, The Wind Rises, The Theory of Everything
2015
Chappie, Fassbinder: Love Without Demands, An Italian Name, Liza the Fox Fairy, Love and Mercy, A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, Song of the Sea, Tangerines, Trumbo, When Marnie Was There
2016
The Curve, Eat That Question, Hail, Caesar!, Home Care, Jackie, Mekko, Older Than Ireland, Snowden, The Tunnel, Weiner
2017
After the Storm, Bad Black, Becoming Who I Was, Blade Runner 2049, A Date for Mad Mary, Endless Poetry, I Am Not Your Negro, Loving Vincent, The Women’s Balcony, Your Name
2018
Big Sonia, BlacKkKlansman, Fahrenheit 11/9, The Guilty, Let the Sunshine In, Little Tito and the Aliens, Outside In, Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda, Wild Wild Country, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
2019
David Crosby: Remember My Name, Dolemite is My Name, Driveways, The Edge of Democracy, The Irishman, Monos, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Putin’s Witnesses, This is Not Berlin, Wild Rose
2020
Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Desert One, Love Spreads, Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Always, Pacified, 76 Days, Tommaso, The Trial of the Chicago 7, Weathering With You
2021
Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road, Fire Music, Heist of the Century, Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time, The Last Film Show, The Paper Tigers, The Pebble and the Boy, Surge, Waikiki, Whelm
2022
Day by Day, Drunken Birds, Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song, The Integrity of Joseph Chambers, The Man in the Basement, Moonage Daydream, My Love Affair With Marriage, Nude Tuesday, Sweetheart Deal, Polystyrene: I Am a Cliche
2023
Adolfo, Downtown Owl, Hey, Viktor!, I Like Movies, L’immensità, The Mojo Manifesto, Next Sohee, Once Within a Time, One Night With Adela, Ride On
More reviews at Den of Cinema
— Dennis Hartley
In February 1941, Henry Luce, the influential publisher of Time and Life magazines, penned an article heralding the “American Century,” a post-war era in which the United States would apply its newfound standing as the “dominant power in the world” to spread “free economic enterprise” and “the abundant life” around the globe. Luce envisioned the United States as “the principal guarantor of the freedom of the seas” and “the dynamic leader of world trade,” and saw in this future “possibilities of such enormous human progress as to stagger the imagination.”
Until now.
Donald Trump’s second presidential victory represents a sharp break, and perhaps a permanent one, with the American Century framework. It’s a framework that rested on four key pillars:
A rules-based economic order that afforded the U.S. free access to vast international markets.
A guarantee of safety and security for its allies, backed up by American military might.
An increasingly liberal immigration system that strengthened America’s economy and complemented military and trade partnerships with the rest of the non-Communist world.
And finally, in Luce’s words, a “picture of an America” that valued — and exported to the rest of the world — “its technical and artistic skills. Engineers, scientists, doctors … developers of airlines, builders of roads, teachers, educators.”
Though this was the second time Trump won the presidency, the meaning of the 2024 election is different. For one, he won the popular vote — becoming the first Republican to do so in the last 20 years. What’s more, in his most recent electoral bid, Trump and his advisers (including his running mate) made tariffs, rapprochement with foreign dictators, a drawback from NATO and gutting federal agencies core themes of their campaign. Much more so than in 2016, when Trump lacked any demonstrated track record in political office, this campaign was very specific about the world it intended to construct — and nearly 50 percent of voters endorsed that program. This time, the president-elect is quite serious about ending the American Century. In fact, he’s already making moves to tear it down.
Maybe it’s for the best. Empires are costly. But it would have been nice if we didn’t just take a wrecking ball to the world order with nothing to replace it but ego and bluster — and nuclear weapons.
The article traces the development of the “American Century” and what it came to mean. To the extent it was a good thing (and it often wasn’t) we will lose more than the rest of the world when it’s gone.
This is America:
We had a lot of success working together on defense and offense too…
It’s so damned embarrassing.
Here’s another example of how the champion of the working man Donald Trump is filling cabinet with robber barons and their henchmen (and women.)
Over the past six years, Pam Bondi has worked as a Washington lobbyist for one of the top firms in the country, representing corporate behemoths such as Amazon and Uber.
Now, some of the same clients her firm represents are squaring off against the Department of Justice she’s poised to lead. And corporate interests are cautiously optimistic that her selection will shepherd in an administration more friendly to their interests than President Joe Biden’s.
Her appointment, lobbyists say, could be a win for major U.S. corporations that find themselves crosswise with the Justice Department, including health care giant UnitedHealthcare and social media company TikTok. Those companies have paid tens of thousands of dollars this year to Bondi’s current employer, Ballard Partners, according to lobbying disclosures.
Bondi’s confirmation as attorney general would also pose a myriad of ethical questions about what kind of access she will grant her firm and whether she will recuse herself from issues involving Ballard.
She’s not one of the 14 billionaires he nominated. She just does their bidding. No wonder the Big Money Boyz are so excited. And she will never recuse. Trump considers that a personal betrayal.
On every level this is the beginning of a new gilded age. As Brian Beutler wrote:
Taking Republicans literally, and watching Trump build a government, the incoming administration really does seem to want to establish a new Gilded Age. To shed Reagan-era pretenses of top-down prosperity and just loot the place.
“The change in ideology is clear from Trump’s cabinet picks,” wrote the historian
Heather Cox Richardson. “While the total net worth of the officials in Biden’s Cabinet was about $118 million, Laura Mannweiler of U.S. News and World Report noted, a week ago she estimated the worth of Trump’s roster of appointees to be at least $344.4 billion, more than the gross domestic product of 169 countries. That number did not include his pick for treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, whose net worth is hard to find.”
And of course Trump’s cabinet doesn’t include his interloping co-president, Elon Musk, the richest man in the world. When Musk isn’t fusing his business interests to Trump’s political ones—hectoring and threatening critics, steering contracts his own way—he’s drawing up plans to cut trillions of dollars out of health-care spending for poor and working class people.
[…]
Robber Barons—not as hyperbole, but in their self-conception. Trump in particular seems to valorize the Gilded Age (or what he knows of it) because the industrialists who purchased the government back then lived opulent lives in gaudy mansions. As best I can tell, that’s why he says silly things like, “in the 1890s, our country was probably the wealthiest it ever was.”
And, I think it’s no coincidence that the GOP’s new appeal to voters is largely bereft of Reaganite cliches. They’ve turned the clock back a century further than that. They don’t talk about freedom or liberty. The speak instead in the language of fiat, coercion, zero-sum conflict, and sacrifice. (Other people’s, naturally.)
Well at least the bathrooms will be safe from trans people. Apparently, that’s the most important issue we face.