You’ve probably heard that Jack Kemp has died. I always had a love/hate thing for the guy. He was football hero first in my household growing up, so he seems to have been around forever.
He was a real pioneer in race relations from way back as a member of the NFL and later as a Republican officeholder and was truly a force for good in that regard. He was also an anomaly in the GOP during much of his time in politics, as they pursued the Southern Strategy.
But he was also a Randian fool on the subject of economics and helped the lead the country down the garden path of supply-side economics. His sunny belief that money grew on trees as long as it wasn’t taxed was very, very good for the wealthy in this country. The rest of us, not so much.
One thing’s for sure — there aren’t very many like him left in the part.
Shakespeare in gloves: Joseph Fiennes fights dirty.
I always screen prison dramas with a bit of trepidation. While there have been quite a few outstanding ones produced over the years, it’s a movie genre that has become a bit hoary. What more could they possibly do with it? I sometimes amuse myself by ticking off my mental checklist of prison drama clichés as I watch. I played this little game while screening The Escapist, the feature film debut for British writer-director Rupert Wyatt:
Shiv in the kidneys? Check.
Suffocation by pillow? Check.
Shower rape scene? Check.
Brutal fistfight (with wagering) while guards look the other way? Check.
Someone takes a nasty tumble from the upper cell block level? Check.
Cat-calls and wolf-whistles for the “new meat” as they get checked in? Check.
Drug vending via library cart? Check.
And of course, a daring, seemingly impossible escape plan? Check.
Just as I was thinking that I had The Escapist sussed and proceeded to settle myself in to brace for another intense (if somewhat predictable) British prison drama along the lines of Scum, McVicar or The Criminal, I soon found myself sitting up a little straighter. Then, before I knew it, I was literally on the edge of my seat, breathlessly caught up in an exciting and compelling story that is capped off by an unexpectedly mind-blowing finale.
The story is set in a London facility that vibes vintage Wormwood Scrubs (in actuality, Dublin’s darkly atmospheric Kilmainham Jail). Brian Cox stars as an aging, life-tired convict named Frank Perry, who is doing life without parole. When he learns that his daughter has fallen gravely ill as a result of her struggle with drug addiction, he devises an escape plan that involves literally worming one’s way through the city’s hellish labyrinth of underground infrastructure to freedom. He enlists a team of four disparate personalities (played to the hilt by Dominic Cooper, Seu Jorge, Liam Cunningham and Joseph Fiennes)-who are bonded together by a fierce desire to escape their bleak milieu.
The storyline is relatively simple, but it’s really all about the journey (in this case, both literally and figuratively). The attention grabber in Wyatt’s screenplay (co-written with Daniel Hardy) is the flashback/flash forward construct; it’s an oft-used narrative trick that can be distracting or gimmicky in the wrong hands, but it’s very effective here. As the escape itself unfolds, the events leading up to it are revealed to us in a very deliberate, Chinese puzzle-box fashion. With this device, the filmmakers cleverly build up the dramatic tension on two distinct fronts, and by the time they intersect, you’ll have to remind yourself to breathe. What’s killing me here is that I can’t reveal the classic crime thriller that this most closely recalls-as that would be tantamount to a major spoiler!
The actors are all superb, particularly Liam Cunningham and the Scottish-born Cox, who I think is frequently underrated. He’s one of those highly skilled, “all purpose” character actors whose name may escape you, but you definitely know him when you see him. He worked extensively in British television from the early 70s thru the mid-80s, but didn’t register a blip with U.S. audiences until his memorable turn as (the original!) Hannibal Lecktor in Michael Mann’s 1986 cult thriller, Manhunter. I have to admit, I didn’t recognize Joseph Fiennes until the credits rolled; I guess he is more of a chameleon than I had previously thought. Damian Lewis is quite good as the prison kingpin, and Steven MacKintosh gives an edgy performance as his dangerous, perpetually tweaked brother.
I think Wyatt will be a director to watch. I can tell that he is a filmmaker who has studied the masters. There are echoes of Carol Reed, particularly in a sequence that takes the escapees through the London sewers; the highly expressionistic use of chiaroscuro lighting is obviously homage to The Third Man. He’s not overly flashy, and perhaps most refreshingly, does not appear to be trying to remake Reservoir Dogs (like so many first-time out directors are these days). There’s no escaping one fact: this is a terrific film.
Note: The Escapist is in limited release in theatres, but is also currently available on IFC pay-per-view (although after watching it at home, I wish I had opted for the big screen.)
As most of you know, Dennis Hartley has been doing film reviews here every Saturday night for over two years now. Some of you come here specifically for that feature every week. (You know who you are…) His work helps support the site because many of you buy DVDs on his recommendation and the blog gets a little percentage from the sale. His lists of “best of” are very popular and often result in quite a nice little piece of change from Amazon.
For the past two years, Dennis has also covered unusual, independent films at the Seattle International Film festival, sometimes spotting a movie that later gets wider recognition. We’ve had some excellent feedback from some of the filmmakers and Seattle locals. It’s a nice way to support independent and foreign film making and give our readers a sense of some of the more offbeat fare that’s being produced out there.
For many years Dennis was credentialed for the festival because of his day job as a manager of a radio station that help sponsor the event. This year, the station is tightening its belt like a lot of businesses and wasn’t able to do that. So Dennis applied for credentials as a blogger critic, citing this blog’s national exposure, traffic, and influence as well as his past participation on behalf of the radio station. They turned him down. Apparently, bloggers are personas non grata at the festival. This was despite my offer (and their excited acceptance) of a blog ad for free for the run of the festival. Not that it’s worth a ton of money, but it’s not chump change either.
I would hate to think they turned him down because of my political views, but that’s certainly a possibility. (Dennis did send them the profile that was done of me in the LA Times last year…) But they gave no reason.
Anyway, I think this is a shame. Dennis has covered the festival wonderfully for them the last couple of years and loyally attended it for years before that. It’s not inexpensive and he can’t possibly justify covering it on his own dime the way he would normally do it, nor should he. Blogs are legitimate media now, and after featuring the weekly column for more than two years, a national, well trafficked blog like this one is a legitimate media outlet. They should credential him.
So, if you feel like supporting Dennis’ efforts, and want to make the point that well trafficked blogs should be considered media for these purposes, you could help out by sending a (very polite) note to the Managing Director, telling her you value the coverage of the festival on Hullabaloo and asking her to reconsider. If blogs and their readers don’t ask for respect, they won’t get it.
Update: Thanks everyone for helping get out the word. The people at SIFF have kindly reconsidered and Dennis will be credentialled:
Dear Digby,
Thanks so very much for bringing this to our attention. After reading all of the letters we received over the weekend from your readers, we can certainly ascertain that Mr. Hartley¹s reviews are read around the country, by a loyal and passionate following. Based on this additional information and further research, we have decided to reverse our initial decision and will be extending press credentials to Mr. Hartley for SIFF 2009. We have reached out to Mr. Hartley this morning to inform him personally.
I do want to assure you and your readers that we recognize the importance of blogs and have many bloggers on our press list. We do our best in researching all those who approach us, accrediting those with legitimate blogs and healthy readerships. Of course, as a film festival, we are paying most attention to those blogs that focus on film, entertainment, and pop culture. We did not understand the impact of Mr. Hartley¹s Saturday film reviews on what is first and foremost a political blog.
We¹re delighted to learn that so many of your readers take great interest in independent and international film. It¹s heartening to know that, through Mr. Hartley¹s work, readers around the world can learn a little about SIFF and a lot about the excellent filmmakers we work so hard to showcase.
Thanks again,
Deborah
I urge you all to attend the festival if you are in the area. And Dennis will, obviously, keep the rest of us up to date on all the latest offerings.
Earlier today, Howie held a Blue America chat with progressive Virginia state legislator Margi Vanderhye Cox, who is BA’s first endorsement of the year. You are probably wondering why we are endorsing an incumbent Virginia state legislator, but there’s a very good reason for it: she is being challenged by one of the dirtiest GOP operatives in American history, Barbara Comstock.
I’ve written a lot about Comstock over the years and Jane did a full dossier, here; she’s one of those Zelig types who turns up at every low down GOP smear operation, from Dan Burton’s witch hunts to the dirty campaign against Al Gore to her protege Monica Goodling’s installation at the Justice Department and Scooter Libby’s defense fund. Her fingerprints are on virtually every GOP dirty trick of the last 15 years.
Comstock, typically, is trying to enter elective politics by collecting huge money from the wealthy GOP establishment to take down a decent, true blue progressive incumbent. It’s what she does. And like Ralph Reed before her, she and people like her need to be shown that the kind of behavior they engaged in disqualifies them from ever holding office. There should be no reward for the sewer politics with which Barbara Comstock and her movement conservative cohorts made their bones.
Check out Howie’s post and Cox’s comments and if you feel moved to help ensure that a right wing dirt monger is given no quarter, you can donate to her campaign here.
As I mentioned, Comstock is a partisan hit woman with a long list of clients and is awash in dirty Republican blood money. Sadly, she is also is a villager in good standing, so I doubt the Democratic establishment will be much help here. (It could be socially embarrassing for them.) She might easily end up overwhelming this race unless Margi gets a hand up from the netroots.
First they tortured in ticking time bomb cases but I didn’t mind because it was a clear and imminent danger.
Second they tortured “slow-fuse” high value detainees and I didn’t mind, because you never know what might happen.
Third they tortured Iraqi and Afghan prisoners who weren’t high value, but who might have had useful information, and I didn’t mind, because they were acting in good faith.
Fourth they tortured prisoners to establish a link between Al Qaeda and Saddam, and I didn’t mind, because surely there must have been such a connection.
Finally, they came to torture me, and nobody cared, because if I was being tortured, I obviously deserved to be tortured, and, as Peggy Noonan says, some things are just mysterious and it’s best to just keep on walking.
Of course, if you haven’t done anything wrong you have nothing to worry about. None of our torture techniques leave lasting damage, which is what separates us from the evil ones.
Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) said Friday that he will oppose legislation that would give people the option of a public health insurance plan. The move puts him on the opposite side of two-thirds of Americans.
A poll released this week by Consumer Reports National Research Center showed that 66 percent of Americans back the creation of a public health plan that would compete with private plans. Nelson, in comments made to CQ, joins the 16 percent of poll respondents who said they oppose the plan.
Nelson’s problem, he told CQ, is that the public plan would be too attractive and would hurt the private insurance plans. “At the end of the day, the public plan wins the game,” Nelson said. Including a public option in a health plan, he said, was a “deal breaker.”
The problem, as President Nelson explained, is that the public plan might be too good a deal for Americans, leading them to want to purchase it. And that would just be terrible. Terrible for Ben Nelson, anyway, because his contributions would dry up.
The company Nelson finds himself in is laid out clearly: business, the insurance industry, and Republicans. Of course, this isn’t surprising, considering his campaign donation history. Open Secrets says Nelson received $608,709 from the insurance industry in 2007-2008, making the insurance industry his biggest donor group, more than lawyers and even lobbyists.
And so, Nelson has decided to bow to the wishes of his campaign contributors, instead of standing up for what 73% of the American public want: A choice of a public health insurance option.
Actually, I think we do put too much emphasis on the money game as the reason for politician’s every move. Nelson probably just has a personal, cultural, ideological relationship to conservative interests, and simply cannot envision progress of this ilk. Plus, publicly opposing his own party makes him a darling of the DC media circuit and increases his clout. Despite the fact that reconciliation instructions mean that Democrats could opt for passage with only 50 votes, Nelson will get lots of publicity as he, according to the article, tries “to assemble a coalition of like-minded centrists opposed to the creation of a public plan, as a counterweight to Democrats pushing for it.” And the chattering class will praise his bold centrism and ability to say no to his hippie cadres.
He may not be successful – in this case, Democrats on the left really are threatening no deal without a public plan, although what form that plan takes is more the question – but it’ll sure give him that unbeatable stature. That’s what makes a President a President.
I really thought, despite a highly successful run in New York, the Wooster Group’s La Didone would never be seen again. This morning, however, I learned that it will be performed at Redcat, the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater in Los Angeles from June 11 through the 21st. If you have even the slightest interest in non-narrative/experimental/very cool theater, I strongly suggest you go. I was so amazed I saw it twice and I am by no means enamored of most Wooster Groop productions.
La Didone combines a performance of Cavalli’s 1641 opera about Dido and Aeneas with a re-enactment of Mario Bava’s sci-fi cult film, Planet of the Vampires (which, as Dennis will tell you, surely influenced Ridley Scott’s Alien). Somehow, it works – not as camp, not as some incomprehensible pomo hogwash, but rather as a weird kind of apocalyptic draama in which the experience of falling in love is likened to an infection by an alien life form. It’s heartbreaking and genuinely disturbing.The parallels between the opera and the movie, which seem to have nothing in common, are uncanny.
Also uncanny are the performances, especially mezzo-soprano Hai-Ting Chinn, who plays both Dido and one of the doomed members of the starship’s crew. The staging is also superb, with appropriately kitschy space suits and Baroque costumes – Neptune’s a hoot, as is Cupid – and a Ben Burtt-level of near-continuous electronic walla. (You do know who Ben Burtt is, right? Shame on you!)
Anyway, if you’re in LA go see it. You’ll either love it or come away convinced that whoever recommended you see La Didone is…not well.
I’m working my way through all the links in farmgirl’s terrific post on “Swine Flu, NAFTA and U.S. farm subsidies.” But I wanted to share with you a link she provided to a pretty good Nightline report on industrial pig farming including footage shot in La Gloria, Mexico, where, apparently, the earliest cases of the swine flu outbreak were reported and which lies some 12 miles away from a hug industrial hog farm owned by a Smithfield subsidiary. For those, like Digby, who were horrified by an earlier post of mine that quoted descriptions of the disgusting conditions on these farms, don’t worry. The Nightline report shows nothing that will sicken you. Unless, that is, you realize that that beauty shot of a pond is not a pond of water.
Several commenters have objected to my refusal to accede to the wishes of corporate pork production and euphemize swine flu by calling it something else. Their argument is that calling swine flu “swine flu” harms small, independent pork producers. Farm Girl, who has studied food issues closely and certainly cares deeply about small, independent farming, agrees with me:
…Mexico’s swine flu (and keep calling it that, no matter what the National Pork Producers say…)
In responding to the objections, I also posted several links to scientists’ discussion of swine flu that make the point that the term is accurate (go here, here, and here, for example. ) In comments to my previous post, Glen Tomkins writes:
Long-established practice in the field is to characterize strains of Influenza A first and foremost by which species it attacks. Thus we have avian (or bird) flu, swine flu, horse flu, dog flu and human flu.
There are other ways to characterize a given strain, such as by which type of the two antigenic glycoproteins it displays, and by this scheme, this swine flu is H1N1, and the avian flu of recent concern is H5N1.
But characterization by the animal of origin is the more basic and informative classification, and the HxNx name should be used as the primary name only if we’re talking about a strain of human flu. The animal vs human flu distinction is the most basic and informative because strains of flu adapted to animals other than humans tend to behave very differently in humans than strains adapted to us. The animal strains tend to cause more severe illness and death, because of some combination of our not being well-adapted to them, and their being not well-adapted to us. A microbe that uses us as its meal plan does not want to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs,and tends to do so only insofar as it hasn’t “learned” any better by long practice at adapting to us. But these animal strains also tend to not spread as readily among humans, presumably because that trick, much like not killing us, also requires adaptation to our peculiarities.
So it’s “swine flu”, not because we have it in for the porciculturists among us, or even because “swine flu” is a sexier phrase for CNN to use than “H1N1 flu”, but because that’s the way the nomenclature works, and works most effectively to convey important differences in expected disease behavior that calling it “H1N1” would fail to convey.
Exactly.
It strikes me as exceedingly weird to insist that we describe the agent of a potential pandemic with a pretentious, and less accurate, euphemism. To do so at the insistence of powerful corporations because it might hurt their profits is simply outrageous. Again, regarding the argument that no, it’s not the big guys who will be hurt, but rather the small pig farmer -well, the real danger to small pig farming is not an ignorant and transient association – eating pork products, even disgusting industrially “raised” pork products can’t give you swine flu, obviously – but rather the predatory, illegal, immoral, unhealthy, and downright repulsive practices of Smithfield and their ilk, who have consolidated production and ruthlessly driven many small producers out of business.
On a personal note, several commenters said my previous post sounded like a rightwing blogger. Since I started blogging, I’ve been called, usually in a tone of severe accusation, a communist, zionist, anti-semite, faggot, hetero, atheist, christian apologist, asswipe, moonbat, ignorant, know-it-all, elitist, low-life, and many, many more things. I can only respond:
Just don’t care call me an upstart! No man or woman lives who can call a tristero an upstart!
It was “Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day” at the Franklin Correctional Institution, and Sgt. Walter Schmidt wanted to give the kids an idea of what their parents do.
So he took out a handheld stun device and zapped them with 50,000 volts of electricity.
The children, whose ages are not available, reportedly yelped in pain, fell to the ground and grabbed red burn marks on their arms. One was taken to a nearby hospital.
DOC spokeswoman Jo Ellyn Rackleff said in an e-mail, “We believe that a number of children may have received a shock.”
Schmidt, the arsenal sergeant at the Panhandle prison, said he asked parents for permission to shock the kids.
“When they said ‘sure,’ I went ahead and did it,” he said by phone Friday.
Three days after the April 24 incident, Warden Duffie Harrison wrote Schmidt that his “retention would be detrimental to the best interests of the state” because he had “engaged in inappropriate conduct while demonstrating weapons … to several kids during a special event at the institution.”
“You tased at least two kids to demonstrate the EID, which is in direct violation of procedure and placed the department at risk of litigation,” Harrison wrote.
Schmidt was terminated after 14 years with the Department of Corrections.
“It wasn’t intended to be malicious, but educational,” Schmidt said. “The big shock came when I got fired.”
DOC Secretary Walt McNeil expressed concern for the children, whose names were not released, and ordered a full investigation into the matter.
Schmidt said he could not give more details about what happened because of the investigation.
Electronic Immobilization Devices such as the one Schmidt demonstrated are typically used to subdue unruly or uncooperative inmates.
Unlike the Taser, which is fired at a distance and delivers its shock via dart-tipped wires, the EID Schmidt used must be in direct contact with the person to shock them. The 50,000 volts emitted by the device are 450 times as strong as the current in a household electrical outlet.
Somehow or another these correctional opfficers seem to have gotten the idea that making human beings feel horrifying, pain that totally disrupts the neural and muscular system is so harmless you can even use it on little children. Where ever would he get that idea?
And by the way, any parent who gives someone permission to use that thing on their children should have their kids removed from the home. They are far too dangerous to have kids anywhere near them.
Blogometer picked up this interesting tidbit from Red State that perfectly illustrates the right’s problem:
Meanwhile, RedState’s hogan wants Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) to replace ex-Republican Arlen Specter (D-PA) as the Ranking Member on the Judiciary Cmte: “Jeff Sessions should be Republican Ranking Member on the Judiciary Committee. Not [UT Sen.] Orrin Hatch. Not [IA Sen.] Chuck Grassley. […] To have Orrin Hatch or Chuck Grassley at the helm would be an unmitigated disaster. Each are cut from the same cloth — that of the old guard Republicans in the Senate who have given us the train wreck that the Party has become. They would hire terrible staffers who would neither be the smartest lawyers nor actually conservative — and, potentially, maintain a significant number of Specter’s former staff. Jeff Sessions, on the other hand, would field a talented team who could educate America on just who America is getting in the next Supreme Court justice.”
Sessions is an ignorant ideologue who was denied a federal judgeship when it turned out he was a raging bigot:
Sessions entered national politics in the mid-’80s not as a politician but as a judicial nominee. Recommended by a fellow Republican from Alabama, then-Senator Jeremiah Denton, Sessions was Ronald Reagan’s choice for the U.S. District Court in Alabama in the early spring of 1986. Reagan had gotten cocky by then, as more than 200 of his uberconservative judicial appointees had been rolled out across the country without serious opposition (this was pre-Robert Bork). That is, until the 39-year-old Sessions came up for review.
Sessions was U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama. The year before his nomination to federal court, he had unsuccessfully prosecuted three civil rights workers–including Albert Turner, a former aide to Martin Luther King Jr.–on a tenuous case of voter fraud. The three had been working in the “Black Belt” counties of Alabama, which, after years of voting white, had begun to swing toward black candidates as voter registration drives brought in more black voters. Sessions’s focus on these counties to the exclusion of others caused an uproar among civil rights leaders, especially after hours of interrogating black absentee voters produced only 14 allegedly tampered ballots out of more than 1.7 million cast in the state in the 1984 election. The activists, known as the Marion Three, were acquitted in four hours and became a cause célèbre. Civil rights groups charged that Sessions had been looking for voter fraud in the black community and overlooking the same violations among whites, at least partly to help reelect his friend Senator Denton.
On its own, the case might not have been enough to stain Sessions with the taint of racism, but there was more. Senate Democrats tracked down a career Justice Department employee named J. Gerald Hebert, who testified, albeit reluctantly, that in a conversation between the two men Sessions had labeled the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU ) “un-American” and “Communist-inspired.” Hebert said Sessions had claimed these groups “forced civil rights down the throats of people.” In his confirmation hearings, Sessions sealed his own fate by saying such groups could be construed as “un-American” when “they involve themselves in promoting un-American positions” in foreign policy. Hebert testified that the young lawyer tended to “pop off” on such topics regularly, noting that Sessions had called a white civil rights lawyer a “disgrace to his race” for litigating voting rights cases. Sessions acknowledged making many of the statements attributed to him but claimed that most of the time he had been joking, saying he was sometimes “loose with [his] tongue.” He further admitted to calling the Voting Rights Act of 1965 a “piece of intrusive legislation,” a phrase he stood behind even in his confirmation hearings
All of that’s a GOP qualification for elected office in Alabama, so being rejected on that basis naturally vaulted him into the Senate. Making him the ranking member today means the Republicans will put their ugliest face forward during judicial confirmation hearings. But hey, it’s their long, ongoing funeral.
The assertion that he’s the guy with the smart staffers may very well be true. I don’t know. But the idea that it’s Orrin Hatch and Chuck Grassley who are to blame for the Party’s fortunes, while confederate radicals like Sessions are the great hope for the future makes me laugh. And it’s a perfect illustration of the GOP’s problem. Hatch and Grassley are to the right of the vast majority of Americans at the moment but have longstanding mainstream conservo-cred. Sessions, on the other hand, is the very picture of the harsh, hard-right movement conservatism that the country has rejected. Bring him on.
These wingnuts truly seem to believe that the reason people voted for a left leaning Democratic government across the board was because they actually wanted a far right government. If that makes sense to you, then you must be a conservative too.
, I soon found myself sitting up a little straighter. Then, before I knew it, I was literally on the edge of my seat, breathlessly caught up in an exciting and compelling story that is capped off by an unexpectedly mind-blowing finale.
(like so many first-time out directors are these days). There’s no escaping one fact: this is a terrific film.
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
(1997), 
(