This week: * Joe E. Brown bumbles into trouble (see Tuesday); * a mélange of crime thrillers with men on the run (Thursday, Friday, and Sunday); * and Stanwyck and Fonda have fun in a slapstick murder mystery (Saturday).
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Monday—July 27th
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Tuesday—July 28th
11:00 AM—Son of a Sailor (1933) A lovesick fool bumbles into espionage and finds a stolen plane. Cast: Joe E. Brown, Jean Muir, Thelma Todd. Dir: Lloyd Bacon. BW-73 mins, TV-G
4:00 PM—Alibi Ike (1935) A brash baseball star gets mixed up with gamblers and a pretty young girl. Cast: Joe E. Brown, Olivia de Havilland, Ruth Donnelly. Dir: Ray Enright. BW-72 mins, TV-G, CC
8:00 PM—The Prisoner of Zenda (1952) An Englishman who resembles the king of a small European nation gets mixed up in palace intrigue when his look-alike is kidnapped. Cast: Stewart Granger, Deborah Kerr, James Mason. Dir: Richard Thorpe. C-100 mins, TV-PG, CC, DVS
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Wednesday—July 29th
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Thursday—July 30th
6:00 AM—The Most Dangerous Game (1932) A big game hunter decides to stalk human prey. Cast: Joel McCrea, Fay Wray, Leslie Banks. Dir: Irving Pichel. BW-63 mins, TV-PG
12:45 PM—Out of the Past (1947) A private eye becomes the dupe of a homicidal moll. Cast: Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas. Dir: Jacques Tourneur. BW-97 mins, TV-PG, CC, DVS
2:30 PM—Cry Danger (1951) An innocent ex-con sets out to find the real criminals. Cast: Dick Powell, Rhonda Fleming, Richard Erdman. Dir: Robert Parrish. BW-79 mins, TV-PG, CC
4:00 PM—While the City Sleeps (1956) Reporters compete to catch a serial killer. Cast: Dana Andrews, Ida Lupino, Vincent Price. Dir: Fritz Lang. BW-100 mins, TV-PG, CC
"Multi-plotted melodrama set in a newspaper office. Andrews is the hottest hack in the outfit. Price is the ambitious new boy — inheritor of his late father's media empire — who offers a shiny new position to the man who can track down the insane killer who's terrorizing the city. Lang, the master of this kind of material, crafts a gripping, fast-moving neo-noir — one of the best films of his late period." — From Amazon.com
6:00 PM—Spellbound (1945) A psychiatrist tries to help the man she loves solve a murder buried in his subconscious. Cast: Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Michael Chekhov. Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. BW-111 mins, TV-PG, CC
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Friday—July 31st
2:00 PM—Dark Passage (1947) A man falsely accused of his wife's murder escapes to search for the real killer. Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Agnes Moorehead. Dir: Delmer Daves. BW-106 mins, TV-PG, CC, DVS
10:00 PM—Tokyo Joe (1949) An American in post-war Japan gets caught up in the black market. Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Sessue Hayakawa, Alexander Knox. Dir: Stuart Heisler. BW-89 mins, TV-PG
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Saturday—August 1st
12:00 PM—The Mad Miss Manton(1938) A daffy socialite gets her friends mixed up in a murder investigation. Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, Sam Levene. Dir: Leigh Jason. BW-80 mins, TV-G, CC
6:00 PM—The Wrong Man (1956) A musician is mistaken for a vicious thief, with devastating results. Cast: Henry Fonda, Vera Miles, Anthony Quayle. Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. BW-105 mins, TV-PG
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Sunday—August 2nd
4:00 AM—The Long Night (1947) A veteran tries to free his former love from a sadistic lover. Cast: Henry Fonda, Barbara Bel Geddes, Vincent Price. Dir: Anatole Litvak. BW-97 mins, TV-G
10:00 PM—North by Northwest (1959) An advertising man is mistaken for a spy, triggering a deadly cross-country chase. Cast: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason. Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. C-136 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format, DVS
Mann's 'Public Enemies' Marred by Moral Relativism
Michael Mann's Public Enemies conveys some impressive insights into modernity, but his choice to avoid the truth about his central characters exemplifies how the contemporary denial of moral clarity destroys drama and truth.
Public Enemies, directed by Michael Mann and starring Johnny Depp and Christian Bale, attempts to tackle some big ideas. Unfortunately, it misses most of them, and has aesthetic weaknesses as well. Particularly egregious is the film's mistaken attempt to create greater audience sympathy for a criminal than he merits, as it falsifies the drama and makes the characters less interesting than they should be.
Mann, the director of superb crime films such as Manhunter and Heat and creator of the television series Miami Vice, tells the story of John Dillinger, a real-life bank robber whom the film depicts as having become something of a folk hero during the 1930s, and Melvin Purvis, the FBI agent assigned to bring him down.
As is typical of Mann's films (note the examples mentioned above), Public Enemies deals with two equally matched central characters on opposite sides of law. The film's title--which alludes to the Jimmy Cagney gangster film Public Enemy--the two men are very public enemies, and their adversarial relationship is at the center of the film. Dillinger and Purvis are both highly talented men, but one uses his talents for good and the other uses them for evil.
That's a laudable emphasis, in that it foregrounds a belief in moral responsibility, as opposed to the moral relativism that became increasingly common in the culture during the past few decades.
Unfortunately, Mann's dramatic approach has an important flaw: by virtue of his actions, the criminal character has a powerful obstacle to the audience's sympathies--the harm he does to other people must necessarily be somewhat unattractive. As a result, Mann has to suguarcoat Dillinger and underplay Purvis's virtues in order to give them a more equal hold on the audience's sympathies.
For example, we see Dillinger as being greatly devoted to his girlfriend, Billy Frechette, but we are shown nothing about Purvis's personal life. The film alludes to Dillinger's predilection for prostitutes, but it places much more emphasis on his monogamous (though unmarried) relationship with Billie--which is not true to the historical facts. In addition, during one of his bank robberies Dillinger refuses to take the money of an individual patron, saying he's interested only in "the bank's money."
Regardless of whether the real-life Dillinger may have said or thought that, the exchange is obviously meant to generate audience sympathy. What is particularly corrupt about this moment is that the obvious logical rejoinder--that all the money in the bank is ultimately some individual's money--is not given a hearing.
Reinforcing the positive depiction of the criminal Dillinger is the film's references to him as being a folk hero. These may have some basis in history (though I have my doubts about whether these Depression-era criminals were as widely considered to be heroes as postwar American historians made them out to be), but the references certainly must undermine the audience's natural repugnance at his crimes.
All of this seems too obviously an attempt to avoid creating a story with a clear hero and definite villain, in deference to the mistaken notion that life is always a matter of shades of gray. That is quite false: when it comes to gangsters and police, the police are the good guys, and the gangsters are bad. Attempting to deny such obvious truths is both historically and aesthetically wrong.
To be sure, Public Enemies does make it clear that Dillinger is purely hedonistic, dreaming of escape to South America and a life of leisure and pleasure, but these things are not particularly uncommon or interesting. They are also emblematic of the damage Mann's sugarcoating of Dillinger does to the characterization and to the ability of the film to generate drama: by making Dillinger seem more like us, it makes him much less interesting.
As a result, Depp's performance is unusually listless; a vividly brash and selfish character more like Cagney's in Public Enemy would be much more interesting as well as true to life. It would also provide a significantly more formidable foe for Purvis, thus elevating the latter's stature as a character as well. And in doing both those things it would raise the dramatic value of the film, by increasing the evident danger for society of a failure on Purvis's part.
While mostly refraining from encouraging the audience to like Purvis, Mann does show him very sympathetically at one point, when Purvis helps Billie Frechette after she has been mistreated by a police officer while in custody. Nonetheless, the overall attempt to make Dillinger more sympathetic and Purvis less so makes both characters incoherent and forces the two highly skilled actors into performances that are unusually dull for them.
A comparison to the excellent 1934 MGM film Manhattan Melodrama is quite revealing in this regard, and it's relevant in that the film plays a prominent part in Public Enemies (it's the movie Dillinger visited before his death by police gunfire), with Mann even showing a long excerpt of it.
Manhattan Melodrama is similar to Public Enemies in having two strong characters on opposite sides of law, but the 1930s film firmly establishes that for all his likable characteristics, the gangster Blackie (Clark Gable) is a menace whom society cannot allow to run free.
Although Blackie does some very good things, the film makes it abundantly clear that those actions do not and cannot compensate for his crimes (and just punishment was a requirement of the movies' Production Code at the time). Hence he requires redemption, and that can only come (in terms of eartlhy justice) by paying for his crimes. That makes for a highly satisfying ending to the film, as the writers give Blackie a chance to make his necessary death bring some good by saving the career of childhood friend and now upright DA Jim Wade (William Powell).
Public Enemies, by contrast, treats Dillinger's death as something to be lamented. This is made especially clear in the emotionally charged images in which the death scene is filmed, as well as in a scene in which the gangster's last words are conveyed to Billie--he has said to tell her, "Bye, Bye, Blackbird," quoting a song they both loved. It may be sweet, but Dillinger was responsible for the deaths of numerous people, and that can't be remedied by a sentimental reference to a charming popular song.
Similarly, when Dillinger is arrested earlier in the film and taken back to Indiana, the soundtrack plays somber music. One doubts that the relatives of his gang's victims felt particularly broken up about Dillinger's being brought to justice. We shouldn't, either, and the filmmakers certainly shouldn't attempt to manipulate us into doing so. The makers of Manhattan Melodrama didn't make that mistake of moral equivalency between criminals and the defenders of the citizenry.
Public Enemies does manage one thing very well, however: it very well conveys the theme of individualism confronted by collectivism, the individual increasingly coming under the domination of big organizations. This was indeed a powerful trend of the Depression era, with government taking over vast areas of what used to be private matters.
A particularly astute and pointed element of the film is Mann's likening of government coercion to the brutal use of force committed by gangsters. A very good example of this occurs when Dillinger is attempting to hide out from the police and finds out that Frank Nitti's gang won't give him any help. "We're in the modern age," a Nitty lieutenant tells Dillinger. He explains that modern crime profits from business-like efficiency, and the film makes it clear that individualists like Dillinger are anachronisms in the "modern age" of big organizations running roughshod over individuals' rights.
The film explicitly connects this to the growth of overweening government. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover is shown as priding himself on creating an ultramodern national police force that uses the most advanced methods available, in the hands of young agents who have been trained only in modern methods. Purvis, however, recognizes that traditional police virtues are still necessary--patience, legwork, use of informants, etc.--and replaces his Hoover-picked crew with a group of hardnosed cops from Texas and Oklahoma.
Thus the two central characters, though on opposite sides of the law and the moral divide, both represent the plight of the individual confronted by the bloated institutions of modernity and the widespread contempt for individual liberty. In that regard, Public Enemies is very successful indeed.
It's too bad that Mann's unwillingness to tell the truth about his central characters radically diminishes the film's drama and power.
Latest Obama Presser Exposes His Elitism . . . Again
Barack Obama exemplifies one side of the increasing divide between the two real parties in American politics: liberals and elitists. His press conference tonight made that clearer than ever.
Obama's world is full of people who aren't doing things the right way. If only we'd listen to him! He said as much at his latest press conference designed to salvage his dying health care scheme — and seems thankfully doomed.
Obama is among the socialist elite, so of course he thinks this way. What's amazing is how unashamed—for a politician—he is about patronizing us poor "ignorant" masses.
Without going back and looking at the transcript, it's safe to say that Obama's press conference tonight was a disaster, at least from the standpoint of what he wanted to get from it.
Obama scheduled this presser last week, sensing (rightly) he needed to convince the public he knows what he's doing and they should trust him to shepherd a complete overhaul of America's health care system RIGHT NOW!!!! On that score the presser was a failure, a disaster. And I couldn't be happier (and not just because of the red pill/blue pill Matrix gaffe).
It is clear that Obama is running out of tricks. Not that the questions were particularly tough (though some were), but the MSM is not falling for the Jedi Mind Tricks anymore. He's been in office for six months. He has a 38-seat majority in the House and a filibuster-proof Senate. It is clearly his government now. For him to blame Republicans for the failure for his health care plan to gain traction — just days after he and his spokeshole call out Jim DeMint — was embarrassing. I almost felt sorry for him. Obama's problem is that Democratsdon't want to be on the hook for this horrible plan and face voters in two (or four) years. This impending and glorious political failure is not the doing of Republicans — though they are doing a good job opposing it in the only way they can, rhetorically. And Obama just made the job easier tonight.
All of Obama's answers were rambling. I presume Obama likes to ramble because he has such confidence in his rhetorical abilities that he figured the longer he talked, the more effective he'd be. The opposite was the case. Obama is actually a quite poor orator when he's not reading his trusty teleprompter. That's why one of the take-aways from this presser was Obama suggesting doctors schedule tonsillectomies when patients come into the office with simple sore throats to pad their bank accounts. And another being how people shouldn't have to pay for things that don't make them healthier. (As Mary Katherine Ham quipped on Twitter: "Where is my Quarter Pounder w Cheese refund, yo?" Speaking for myself, I could retire right now on Quarter Pounder refunds.) Obama revealed himself as a man who has no idea how the America's health care system (or the world) really works — yet he has supreme confidence in his ability to micromanage it.
Obama's world is full of people who aren't doing things the right way. Doctors give an old lady a hip replacement when all she really needs are painkillers. Families with SUVs don't really need them, but should take public transit, or cram their kids into a more expensive and smaller hybrid car. It's just not right that bankers, as Obama said tonight, collect "unwarranted compensation." That's a phrase, coming from the head of an ever-more bold and powerful government, that sent a chill down this spine — and strikes me as un-American. Only in my dreams, the American Dream, do I aspire to Obama's brand of "unwarranted compensation." And he's had more than his share.
We're supposed to forget that our moralistic, scolding president was made a millionaire for his navel-gazing autobiographies. That he signed a contract — just under the wire as it comes to taxes — for what a cynic like him might decry as "unwarranted compensation" for a children's book version of "Dreams From My Father" that he will have ghost-edited while in office. That Mrs. Obama gained what the president might call "unwarranted compensation" sitting on the board of a Chicago hospital. (Michelle got quite the raise once Obama's political career took off. What a coincidence!)
Well, I guess the Obama family got theirs. Let's forget all that in the name of economic justice and screw everyone else.
Am I just being negative because I'm a registered Republican? Am I just being unreasonable in opposing Obama's plans — especially when it comes to health care? Is it unfair for me to question the wisdom of Obama when he says the greatest health care system in the world has to be turned over to state control RIGHT NOW!!!! Perhaps. But that puts me in the company of esteemed Democratic strategist Susan Estrich:
We're only talking about our health and our kids' health, the things my mother, may she rest in peace, told me a thousand times are the only things worth caring about. If you have your health, you have everything. And if you don't, what in the world matters more than the best health care in the world, which is found right here?
Not by everybody, mind you, and not cheaply, for anybody. No one's suggesting for a moment that there aren't major problems with both access and cost. But the best health care in the world is still here, and before we take steps that could make things much worse, I'd like to be very certain that they will indeed make things much better.
Obama did nothing tonight to make the Congress or the public believe that his plan will make things much better. That Obama's powers of persuasion are waning is a great thing for America.
Most people, I am delighted to say, are fond of the locked room. But — here's the damned rub — even its friends are often dubious. I cheerfully admit that I frequently am .... Why are we dubious when we hear the explanation of the locked room? Not in the least because we are incredulous, but simply because in some vague way we are disappointed. — Dr. Gideon Fell, "The Locked-Room Lecture," The Three Coffins, Chapter 17
So wrote John Dickson Carr, the foremost practitioner of the sealed-chamber mystery. We are certain, however, that you will not be disappointed in Hal White's locked-room mystery collection, The Mysteries of Reverend Dean. In times past a new writer would arrive on the scene and be proclaimed "the next Agatha Christie," which, of course, they turned out not to be. In Hal's case, however, he just might become, not the next Christie, but the next Carr, if his book is any indication.
Hal's central character is in the grand tradition of clerical detectives; he is described this way on Hal's website:
The Reverend Thaddeus Dean has just retired as pastor of a small church at the foot of the Cascade Mountains. He is lonely, poor and desperately misses his wife who died years ago. Fortunately, he has a pastime. He solves murders which are so bizarre as to seem impossible. In each of the stories collected in this volume, Reverend Dean is challenged by a seemingly “impossible” crime .... Readers won't just have to guess who the criminals are, they'll have to guess how they committed their crimes. Harking back to the stories of John Dickson Carr, Hal White has created a brilliant yet endearing sleuth who not only investigates crimes which seem insoluble, but crimes which appear impossible. But these are not supernatural stories — they are classic mysteries.
Each story is a first-rate head-scratcher. You'll have fun matching wits with Reverend Dean; we guarantee it.
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MURDER AT AN ISLAND MANSION
"In Dark Pine I have felt things — and seen things — that are ... unusual." ----- "Footprints will carry me away, but no seller of my house will see any footprints before he dies." ----- She gazed at Reverend Dean's eyes. Someone was home in there, all right. There was no doubt about that. She almost jumped when the old man finally spoke. ----- As Reverend Dean joined the frantic girls he looked down at the unfortunate victim — and was met with the vacant stare of Jay. It was vacant because a knife protruded from his heart.
Reverend Dean receives a desperate phone call from a former parishoner. Not only has her father recently died in hospital but there has also been another death in the family, her brother, the oldest heir to the estate — only he has been indisputably murdered, his body found on a stretch of beach completely devoid of footprints. But before Reverend Dean can even get to the family's opulent mansion, the next oldest sibling and heir is discovered stabbed to death just moments after the crime in the corner of a room, surrounded by wet paint on a floor also completely devoid of footprints. While Dean is pondering the complexities of the case, yet another sibling — the next in line to inherit — is found dead on a wet mud flat, with only the footprints of the discoverers of the crime leading up to it.
Three impossible crimes — but with one solution. It's up to Reverend Dean to find the common denominator — not a ghost as one character believes, but a flesh-and-blood person with deep-seated insecurities and the ability, on occasion, to fly.
Reverend Dean outdoes not only Father Brown, Mr. Reeder, and Charlie Chan in the areas of modesty, humility, and self-effacement but also Uncle Abner in revealing the intricacies of divine justice.
MURDER ON THE FOURTH FLOOR
He stopped in front of the trunk, shielded his eyes from the sun, and looked toward the top of the apartment building standing in the middle of the next block. Apparently intrigued by what he saw, he took a step toward the intersection. That's when the shot rang out. ----- He was surprised by the caliber, however. A .22 .... A .22 rifle was a boy's gun. Or maybe ... a woman's. ----- "... what do you do when the most important person in the world — the person who knows you better than anyone else — decides that you don't deserve to live?" ----- "What did he see?" "He says he saw a yellow snake slither past his window." ----- "Then she can answer the question of the day — how did she get out of a sealed apartment without anyone seeing her?" ----- "She printed a suicide note, drove to the park near I-90, and shot herself through the eye." ----- "I know you. If your mind worked any harder, there'd be smoke coming out of your ears." ----- "We both saw him get shot." "It was impressive, wasn't it?"
Tim Dearborn and his wife Betty are separated and on the verge of divorce. Tim is about to meet with Reverend Dean and a mutual friend, Detective Mark Small, when a shot is fired and Tim collapses on the street, a bullet having passed through his arm. Sure, there was considerable animosity between us, Tim avers, but would Betty really try to murder me? Mark searches the apartment house across the street from which the shot most likely came; it's no surprise to him when he learns that Betty had a rented room there and that other residents can place her in her apartment at the time of the shooting. But there's an anomaly: No one can confidently testify to seeing her leave. It would seem she just vanished into ... well, you know. When Betty's body is found later, complete with a typed suicide note, Mark is satisfied — for the most part — that the case is closed. Reverend Dean, however, is far from satisfied and filled with questions that Mark must admit have no easy answers. Without realizing it at the time, Mark and the reverend had been eyewitnesses not merely to an attempt on someone's life but the aftermath of a meticulously planned murder.
It takes Reverend Dean nearly sixteen pages to explain all the details of this crime — but not to worry; it isn't boring.
MURDER ON A CARIBBEAN CRUISE
Despite her entertainment value, however, the reverend worried for anyone who might develop feelings for her. A worry, it turned out, that was terribly well founded. ----- Thinking quickly, Carla grabbed a life preserver, pushed past the man and threw it overboard. But before she could take another step, the beefy man grabbed her hair, jerked her from the railing, and punched the courageous woman in the middle of her face. ----- "Fifteen minutes ago, she called the bridge and told us that we 'shouldn't blame ourselves' for what she was going to do. Then she barricaded her door, and ... well, you can see for yourself." "Indeed I can." The reverend gently turned his friend's head again. "And that's how I know this poor woman did not kill herself. She was murdered." ----- "You shouldn't have come here, Reverend. If I hurt my friends, what makes you think I won't hurt you?" ----- The entire procedure, including explanation, had taken less than two minutes. The group was amazed. No one would have guessed the old man had such a nimble — and devious — mind.
An opportunity to take a Caribbean cruise arises, and Reverend Dean simply can't turn it down. Although he fears becoming a fifth wheel among a group of young unmarrieds — the "Surviving Singles" — he is quickly accepted by them. Little does he suspect, however, that one of the group harbors jealousy and conceals rage — enough of both to commit murder — and the cunning to execute a near-perfect locked room crime. Among the clues Reverend Dean must juggle and put in the right order are a pair of sunglasses, a doorknob that smells like mint julep, a dry wristwatch, a tiny smear of oil, a man who is rescued in the wrong place, dental floss, and a missing life preserver.
In this one, the irresistibly delicious shipboard cuisine becomes almost as great a threat to the reverend's well-being as the killer.
MURDER AT THE LORD'S TABLE
"For this reason many of you are weak and sick — and some of you have died." ----- "For this reason many of you are weak and sick — and one of you will die." ----- The reverend knew his friend didn't look for theological fights, but he didn't back down from them, either. More than once this had created tensions. ----- "Thus, I do not dismiss logic because I have faith. Rather — due to its unique view of man — logic leads me to my faith." ----- "Two decades as a subordinate was bad enough. Two decades as the subordinate of someone you didn't respect was intolerable." ----- The plan was brilliant in an evil kind of way .... Who better to impugn a pastor than God? ----- "I said that you were a murderer ... not that you were stupid." ----- "The trick, of course, was to make people think that the poison came from somewhere else."
There are strange doings at Pastor Steve Ragsdale's little church: First an angel dressed all in white appears at one service and, after paraphrasing Scripture, departs; on another occasion Jesus attends the meeting, quotes virtually everything the angel said, and promptly disappears from a locked pastor's office. Pastor Steve is rattled enough to ask his good friend Reverend Dean to attend the next communion service; he does and along with thirty other witnesses sees Steve die in the sanctuary, a victim of poisoning. Rather than suspecting divine punishment being meted out on a man who seems to harbor some secret sin, however, Reverend Dean suspects a more mundane cause for Steve's death: "naked ambition, perhaps mixed with a dollop of theological disgust." Isn't that somewhat akin to the motive behind the first recorded murder, the one involving someone named Cain?
We go into largely ignored territory in this story: of how logic and faith do not necessarily work to their mutual exclusion, and of how they can operate in concert to help solve a murder.
MURDER IN A SEALED LOFT
"... I've got a very peculiar case and I don't know what I'm missing .... Actually, I do know what I'm missing: who did it, how he did it and why he did it .... Have I left anything out?" ----- She was found on her back, with a knife sticking out of her at a forty-five degree angle. The handle pointed toward her feet, with the blade sliding under her ribs into her heart. ----- "So ... we have what appears to be an impossible crime. Someone stabbed this unfortunate woman, yet the murder was performed while she was behind a door with three locks — two of which could only be locked from the inside — windows which were locked, and a large dog guarding the interior." "Worse ... the murder occurred while three witnesses were working around the building, thus insuring that no one could leave the unit unnoticed." ----- "So the question is: why would a woman — murdered at approximately 1:00 PM on a Saturday afternoon — be covered with blood that she'd previously donated?" ----- "It was a classic example of misdirection," the detective gloated. "And pretty smart, too, I must admit." ----- Unaware he had been murdered, Puppadawg turned his ponderous head and licked the hands of his killer.
Reverend Dean is housebound, battling a case of the flu, when his friend Detective Mark Small pays a visit, bearing not gifts but the burden of a difficult case: the murder of a woman inside a locked and closely observed artist's studio. Anomalies abound: What could be the significance of such things as the missing stapler and paperweights, of the dog that correctly barked at the wrong person (or would it be the dog that incorrectly barked at the right person?), of the frozen blood on the corpse, of the triply-locked front door, of the apparently useless cot, and of the kid who often knocks a baseball over the roof of his house? Ignoring these bafflements, Mark soon thinks he has the killer nailed; but Reverend Dean, ill though he may be, sees the situation with more clarity: "Unlike his puzzled friend, he saw no problem with how the murder might have been committed. He knew at least four ways someone could accomplish it." Thanks to a pop fly, the reverend puts the killer out before he can steal home.
Because of the flu, Reverend Dean is forced into the role of armchair detective; he never leaves home, even to visit the scene of the crime.
MURDER AT THE FALL FESTIVAL
Annoyed with the locked door as well as her husband's disappearance, Tina let herself in the garage. Ninety seconds later everyone in the house heard her scream. ----- "My guess is that someone knocked him unconscious with a blunt object, and then suffocated him." ----- The cleric frowned. He didn't like it. That sort of conspiracy only happened in fiction. ----- More importantly, why murder someone in the garage in the first place? What was the point? ----- "Despite what you see on TV, police work is specialized and complicated. I'm sure you're a very good minister, but in a criminal investigation, you're out of your depth. You have to leave this to the professionals." ----- He knew why the circle was important. But that only solved half the problem. What about — Then the old man remembered the murderer's occupation. It was bizarre, but it fit. It all fit. ----- "We've been waiting for garbage?" "It's perfectly legal, Detective." ----- "... it was clearly planned on the spur of the moment. The mind that could produce this scheme, in such a limited time, is frightening."
It's almost Halloween and busy preparations are underway for a Fall Festival to be held at a local church; the festivities come to a screeching halt, however, when a woman finds her husband murdered in their garage. To Reverend Dean, several things just don't compute, such as how the killer could have done it in a place where dozens of people are milling about; or how the medical examiner's report doesn't jibe with the way it should have happened; or why, if the motive is properly understood, the murderer delayed so long in executing the crime, among others. Complicating matters further, the reverend must solve this one despite the disdain, scorn, if not quite outright hostility of the senior police detective. The answer to this conundrum can be found in any or all of these items: an unsmoked cigar, its metal tube, pieces of an ironing board cover, a curling iron, oven mittens, a metallic space blanket, a heating coil, a spinning wheel large enough to support a body, and the Eastern notion that time is circular. Concerning that last, however, Reverend Dean offers his own refutation when he puts the killer on a one-way path to a non-recurrent lifetime in prison.
Reverend Dean must get down and dirty in this one — all in the cause of justice, of course.
Note: If you'd like a more detailed version of this review of Hal's book, go here.
As I predicted last week, Sacha Baron Cohen's Brüno continued its precipitous decline at the U.S. box office this past weekend. A week after finishing first during its opening weekend on the strength of audiences' appreciation for Cohen's previous film, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, Brüno fell to fourth this past weekend, with a stunning 73 percent drop in audience numbers from the previous week.
Even though critics did their best to pretend this turkey was a pheasant, audience members obviously were spreading the word of their disappointment with the boring and beyond-asinine Brüno, as the film was neither consistently funny nor amusingly iconoclastic. On the contrary, Brüno slavishly gave allegiance to contemporary social-transformation pieties while unintentionally making homosexual behavior and the attendant lifestyle look appalling.
First, profuse apologies to all Canadians everywhere. We love you. Really, we do. So please don't take our embassy officials hostage or anything, okay?
More Than One Brain Cell: SF Films with Ideas (Part Nine)
Disclaimer: Films listed here may be terrible, but they must have at least one scientifically interesting idea, however badly they may exploit that concept.
~Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965) Peter Cushing, Roy Castle, Jennie Linden, Roberta Tovey, Barrie Ingham C-79 mins. Based on the BBC-TV series; Daleks concept by Terry Nation
So there's this dotty old professor type who invents a machine (called Tardis in this film) that can travel not only through space but also time and is bigger on the inside than on the outside. Got that? Good, because those are among the few original notions attributable to this awkward spin-off from the TV series. The bulk of the film plays like almost any Saturday matinee serial from the '30s or '40s: The writers are at pains to see how often they could get their characters into and out of various scrapes. If you're anywhere from seven to seventeen, this one'll have you enthralled, but adult concepts like nuclear war and genocide might go over your head. There is one more nifty notion, however: the Daleks themselves, who are not robots or even androids but mutated people scurrying around in travel machines that look a lot like salt shakers — a nice idea vitiated by giving them the clichéd Achilles heel of being controlled from a central location, making them vulnerable to destruction by the actions of only one individual. You could call it The James T. Kirk Plot Resolver.
~Daleks — Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D. (1966) Peter Cushing, Bernard Cribbins, Ray Brooks, Andrew Keir, Jill Curzon, Roberta Tovey, Philip Madoc C-81 mins. Based on the BBC-TV serial The Dalek Invasion of Earth; Daleks concept by Terry Nation
"Your bomb is designed to slide down this shaft, strike a fracture in the Earth's inner surface, and so release the magnetic core of our planet. But the fracture is near the meeting point of the magnetic influence of the North and South poles. One mistake, one deviation in the aiming of your bomb and enough magnetic energy will be released to destroy you." "There will be no mistake! These prisoners are to be exterminated!" "One moment. You must listen to me. If you spare us, I can help you. I can show you how to neutralize this magnetism, so that your plan can be carried out with no danger to yourselves." "Speak quickly!" "But I — I'll show you. Look! ... Attention, all Robomen! Attack the Daleks!"
Not much of an improvement over the earlier film: still a lot of running hither and yon, which was typical of the TV series as well. The Doctor travels into Earth's future and finds the Daleks up to no good, as usual. They've conquered the planet: Human society has collapsed but the more unsavory aspects of human nature are still much in evidence. In fact, people are often a greater threat than the aliens. So how can the Doctor undo these events, particularly since the Daleks have by now developed nearly unlimited mobility (unlike the first movie)? As you might have guessed, the screenwriters unabashedly whip out the old James T. Kirk Plot Resolver and violate just about every known scientific law by having the Daleks — but, no, you need to see it for yourself. What this film says about human beings is sobering and perhaps a bit too adult for smaller children.
~Fahrenheit 451 (1966) Julie Christie, Oskar Werner, Cyril Cusack, Anton Diffring, Jeremy Spenser, Bee Duffell, Alex Scott C-112 mins. Based on Ray Bradbury's 1953 novel
"Fahrenheit four-five-one is the temperature at which book paper catches fire and starts to burn." ----- "Do you remember what you asked me the other day if I ever read the books I burn? Remember?" "Uh-huh." "Last night I read one." ----- "Today's figures for operations in the urban area alone account for the elimination of a total of 2,750 pounds of conventional editions, 836 pounds of first editions, and 17 pounds of manuscripts were also destroyed. Twenty-three anti-social elements were detained, pending re-education." ----- "You see, it's ... it's no good, Montag. We've all got to be alike. The only way to be happy is for everyone to be made equal."
An amazingly unexciting version of Bradbury's book — which, by the way, he always maintained wasn't about censorship per se but the pernicious effects on reading and understanding that the then-new technology of television would have. (Bradbury once wrote that the aim of science fiction isn't to predict the future but to prevent it.) Beautiful Julie Christie is this film's main asset, but even she can't overcome a sluggish script; Oskar Werner alternates between deadpan and slightly less deadpan. Only Cyril Cusack shows any life as a willing cog in a state-sponsored machine of oppression — he enjoys his job. Of all the books seen or mentioned in the film, one that appears in the novel is conspicuously absent from the movie: the Bible.
~Fantastic Voyage (1966) Stephen Boyd, Raquel Welch, Edmond O'Brien, Donald Pleasance, Arthur O'Connell, William Redfield, Arthur Kennedy, James Brolin C-100 mins. Novelization (which corrects some of the film's errors) by Isaac Asimov
"The medieval philosophers were right. Man is the center of the universe. We stand in the middle of infinity between outer and inner space, and there's no limit to either." ----- "Yet all the suns that light the corridors of the universe shine dim before the blazing of a single thought — " "— proclaiming in incandescent glory the myriad mind of Man." "Very poetic, gentlemen. Let me know when we pass the soul." "The soul? The finite mind cannot comprehend infinity — and the soul, which comes from God, is infinite." "Yes, well, our time isn't." ----- "Wait a minute! They can't shrink me." "Our miniaturizer can shrink anything." "But I don't want to be miniaturized!" "It's just for an hour." "Not even for a minute!" ----- "Any questions?" "Yes. When can I catch the next train back to town?"
Scientist Jan Benes, who knows the secret to keeping soldiers shrunken for an indefinite period, escapes from behind the Iron Curtain with the help of CIA agent Grant [Boyd]. While being transferred, their motorcade is attacked. Benes strikes his head, causing a blood clot to form in his brain. Grant is ordered to accompany a group of scientists as they are miniaturized. The crew has one hour to get in Benes's brain, remove the clot and get out. — Brian Washington on IMDb
Someone doesn't want Jan Benes to live, and that someone is on the team of scientists who have boarded a submarine and been shrunk down to less than molecular size to save Benes. Lantern-jawed Stephen Boyd is the security guy who's tasked with finding the would-be murderer. With its vivid, kaleidoscopic colors and flickering light levels, this movie must have been ideal for anyone buzzed on LSD back in the '60s. While the film picked up an Academy Award for special technical achievement, we still think the best visual effect is Ms. Welch.
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~Seconds(1966) Rock Hudson, Salome Jens, John Randolph, Will Geer, Jeff Corey, Richard Anderson, Murray Hamilton, Karl Swenson, Khigh Dhiegh, Frances Reid, Wesley Addy BW-100/107 mins.
"What kind of man is he? There's grace in the line and color, but it doesn't emerge pure. It pushes at the edge of something still tentative, unresolved — as if somewhere in the man there is still a key unturned." "That's quite an analysis." "Not really. When you come to think of it — it sort of fits everybody, doesn't it?" ----- "The good things always happen with the rain." ----- "The question of death selection may be the most important decision in your life." ----- "Relax, old friend ... Cranial drill."
What if someone offered you the chance to begin again, with a new life that was organized to be exactly what you wanted it to be? That's what the organization offers some wealthy people. They find a life that is what their clients would have wanted, artist, writer, politician — kill the person who is to be replaced and surgically alter their clients to take their places. We follow a new client from first contact, through his staged death, to surgery, recovery and replacement. Of course that's when things become complicated. — John Vogel on IMDb
If you had the chance to change your life completely, would you take it? But what if it meant someone else would have to die? That's the premise of this one. The acting is top-notch: Rock Hudson is surprisingly effective. The final fadeout scene is harrowing and steeped in sadness (even if, as some point out, it may not be logical).
This week TCM's films feature * Robert Mitchum being tough all day (see Tuesday); * Stewart Granger being devious for two days (Tuesday and Wednesday); * the Saint being suave in seven films (Wednesday); * and a few rarely-viewed thrillers interspersed throughout the week's schedule (Roadblock, Mystery in Swing, A Night to Remember, The Unholy Three, Pier 5, Havana, and Personal Affair).
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Monday—July 20th
Sci-fi films from 6:00 A.M. to 6:00 A.M. the next morning.
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Tuesday—July 21st
11:00 AM—His Kind of Woman (1951) A deported gangster causes problems for guests at a Mexican resort. Cast: Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, Vincent Price. Dir: John Farrow. BW-120 mins, TV-PG, CC
1:15 PM—My Forbidden Past (1951) A beauty with a skeleton in her closet seeks revenge on the suitor who jilted her. Cast: Ava Gardner, Melvyn Douglas, Robert Mitchum. Dir: Robert Stevenson. BW-70 mins, TV-PG, CC
2:30 PM—The Racket (1951) A tough cop has to fight his superiors in order to battle the mob. Cast: Robert Mitchum, Lizabeth Scott, Robert Ryan. Dir: John Cromwell. BW-89 mins, TV-PG, CC
4:15 PM—The Night of the Hunter (1955) A bogus preacher marries an outlaw's widow in search of the man's hidden loot. Cast: Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish. Dir: Charles Laughton. BW-93 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format
6:00 PM—Thunder Road (1958) A fast-driving moonshiner locks horns with a Chicago gangster. Cast: Robert Mitchum, Gene Barry, Keely Smith. Dir: Arthur Ripley. BW-93 mins, TV-PG, CC
8:00 PM—Footsteps in the Fog (1955) An ambitious housemaid learns her employer murdered his wife. Cast: Stewart Granger, Jean Simmons, Bill Travers. Dir: Arthur Lubin. C-90 mins, TV-G, Letterbox Format
9:45 PM—The Secret Partner (1961) A shipping tycoon with a record becomes a suspect when money goes missing from the company vault. Cast: Stewart Granger, Bernard Lee, Haya Harareet. Dir: Basil Dearden. BW-91 mins, TV-PG, Letterbox Format
11:30 PM—The Light Touch (1952) An art thief tries to double cross his gangster boss. Cast: Stewart Granger, George Sanders, Pier Angeli. Dir: Richard Brooks. BW-93 mins, TV-G, CC
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Wednesday—July 22nd
1:15 AM—The Whole Truth (1958) A woman tries to prove her cheating husband didn't murder his mistress. Cast: Stewart Granger, Donna Reed, George Sanders. Dir: Dan Cohen, John Guillerman. BW-84 mins, TV-PG
4:30 AM—Roadblock (1951) An insurance agent's greedy wife leads him to a life of crime. Cast: Charles McGraw, Joan Dixon, Milburn Stone. Dir: Harold Daniels. BW-73 mins, TV-G, CC
"What makes you the way you are?" "What makes anybody the way they are?" "You tell me." "Where they got started maybe. I had a lot of jobs — modeling, clerking, secretarial work. I tried hard but it was no go." "Does that make a chiseler out of you? Must have been something else." "Whenever I got a job there was always a man who wasn't interested in my working ability." "I understand that." "Really? Coming from you that's a compliment."
11:15 AM—The Saint in New York (1938) The Saint goes undercover to get the goods on New York's mob kingpins. Cast: Louis Hayward, Kay Sutton, Jonathan Hale. Dir: Ben Holmes. BW-72 mins, TV-G, CC
12:30 PM—The Saint Strikes Back (1939) The Saint helps a young beauty take vengeance on the mobsters who ruined her father. Cast: George Sanders, Wendy Barrie, Barry Fitzgerald. Dir: John Farrow. BW-64 mins, TV-G, CC
1:45 PM—The Saint in London (1939) The Saint's investigation of a counterfeiting ring uncovers a nest of spies. Cast: George Sanders, David Burns, Sally Gray. Dir: John Paddy Carstairs. BW-72 mins, TV-G, CC
3:00 PM—The Saint's Double Trouble (1940) Reformed jewel thief Simon Templer lands in hot water when a look-alike smuggles stolen goods out of Egypt. Cast: George Sanders, Jonathan Hale, Bela Lugosi. Dir: Jack Hively. BW-67 mins, TV-G, CC
4:15 PM—The Saint Takes Over (1940) Reformed jewel thief Simon Templar tries to help a police inspector who's been framed on bribery charges. Cast: George Sanders, Jonathan Hale, Wendy Barrie. Dir: Jack Hively. BW-70 mins, TV-G, CC
5:30 PM—The Saint in Palm Springs (1941) Reformed jewel thief Simon Templar's efforts to deliver a fortune in rare stamps are complicated by murder. Cast: George Sanders, Wendy Barrie, Jonathan Hale. Dir: Jack Hively. BW-66 mins, TV-G, CC
6:45 PM—The Saint Meets The Tiger(1943) The Saint infiltrates a small English village run by smugglers. Cast: Hugh Sinclair, Jean Gillie, Clifford Evans. Dir: Paul L. Stein. BW-69 mins, TV-G, CC
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Thursday—July 23rd
3:00 AM—Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1942) Sherlock Holmes fights to keep a new bombsite design from the Nazis. Cast: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Lionel Atwill. Dir: Roy William Neill. BW-68 mins, TV-G
4:15 AM—Sherlock Holmes in Terror by Night(1946) Sherlock Holmes signs on to protect a priceless diamond from jewel thieves. Cast: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Alan Mowbray. Dir: Roy William Neill. BW-63 mins, TV-G
6:00 AM—Mystery in Swing (1940) A newspaper reporter tries to solve a jazz musician's murder. Cast: Monte Hawley, Marguerite Whitten, Tommie Moore. Dir: Arthur Dreifuss. BW-67 mins, TV-PG
7:15 AM—My Favorite Brunette (1947) A baby photographer mistaken for a private eye ends up framed for murder. Cast: Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour, Peter Lorre. Dir: Elliott Nugent. BW-86 mins, TV-G, CC
8:45 AM—Shadow of a Doubt (1943) A young girl fears her favorite uncle may be a killer. Cast: Joseph Cotten, Teresa Wright, Macdonald Carey. Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. BW-108 mins, TV-PG, CC
10:45 AM—In a Lonely Place (1950) An aspiring actress begins to suspect that her temperamental boyfriend is a murderer. Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, Frank Lovejoy. Dir: Nicholas Ray. BW-93 mins, TV-PG, CC
12:30 PM—Double Indemnity (1944) An insurance salesman gets seduced into plotting a client's death. Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, Edward G. Robinson. Dir: Billy Wilder. BW-108 mins, TV-PG, CC
2:30 PM—A Kiss Before Dying (1956) A college student tries to get rich quick by wooing two wealthy sisters. Cast: Robert Wagner, Jeffrey Hunter, Joanne Woodward. Dir: Gerd Oswald. C-95 mins, TV-PG, Letterbox Format
6:00 PM—Bunny Lake is Missing (1965) A distraught mother searches for her seemingly non-existent daughter, bringing her sanity into question. Cast: Carol Lynley, Keir Dullea, Laurence Olivier. Dir: Otto Preminger. BW-107 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format
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Friday—July 24th
6:00 AM—They Made Me a Criminal (1939) A young boxer flees to farming country when he thinks he's killed an opponent in the ring. Cast: John Garfield, Claude Rains, Gloria Dickson. Dir: Busby Berkeley. BW-92 mins, TV-PG, CC
4:30 PM—A Night to Remember (1942) A mystery writer and his wife stumble on a murder in their new apartment. Cast: Loretta Young, Brian Aherne, Jeff Donnell. Dir: Richard Wallace. BW-92 mins, TV-G, CC
"Loretta Young and Brian Aherne discover that life in New York City can be an adventure in A Night to Remember. Aherne stars as Jeff Troy, a hardworking writer of murder mysteries. His wife Nancy (Young), however, wants him to devote his time to completing a romance novel he has been trying to pen-and gets them both a quaint basement apartment in Greenwich Village with just the right 'literary' ambiance. Nancy's intentions fall flat when the new address proves to be anything but romantic and the worst place imaginable for a writer trying to keep his mind off murder-especially when a very dead body turns up in their new backyard. After the police can't come up with a clue about the case, Jeff eagerly sets out to solve the crime and gets his first opportunity to put his years of research into practice." — From Amazon.com
6:15 PM—Remember the Night (1940) An assistant D.A. takes a shoplifter home with him for Christmas. Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, Beulah Bondi. Dir: Mitchell Leisen. BW-94 mins, TV-G
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Saturday—July 25th
3:15 AM—The Unholy Three (1930) A ventriloquist, a strong man and a midget form a criminal alliance. Cast: Lon Chaney, Lila Lee, Harry Earles. Dir: Jack Conway. BW-72 mins, TV-G, CC
11:30 AM—Beat the Devil(1954) A group of con artists stake their claim on a bogus uranium mine. Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Gina Lollobrigida, Jennifer Jones. Dir: John Huston. BW-89 mins, TV-PG
6:00 PM—Soylent Green (1973) A future cop uncovers the deadly secret behind a mysterious synthetic food. Cast: Charlton Heston, Edward G. Robinson, Leigh Taylor-Young. Dir: Richard Fleischer. C-97 mins, TV-MA, CC, Letterbox Format
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Sunday—July 26th
6:15 AM—Pier 5, Havana (1959) An American in Cuba tries to thwart a bombing plot aimed at Castro. Cast: Cameron Mitchell, Allison Hayes, Eduardo Noriega. Dir: Edward L. Cahn. BW-68 mins, TV-PG
7:30 AM—Personal Affair (1953) When a teenaged student disappears, her teacher is suspected of killing her. Cast: Gene Tierney, Leo Genn, Glynis Johns. Dir: Anthony Pelissier. BW-83 mins.
9:30 PM—The Set-Up (1949) An aging boxer defies the gangsters who've ordered him to throw his last fight. Cast: Robert Ryan, Audrey Totter, George Tobias. Dir: Robert Wise. BW-73 mins, TV-PG, CC
10:45 PM—Rope(1948) Two wealthy young men try to commit the perfect crime by murdering a friend. Cast: James Stewart, Farley Granger, John Dall. Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. C-81 mins, TV-14, CC
After a strong opening weekend, U.S. audiences' interest in Sacha Baron Cohen's Brüno has cooled considerably. That trend should continue as audience members tell others how astonishingly bad it is, S. T. Karnick writes.
As I've noted on prior occasions, the initial audience for a film sequel or star-driven movie is typically based on people's opinions of its immediate predecessor. Thus the impressive amount of goodwill Sacha Baron Cohen generated among movie audiences with his amusing hit film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan brought a strong opening weekend for his latest, Brüno.
The film snapped up an impressive $30.6 million among North American audiences during its first three days, finishing first, $3 million ahead of Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.
Since then, however, its numbers have fallen precipitously and consistently. On Monday and Tuesday Brüno took in less than half of what Ice Age 3 brought in. On Wednesday it continued its decline as Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince destroyed all competition, while Brüno brought in much less than Ice Age 3 even though the latter has been in theaters much longer.
The declining fortunes for Brüno may be a result of reports from audiences who saw the film during its opening weekend. It is astonishingly awful.
Whereas Borat had an amusing central character who was somewhat likable because of the presence of Cohen's charm behind the character's ignorance and prejudices, and because we could excuse his transgressions as a result of being brought up in a horrible place, Brüno suffers from the constant presence of a relentlessly self-absorbed, shallow jackass who has no excuses for being so, unless the filmmakers mean to suggest that contemporary Europen culture is overly hedonistic and nihilistic, which appears to be far from their intent.
That Brüno is surrounded by equally unrefined and vulgar people does not increase his appeal, and it ensures that audiences will have almost no characters to relate to.
Thus the sense of elitism that Borat conveyed is increased manifold in Brüno, such that it overwhelms any other impression the film might present.
For those who don't know the film's concept, it's about a nineteen-year-old German homosexual male who moves to the United States to become famous. Somehow we stupid Americans fail to appreciate his greatness.
A scene in which Brüno tries to seduce Congressman Ron Paul exemplifies this übersmug attitude and is an absolute flop, like the film as a whole. Paul simply reacts as a normal, polite person would, which is not the slightest bit interesting. Thus the filmmakers fail in their obvious attempt to characterize the Republican Congressman as a hypocrite or unsophisticated. One feels nothing but sympathy for Paul at seeing him trapped with the wretched ass Brüno.
Add to all of that an even thinner plotline than that of Borat, and the result is an astonishingly stupid and boring film.
As with Borat, some critics are trying to characterize Brüno as praiseworthy by claiming that it makes satirical points about the value of tolerance. Poppycock. That was untrue of Borat, and it's untrue of Brüno.
Yes, Cohen and director Larry Charles do put together a gallery of characters of enormous selfishness and hedonism, but they do nothing with the material. The only point they seem to be able to make is that there are a great many stupid and unsophisticated people in the world. We knew that upon entering the theater, however, so there's no point in making a movie to tell us that.
Larry Charles undoubtedly had a particular purpose in mind in making this film, as the director of Religulous clearly hates Christians and thinks the great majority quite dangerous. Thus Brüno includes some jabs at American fundamentalists, but they don't strike home because the characters are so inane that one cannot see them as being stupid because they are Christian or Christian because they're stupid. They're just stupid, exactly like the film's flamoyantly non-Christian protagonist, Brüno.
Finally, those critics who are praising Bruno for advocating tolerance for homosexuality must be quite insane. I am sure that I have never seen a film that made homosexuality look more unnatural and repulsive than Brüno does. If that is a call for tolerance, it is a stupendously inept one.
That brings us back to the conclusion that Cohen's main purpose (unlike Charles's) in making Brüno was to enable people to laugh and have a good time. In that, alas, Brüno is a stupendous failure.
You know, there may be something to this Harry Potter book thing. After all, you really aren't going to get that much out of the movie adaptation unless you've read the books. Fortunately (or unfortunately) for me I've consciously decided against reading the books. While that may make me a rare individual this weekend, it also kept me from enjoying the movie.
Believe me, I know it's kind of an embarrassing admission to make. I've never read the Harry Potter books. It's not because I'm not interested. I'm affirmatively unwilling to read them. And as much as I appreciate being in with the "In-Crowd", I would simply prefer not to. I know that this means I've closed off a cornucopia of allusions that I can use at dinner parties, but I just can't do it. I've seen too many people, normal people mind you, transformed into the literary version of crystal meth addicts. No thank you, I say. I'm trying to stay clean.
Now, I have seen all the movies up until this point, but even there, I've only watched half-heartedly. Get it? Half-heartedly. Consequently, I can't remember anything about the last movie except that Gary Oldman died. Oops. I hope I haven't spoiled anything for the one person who hasn't seen it or read the books. So it was probably one of the most bizarre social experiments whereby I went to see this new movie along with four other avid Potter-philes. I mean, it's very rare that I'll actually turn down a trip to the movies, and this was with some coworkers that I happen to like very much, so I went along to bond.
Let me just say this right out of the gate. I've read at least one review from someone who claimed to have enjoyed the movie without having read the books. This person is either lying or caught up in the mob mentality. There are certainly things about this movie that are enjoyable, but ultimately this movie is way too long and doesn't explain itself enough to make it a complete, enjoyable movie going experience. Forget dependent upon the books, this movie is also totally dependent upon the previous movies. It's a sequel's sequel. Nothing really happens in it and then it leaves you with a cliffhanger that doesn't really matter.
Unless you've already been indoctrinated into the world of Harry Potter, in which case you're pissed off that you have to wait until 2010.
The woman sitting next to me actually cried at the end of the movie. I'm not criticizing; I just felt left out. Oddly enough, from my removed position, the most sympathy I had was for one of the demi-villains, Draco Malfoy. I mean here's this guy who has been a total jerk for like ever, his father was either killed or placed in prison, and he's "chosen" for a really heavy task that may or may not be too much for him. I know I'm supposed to feel sympathy for him, but not as if he were the main character. In contrast, our hero, pretty much walks around like a tool. And his mentor? While he might have been kindly and wizened to the faithful, he appeared manipulative and aloof to me. He totally doesn't earn the "God" moment he's given at the end. Trust me, you'll know it when you see it.
Of course, I know that by saying this I've opened myself to a bunch of the book fans defending the movie because they love the characters therein. Maybe they'll even insult me for being close-minded. And I speak from experience, that's actually happened to me before. I keep expecting someone to sneak into my house while I'm sleeping and place the first book next to me a la Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Look, I'm not knocking the book. I'm just saying that this movie is going to be one of the emptiest blockbusters ever because it doesn't take time to develop characters or conflict. Things just happen and then the movie ends. I'd love to be able to point out some of the deeper meanings and how Harry is like Luke Skywalker, and Snape is like Agamemnon or Hamlet, but I can't. It's not in there in this movie.
That's not to say that the three leads don't do a wonderful job. They have to balance a lot of different tone shifts throughout the movie. They also benefit from us having literally watched them grow up through the course of these movies like some fictional version of Michael Apted's Up series. I tend to credit actors a lot because they're often trapped by the writing of a movie, but I don't think I'm giving them extra credit. Whether it's the fact that playing these characters has probably imprinted on them as they developed their adult personalities during this movie or they're just good actors, I think they did a good job and they deserve credit.
The undercurrent in the film is teen angst, and the parts of the movie that work are focused on these coming-of-age moments. Sure it's a little ham-fisted in places, but it's not like I was going to get Summer of '42 at Hogwarts. The plot developments between the young, would-be lovers are about as sophisticated as . . . well, plot developments between real young, would-be lovers. So, I guess that's why that worked for me; that and the actors playing the leads seem to be mature enough to understand that. So, they did a good job.
The remaining British cast members are all British. Anglophiles will think they transformed this material into Shakespeare. Rabble, like myself, probably won't. But truth be told, only Jim Broadbent had anything to really do in this movie. Now, I loved Alan Rickman in this movie, but I can't quite shake the suspicion that I did so because I brought some Alan Rickman love to the movie. There's just not a lot there to say these folks are good are bad. However, they are British, so I feel confident saying that.
The visuals are stunning and they really capture this whole imaginary world, like the first Star Wars did for space. But there are spells cast and people cursed that I knew nothing about, and these things were never explained to me in the movie. This left me with the feeling that part of the reason for the lengthy running time was included detail meant appease the Potter faithful. As an outsider, I've watched the lengths of the books get larger and larger, and I've developed the belief that Ms. Rowlings desperately needed someone around her to edit things out. I think the fact that this movie probably left a great deal out and still didn't explain anything or go anywhere suggests to me that my suspicion on that point is correct.
The ending, for example, demonstrates perfectly how uncommitted the movie-makers were to allowing this movie to stand on its own. It's a cross between Empire Strikes Back and Wrath of Khan. There's the cliffhanger like Empire (they even kind of steal the final shot from Empire), and there's elegiac feeling of Khan. But it can't make up its mind what it wants to be, so the movie just sort of ends. There's an "I feel young" beat like in Khan that gave you some sense of thematic closure (and maybe even uplift), but there's no orchestral swell like you found in either movie. I suppose this is to make the audience feel how small the characters are, but it seemed a little muddled to me. I think that's because neither of the templates this movie uses were predicted to be followed with other movies. With this franchise it's a foregone conclusion, so there's no need to even "end."
I have no doubt that Potter fans will think this is one of the best movies of the bunch. It's not poorly made. It moves along as pretty much any TV show. Nothing is out of place. But it suffers from the inverse of what's usually the problem with adaptations. This movie isn't one where you say the book was better and the movie ruined the book. This movie actually needs the book for you to enjoy it. If you've read the books, I'm sure this movie will vividly capture your memories of the story as surely as if you were seeing it in a pensieve. If you're like me, however, such magic will probably be lost on you.
The actual Enumeration [of the states' population] shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they [Congress] shall by Law direct. — U. S. Constitution, Article I, Section 2
There has been concern expressed lately about just how much power has been and is continuing to be ceded by the legislative branch of the United States government to the judicial and executive branches — but most particularly to the latter.
Case in point: the 2010 census. At least two representatives in the House have major misgivings about the "American Community Survey" (ACS) which will be imposed on U. S. citizens next year.
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) says she will flatly refuse to complete the entire census form, save for disclosing how many people live in her residence; she maintains that the Constitution calls only for that and nothing else. Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) agrees: "This is Big Brother at its worst," he says; "the federal government has no business keeping a comprehensive personal profile on every American citizen."
Furthermore, with the census comes the likely involvement of the controversial — some would call it criminal — organization ACORN (which, as political payback, will be receiving more taxpayer funding in the future):
[Bachmann] fears ACORN, the community organizing group currently under indictment in several states for alleged voter registration fraud, will be part of the Census Bureau's door-to-door information collection efforts under the direction of the White House.
So what could be so alarming about a little old survey; here are a couple of samples of what it asks (read Jerome Corsi's WorldNet Daily article for the full monty):
* [T]he ACS asks what year the building was built, when "Person No. 1" from the housing section moved into the home; how many acres the home is on; what agricultural products were sold from the property in the last 12 months; whether the property was used as a business; how many separate rooms are in the house; whether the house has hot and cold running water; whether the house has a flush toilet, a shower or bathtub, a sink with a faucet, a stove or range, a refrigerator, and a telephone; how many cars, vans and trucks are kept at the property; and what fuel is most used at the property – gas, electricity, fuel oil or kerosene, coal or coke, wood, solar energy, or "other."
* Further, the housing section asks what was last month's bill for energy, the cost of water and sewage for the housing unit in the last year, whether anyone in the household received food stamps in the last year, the monthly rental or mortgage cost of the unit, an estimate of the resale value of the housing unit, the unit's annual property taxes, and the annual cost of fire, hazard and flood insurance on the property.
Try finding any justification for that kind of snooping in Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution.
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Mad scientist update
Michelle Malkin adds more information about President Obama's "Science Czar," John Holdren. There seems to be a double standard in effect when a person's qualifications for holding a government position are considered (big surprise, huh?):
The New York Times recently warned its readers about a wacky scientist in the Obama administration. But the fish wrap of record let the real nut job off the hook.
Reporting last week on the president’s choice to head the National Institutes of Health, Times writer Gardiner Harris noted that praise for Dr. Francis S. Collins “was not universal or entirely enthusiastic.” The geneticist is causing “unease,” according to the Times, because of his “his very public embrace of religion.”
Stomachs are apparently churning over a book Collins wrote describing his conversion to Christianity.
It’s called – gasp! – “The Language of God.” Harris intoned: “Religion and genetic research have long had a fraught relationship, and some in the field complain about what they see as Dr. Collins’s evangelism.”
And … that’s it. Yes, the mere profession of Collins’s faith is enough to warrant red flags and ominous declamations. A quarter of all Americans identify themselves as evangelical Christians and “publicly embrace their religion.” But to the Times, Collins’ open affiliation with 60 million Americans believers in Christ is headline news.
Meanwhile, eco-zealot and would-be holocaust provider John Holdren gets a pass from the Times:
Holdren’s [proposed] planetary regime would also breed out undesirables “who contribute to social deterioration” and “insist that all illegitimate babies be put up for adoption—especially those born to minors, who generally are not capable of caring properly for a child alone.”
Single mothers who wanted to keep their children would be “obliged to go through adoption proceedings and demonstrate her ability to support and care for it.”
If a conservative blogger or Republican political candidate had published such lunatic claptrap, the Department of Homeland Security would have him on a watchlist. Instead, Holdren is Overlord of Science Policy.
As Michelle informs us, Holdren's mentor — the man from whom he derived most of his genocidal notions — was Harrison Brown, who wrote:
... there can be no escaping the fact that if starvation is to be eliminated, if the average child is to stand a reasonable chance of living out the normal life span with which he is endowed at birth, family sizes must be limited. The limitation in birth rates must arise from the utilization of contraceptive techniques or abortions or a combination of the two practices.
Clearly, Brown is here employing the propaganda technique of the false dilemma; somehow he never considers improving agricultural methods as a means of eliminating starvation. Anyone's eyesight — and foresight — will always suffer when they insist on living in a tunnel.
At long last Ghostbusters: The Video Game is in stores. Conceived as kind of the third Ghostbusters movie, the game boasts participation from most of the major characters and a story penned by Dan Akroyd and Harold Ramis, the two men who wrote the smash comedy hit enjoying its 25th Anniverary this June. Will it help gamers Stay Puft or will it get slimed?
I generally try to steer clear of video games based on movies. They usually feel like a DVD special feature or like you're stuck in those scenes from Back to the Future II with Marty McFly watching his dad knock Biff out. Similarly, I have a pretty good sense of where actors are in the pop culture pecking order and desperation is the world's worst cologne (thank you Cameron Crowe for that wonderful koan from Singles). Dan Akroyd is in an even worse position than Vin Deisel was after The Chronicles of Riddick (and I skipped those games for that reason). Combine that with the fact that Ghostbusters II just kind of sucked (how do you waste Pete MacNicol?), and I did not have high hopes for this game title.
Before I got started, I had to decide which platform to use for the game. For those of you who are not that into video games, your choice of console can dictate the type of game playing experience you're going to have. [Those of you who are can pretty much skip these next two paragraphs.] Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 are basically built like personal computer towers devoted entirely to gaming with faster processing speeds and more video memory to increase load speeds. Consequently, games for these consoles trend more towards adult gamers with hyper-realistic sound and video. Games such as Resistance: Fall of Man (PS3) and Gears of War (Xbox 360) are the "killer apps" for their respective systems and take full advantage of the console architecture.
In contrast, the Nintendo Wii is a powerful little computer, but not chock full of the fastest, biggest, or bestest processors or chips. Nintendo made a choice with the Wii to emphasize game play over graphics and they compensate with more cartoony characters. Look no further than Wii Sports for evidence of this as the avatars are more abstract, but the game itself is incredibly addictive. Don't get me wrong, they can still get a lot out of the console with some really pretty graphics, but you're not going to get a game like Uncharted to look as good on a Nintendo Wii.
Ghostbusters: The Video Game has consciously embraced this divide by having the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 game developed by one company, Terminal Reality, and the Nintendo Wii game developed by another, Red Fly Studio. The stories are the same, but the Nintendo Wii version looks more like a video game version of The Real Ghostbusters cartoon (just without Lorenzo Music's voice for obvious reasons) rather than an attempt at Ghostbusters III.
I am blessed to have a life that has brought me the opportunity to purchase all three consoles (as well as pretty much every previous generation of the consoles), and so doing this review presented me with a little of a Hobson's Choice. I typically prefer game play and story over whiz-bang. And really, it's hard not be be when you're raised on Adventure for the Atari 2600. I mean, in that game your guy is a cube battling two-dimensional ducks with a direction arrow. But for this review I opted for the PS3 version of the game to get the more cinematic feel. Sure it cost me a few bucks extra, but I've spent a lot more for less reason.
The menu screen on the game is nice (almost DVD like) and it has all the trendy things games have to have these days. There's multi-player capability so you can bust ghosts online with fellow movie fans. You can set your difficulty at easy, normal, and professional. [I'm waiting for the slasher game that lists difficulty settings like "Rare: Pink Throughout"; "Medium: Slightly Pink Center"; and "Well Done: You're Cooked".] I'm a big fan of touching all the bases, so I usually start a game from the easy level and if it game interests me enough, I go back and play through harder levels. And since I wanted the article to be fresh, I picked easy so I had a better chance of completing the game without too much delay.
The first thing you really notice about the game is that it really tries to be a movie. Most games start with a lengthy cut-scene or launch you into the action. This one actually starts with a movie studio intro and opening credits before the first cut-scene route. Right away, this demonstrates one of the game's shortcomings. Most games split time between interactive entertainment and cut-scenes that advance the drama of the story once you've accomplished certain goals. All games do it. There's a break, a cut-scene, and then a pulled-back shot that lets the player know he's back in a screen where he can manipulate his character. In this way video games owe more to commercial television that movies because they have to play to those breaks. That's why the better games like God of War try to keep these events to a minimum or they make you relieved to reach one because you're character is about to die. Here, the game seems to want you to feel like you are a Ghostbuster in the movie, but the limitations inherent to most videogames keep taking you out of the action.
But there's also something pretty charming about the game as well. With Bill Murray, Dan Akroyd, and Harold Ramis all lending not only their voices, but also their wit to the writing of the game, it's kind of like playing a videogame while the members of Second City provide running commentary. Part of what made Ghostbusters such a wonderful movie was the sense that Bill Murray kept things loose and made stuff up as he went along. If it's hard to capture that in a movie, it's almost impossible to capture that in a videogame where everything has to not only be planned, but programmed. But, they did at least manage to give the game a sense of fun. I didn't laugh out loud, but I smiled.
The story itself is just about what you'd expect, a Frankenstein of movie pieces and game pieces. It's frustrating to "trap" the ghosts, so game-makers throw a bunch of little ghosts at you that you blow up. Some ghosts have a vulnerable spot, some need that spot to be yanked out of it to make the ghost vulnerable. You upgrade your gear, but you don't have to collect health points to recover from being slimed. You have to alternate devices against the big bosses who float around out of reach only to pop up with some vulnerable moment. The mayor seems strange, turns out he's possessed, Peck who as your enemy before is now your boss (guess we can't make someone from the EPA a villain anymore), but he's still a jerk. Eventually you have to cross the streams to save the day.
Perhaps if I'd tried the cartoon version, I might not have felt such a let down. Or maybe I should give this game more credit for at least swinging for the fences. It's not bad, it's just so linear and repetitive. The ghosts aren't scary enough to keep you playing to defeat them, and the jokes aren't funny enough to make you care what happens to the characters. Pretty much what you'd expect from a videogame that tries to be a movie sequel.
"[T]here’s an old saw that says that if the Indians — I mean the East Indian nation — is the most religious country on Earth and the Swedes are the least, America is a nation of Indians governed by Swedes. Our elite culture has very much tapped into this materialistic worldview, the view that the universe is eternal, self-existent. Matter and energy are the fundamental explanatory principles. There is no God or purpose or objective moral order, that sort of thing." — Stephen Meyer
Jeffrey summarizes Meyer's basic premise this way:
So, you’re arguing, as I understand your book, that DNA itself presents evidence for why people should see behind living creatures on Earth an intelligent design and therefore a designer.
And DNA is in every living thing; while there may be variations in the coding, Meyer says, they all conform to what is clearly a design, a "blueprint":
The rivets on a ship and the rivets on a plane may be very different, but they’re part of a larger architecture that’s determined by blueprints.
The mere existence of "blueprints" implies an intelligence behind them:
Jeffrey: Okay, so you’re saying the DNA is actually an information system? Meyer: Yes.
Darwin himself couldn't come up with an adequate explanation for the origin of life:
Jeffrey: ... did Darwin, through his theory, have an explanation for how you got from point A, where there’s no life, to point B, where there is the first life? Meyer: Oh, he most definitely did not. He was quite emphatic about this, that he did not have an explanation for the origin of life. Neither did anyone else at the time. At one point, he said we may as well speculate about the origin of matter itself. He did offer some speculations. It fell to later scientists to propose evolutionary explanations for the origin of the first life, but 150 years after the publication of Origin of Species, that is this year, we have no satisfactory evolutionary account for how life first began.
Which, once again, provokes me to ask: Why is Darwinian evolution — and only Darwinian evolution — being taught as fact in taxpayer-supported public schools? But I digress.
What about the commonly-taught notion that chemicals on the early earth somehow organized themselves into life? Meyer doesn't buy it:
... my book is arguing that, whatever you think about biological evolution, the origin of the first life has not been explained by what’s called chemical evolution, and instead, there is a cause that we know that’s sufficient to produce information, and that cause is intelligence.
This idea horrifies some because it seems to open the way for a Creator (the nature of which may or may not be divine):
Jeffrey: Why would people be upset if objective observation of the physical world pointed to a Creator? Meyer: Well, they may hold a worldview that excludes the existence of a Creator, and they may hold it very strongly. And for that reason, the evidence that we’re pointing to and the argument that we’re developing — or that I’m developing in this case — would be a challenge to what is, in essence, a religious or quasi-religious perspective that people may hold, either explicitly or kind of as a default way of looking at the world.
Meyer also challenges a common stereotype:
We have this idea of scientists as completely objective guys in white coats who just, you know, look at the evidence and then the theory pops off the evidence and it’s just, it’s obvious. But scientists have ideological commitments, and those differ from scientist to scientist, and that’s one of the reasons that you have controversy.
He seems to be implying that ascertaining facts and seeking after the truth are not the highest goals for scientists; but since the word "science" itself means "knowledge" and a scientist is "one who does science," then just what the heck are these people doing who call themselves scientists — and, furthermore, why are they collecting fat paychecks from private and public sources if they're not committed to objective, empirical science? But, again, I'm digressing.
Meyer relates this debate on origins to "the human moral order":
Jeffrey: You have this other debate in society in general about what are the rules that should guide our behavior, that should guide our law, and whether they’re immutable and unchangeable, and whether everybody had to obey them. Do you think there’s a connection between these two debates? Meyer: Oh, absolutely. The connection has to do with a person’s view of design. If the human moral order, if the human person is designed, then you can have definite human nature, you can have an understanding that there is a definite human nature, and therefore there are moral laws that advance human flourishing and there’s this whole natural law tradition of Western philosophy.
Finally, you might be surprised that there could be serious implications for America's political heritage which Darwinism and its various offshoots present:
Jeffrey: And if you live in a society whose creed begins with the idea that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and you refute the idea that in fact there is a Creator that not only designed the way that human beings are physically, but designed the moral order — Meyer: You’ve undermined the foundation of the American Revolution. Jeffrey: So, this Darwinian idea basically can undercut the very founding of our country.
Before leaving this, however, I must say that Mr. Jeffrey's title isn't really justifiable since at no time does Meyer concede the premise that the God of the Bible — as commonly conceived — was the Intelligence behind the origin of life on earth. It is largely irrelevant to advocates of intelligent design like Meyer whether the designer of DNA was Brahma, the alien Greys from Zeta Reticuli VI, or Yahweh. IDers are a diverse lot, philosophically and religiously speaking.
More disgusting still is the fallacious premise for all of this, being that homosexuals are somehow oppressed in America. They are not. Equating the opposition of Americans toward gay "marriage" (an oxymoron anyway) with oppression, and labeling all who do not unconditionally embrace the gay political agenda as homophobes is beyond disingenuous. — Erik Rush
Last month President Obama proclaimed June 2009 "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month," and called "upon the people of the United States to turn back discrimination and prejudice everywhere it exists."
Although that proclamation resonates with noble sentiments, Erik Rush (in his article "The Myth of Homosexual Oppression") regards the President's "shameless pandering" to the gay lobby as political payback to them for helping him get elected:
What's even more disgusting is that during his June 29 panderfest, Obama equated the "struggle" of gay Americans for "equality" with American blacks' quest for civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s. Now, all the junk science in the world isn't going to alter the fact that homosexuality is a choice. There are sufficient experiential commonalities amongst gays that validate this assertion, and no evidence in the area of biological science to suggest otherwise. As such, I have always considered those who make the comparison between blacks and gays as the worst kind of scum.
In Rush's view, the gay lobby is a front group for some unsavory political ideas:
At this juncture, neither I, nor any other conscientious Americans, seek to disenfranchise gays; we are simply opposed to their lobby's far-left entrenchment and their attempts to redefine morality, marriage and their Orwellian desire for universal "imposed legitimacy." What's going on now is nothing more than boilerplate far left intimidation and mass-scale brainwashing.
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He wrote what?
The progressive spirit seems unquenchable. Consider, for instance, John Holdren, the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy — or simply President Obama's "Science Czar." According to the anonymous individual who runs the zombietime weblog, Holdren has a lot of 'splainin' to do:
In a book [Ecoscience] Holdren co-authored [with Paul and Anne Erlich] in 1977, the man now firmly in control of science policy in this country wrote that:
• Women could be forced to abort their pregnancies, whether they wanted to or not; • The population at large could be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into the nation's drinking water or in food; • Single mothers and teen mothers should have their babies seized from them against their will and given away to other couples to raise; • People who "contribute to social deterioration" (i.e., undesirables) "can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility" — in other words, be compelled to have abortions or be sterilized; • A transnational "Planetary Regime" should assume control of the global economy and also dictate the most intimate details of Americans' lives — using an armed international police force.
Impossible, you say? That must be an exaggeration or a hoax. No one in their right mind would say such things.
Well, I hate to break the news to you, but it is no hoax, no exaggeration. John Holdren really did say those things, and this report contains the proof.
In advocating "those things," might Holdren be excused for exaggerating just a bit? The zombie blogger, however, isn't willing to cut him any slack:
Holdren wrote these things in the framework of a book he co-authored about what he imagined at the time (late 1970s) was an apocalyptic crisis facing mankind: overpopulation. He felt extreme measures would be required to combat an extreme problem. Whether or not you think this provides him a valid "excuse" for having descended into a totalitarian fantasy is up to you: personally, I don't think it's a valid excuse at all, since the crisis he was in a panic over was mostly in his imagination. Totalitarian regimes and unhinged people almost always have what seems internally like a reasonable justification for actions which to the outside world seem incomprehensible.
In his book, Holdren tacitly approves of putting sterilants in the water suppy, without any apparent reservations:
The fact that Holdren has no moral qualms about such a deeply invasive and unethical scheme (aside from the fact that it would be difficult to implement) is extremely unsettling and in a sane world all by itself would disqualify him from holding a position of power in the government.
But perhaps Holdren was just engaging in a few harmless gedankenexperiments, airing out ideas such as forced sterilization to prevent "social deterioration." The zombie blogger is dubious:
... it's a different matter when the Science Czar of the United States suggests the very same thing officially in print. It ceases being a harmless fantasy, and suddenly the possibility looms that it could become government policy. And then it's not so funny anymore .... Many of the bizarre schemes suggested in Ecoscience [Holdren's book] rely on seriously flawed legal reasoning. The book is not so much about science, but instead is about reinterpreting the Constitution to allow totalitarian population-control measures.
If Holdren and the progressives have their way, there just might be a Planetary Regime in your future. Here's a quote from his book:
Perhaps those agencies, combined with UNEP and the United Nations population agencies, might eventually be developed into a Planetary Regime—sort of an international superagency for population, resources, and environment. Such a comprehensive Planetary Regime could control the development, administration, conservation, and distribution of all natural resources, renewable or nonrenewable, at least insofar as international implications exist. Thus the Regime could have the power to control pollution not only in the atmosphere and oceans, but also in such freshwater bodies as rivers and lakes that cross international boundaries or that discharge into the oceans. The Regime might also be a logical central agency for regulating all international trade, perhaps including assistance from DCs to LDCs, and including all food on the international market. [Note: DCs = Developed Countries; LDCs = Least Developed Countries.]
The Planetary Regime might be given responsibility for determining the optimum population for the world and for each region and for arbitrating various countries' shares within their regional limits. Control of population size might remain the responsibility of each government, but the Regime would have some power to enforce the agreed limits.
Like the song says, Everybody wants to rule the world — but since it's all for our own good, who could possibly object? Do I hear a nomination for Planetary President? Why don't we save some time and by unanimous consent simply appoint the guy already in the Oval Office?
More Than One Brain Cell: SF Films with Ideas (Part Eight)
Disclaimer: Films listed here may be terrible, but they must have at least one scientifically interesting idea, however badly they may exploit that concept.
The Day of the Triffids (1962) Howard Keel, Kieron Moore, Janette Scott, Nicole Maurey, Mervyn Johns C-93 mins. Loosely based on the novel by John Wyndham
The whole planet, it seems, is struck with blindness; only a very few still retain their eyesight. One of them is Howard Keel (in a non-musical role); he must pass through a world made dangerous not only by treacherous humans but also the sudden emergence of triffids, which (according to Wikipedia) "are strange fictional plants, capable of rudimentary animal-like behavior ... able to uproot themselves and walk, possess a deadly whip-like poisonous sting, and may even have the ability to communicate with each other. On screen they vaguely resemble gigantic asparagus shoots." Remember that the next time you eat an asparagus. This film, derived from master-of-disaster John Wyndham's 1951 book, should have been better. Rumor hath it that another version is scheduled for release this year; chances are it will be more explicitly anti-fascist and anti-Christian, as per the novel's subtexts.
X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes(1963) Ray Milland, Diana Van der Vlis, Harold J. Stone, John Hoyt, Don Rickles, Dick Miller, Morris Ankrum (uncredited last appearance) C-79 mins. Script by Ray Russell and Robert Dillon Director/producer: Roger Corman
An amazingly effective low-budget ($300,000) horror/sci-fi flick, The Man with the X-Ray Eyes has a great premise:
Dr. Xavier [Ray Milland] develops eyedrops intended to increase the range of human vision, allowing one to see beyond the "visible" spectrum into the ultraviolet and x-ray wavelengths and beyond. Believing that testing on animals and volunteers will produce uselessly subjective observations, he begins testing the drops on himself.
Initially, Xavier discovers that he can see though people's clothing, and he uses his vision to save a young girl whose medical problem was misdiagnosed. Over time and with continued use of the drops, Xavier's visual capacity increases and his ability to control it decreases. Eventually he can no longer see the world in human terms, but only in forms of lights and textures that his brain is unable to fully comprehend. His behavior becomes increasingly erratic, and Xavier's associates assume that he is going insane. — Wikipedia
Obviously this movie's theme is a variation of Frankenstein/Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. You won't forget the final fadeout scene for a long time.
Robinson Crusoe on Mars(1964) Paul Mantee, Victor Lundin, Adam West, Barney (as Mona the monkey) C-110 mins. Loosely based on Daniel Defoe's 1719 novel
The first half of this film is concerned with how astronaut Paul Mantee will survive after he has crashed on Mars; the methods he discovers or devises are quite ingenious (e.g., oxygen-generating rocks). The last part deals with his encounter with ruthless extraterrestrials who enslave any races they come across — and murder the ones they can't conquer. The monkey is well trained; he steals every scene. A discursive article about the movie is on-line. Please excuse the hyperbole in the following:
Special-effects wunderkind and genre master Byron Haskin (The War of the Worlds) won a place in the hearts of fantasy-film lovers everywhere with this gorgeously designed journey into the unknown. When his spaceship crash-lands on the barren wastelands of Mars, U.S. astronaut Commander "Kit" Draper (Paul Mantee) must fight for survival, with a pet monkey seemingly his only companion. But is he alone? Shot in vast Techniscope and blazing Technicolor, Robinson Crusoe on Mars is an imaginative and beloved techni-marvel of classic science fiction. — Product description
The Time Travelers (1964) Preston Foster, Philip Carey, Merry Anders, Steve Franken, John Hoyt, Forrie Ackerman C-82 mins.
This one is a lot of dumb fun — its kitchen sink approach is to mix time travel, space travel, and primitive warlike cultures together and see what happens. While the movie unsuccessfully tries to generate visceral excitement, it actually works better when it's dealing with sci-fi tropes. If you don't expect too much, you'll probably enjoy it:
Scientists Dr. Erik von Steiner (Preston Foster), Dr. Steve Connors (Philip Carey) and Carol White (Merry Anders) are testing their time viewing device, drawing enormous amounts of power. Danny McKee (Steve Franken), a technician from the power plant, has been sent to tell them to shut down their experiment. During the test, odd shadows quickly cross the room before the screen shows a stark, barren landscape. Danny discovers the screen has become a portal and steps through.
As the setting is becoming unstable, the others enter the portal to retrieve him. Just as they return to the portal, an image of their lab in mid-air, it disappears, stranding them. Then they are pursued by hostile primitives, ending up in a cave. There they find an underground city of advanced peaceful people — all that is left of civilization in a future devastated by nuclear war.
The year is 2071 A.D. Dr. Varno (John Hoyt) the leader explains that earth is left unable to support life. To survive, they are frantically working on a spacecraft that will take them to a planet orbiting a distant star. — Wikipedia
It's said this film served as the "inspiration" for The Time Tunnel TV series.
Marxism, Keynesianism, and Fabianism (not the singer)
“You would be forcibly fed, clothed, lodged, taught, and employed whether you liked it or not. If it were discovered that you had not character and industry enough to be worth all this trouble, you might possibly be executed in a kindly manner.” — George Bernard Shaw
In his article ("The Socialization of America"), Dr. David Noebel connects some dots that one wouldn't think necessarily relate to one another. He finds an eerie convergence in the 19th century:
In retrospect, we might discover that 1883 was a most significant year. We’re familiar with 1848 giving us The Communist Manifesto and 1859 giving us The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. But 1883 gave us three portentous happenings. These seemingly unrelated happenings turned history toward socialism.
He's referring to the death of Darwin and the births of John Maynard Keynes and the Fabian Socialist society. Noebel believes there is a direct connection between the latter two and attitudes and programs being advanced in the "People's House" — and he names names:
Most Americans are totally unaware that the U. S. House of Representatives crawls with a large, well-organized assembly of socialist organizations. These organizations are dedicated to (a) bringing about the destruction of the capitalist economic system (portrayed as greedy, conservative, religious, and/or filthy rich) and (b) slowly but surely bringing production, education, food, and health care under the complete control and regulation of the federal government.
Noebel also reveals some personal data about Keynes and his Cambridge classmates that isn't exactly common knowledge:
Zygmund Dobbs conducted the research for Keynes at Harvard and summarizes the political, moral, and economic slant of Keynes and his friends at Cambridge University: “Singing the Red Flag, the highborn sons of the British upper-class lay on the carpeted floor spinning out socialist schemes in homosexual intermissions …. The attitude in such gatherings was anti-establishmentarian. To them the older generation was horribly out of date, even superfluous. The capitalist system was declared obsolete and revolution was proclaimed as the only solution. Christianity was pronounced an enemy force, and the worst sort of depravities were eulogized as ‘that love which passes all Christian understanding.’ Chief of this ring of homosexual revolutionaries was John Maynard Keynes … Keynes was characterized by his male sweetheart, Lytton Strachey, as ‘a liberal and a sodomite, an atheist and a statistician.’ His particular depravity was the sexual abuse of little boys.”
It looks as if the "salt of the earth" (i.e., Christians) will have to continue to stay the hand of socialist progressives even as they incur the wrath of these so-called "liberals":
The Christian worldview endorses sound or hard money, fiscal responsibility, saving for a rainy day, deferred gratification, paying off monthly credit card bills, living within one’s means, etc. Keynesian economics, by contrast, argues for consumption, extravagance, and not providing for the future, arguing that “the great vice is saving, thrift, and financial prudence.” .... Keynesians love huge national spending, debt, and high inflation — anathema to Christians and conservatives.
The following also can be found on Dr. Noebel's website:
What is Globalization? It is the collective effect of purposeful and amoral manipulation that seeks to centralize economic, political, technological and societal forces in order to accrue maximum profit and political power to global banks, global corporations and the elitists who run them.
"Free Trade" is the central mantra. Globalization is set against national sovereignty, closed borders, trade tariffs and anything that would restrict its goals and methods used to achieve them.
Globalization promotes regional and global government, a one-world economic system of trade and a form of fascism where global corporations and their elite control the policies and directives of individual governments.
The original and primary perpetrators of modern-day globalization number only in the 100's, representative of which, but not exclusively, are members of The Trilateral Commission.
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Down the memory hole
I just can't help but wonder if the future of electronic publishing includes President Obama's Ministry of Truth informing me, through my e-book reader, of whether I am today at war with Eastasia or Eurasia.
The dazzling technological wonders with which we are daily confronted have doubtlessly been a boon to mankind — but there are also dire implications of living in the Age of High Tech:
The digital age has many advantages, but its principle disadvantage is that an electronic file – particularly one served from some remote location, such as to subscribers to a service – can be changed at will and at whim. Remember the outcry when Steven Spielberg digitally revised "E.T.: The Extraterrestrial", removing guns from the hands of government agents and replacing them with walkie talkies? Do you recall the irritation among "Star Wars" fans when Lucas announced that only his new, digitally revised versions of the original "Star Wars" trilogy would be coming to DVD? (Those of us who remember Han Solo preemptively shooting Greedo must be content to see it on VHS. In the digital age, Greedo gets off a shot first.) Now picture, if you will, this type of instantaneous revision coming to books.
For any totalitarian government that wishes to stuff real history down the memory hole (as in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four), the technology is already here. Even now there may be who-knows-how-many "Winston Smiths" somewhere in the world busily assigned to the task:
What is to stop an increasingly controlling government – or a publishing authority attempting to curry favor with that government – from [the instantaneous revision and the rewriting of history]? Nothing, if the "books" we read are only zeroes and ones.
But not just books: I heard recently (and assume it's true) that an estimated 93 to 97 percent of all money in the world is also "only zeroes and ones."
This week TCM offers * a bumper crop of seldom-seen crime thrillers with an emphasis on civic corruption (see Monday and Tuesday); * a meditation on capital punishment (Wednesday); * several films with Barbara Stanwyck as victim and victimizer (Thursday); * and a Dick Tracy mini-marathon, four from the '40s plus Warren Beatty's take on the lantern-jawed symbol of law and order (Saturday).
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Monday—July 13th
9:30 AM—The Sellout (1951) A small-town newspaper editor risks everything to expose a corrupt sheriff. Cast: Walter Pidgeon, John Hodiak, Audrey Totter. Dir: Gerald Mayer. BW-83 mins, TV-PG, CC
11:00 AM—The Unknown Man (1951) A scrupulously honest lawyer discovers that the client he's gotten off was really guilty. Cast: Walter Pidgeon, Ann Harding, Lewis Stone. Dir: Richard Thorpe. BW-86 mins, TV-PG
5:45 PM—Ada (1961) A call girl weds an easygoing politician and helps him against corrupt state officials. Cast: Susan Hayward, Dean Martin, Wilfrid Hyde-White. Dir: Daniel Mann. C-108 mins, TV-G, CC, Letterbox Format
8:00 PM—Bullets or Ballots(1936) A cop goes undercover to crack an influential crime ring. Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Joan Blondell, Humphrey Bogart. Dir: William Keighley. BW-82 mins, TV-G, CC
9:30 PM—White Heat (1949) A government agent infiltrates a gang run by a mother-fixated psychotic. Cast: James Cagney, Edmond O'Brien, Virginia Mayo. Dir: Raoul Walsh. BW-114 mins, TV-PG, CC, DVS
11:30 PM—The Undercover Man (1949) A treasury agent tries to convict a ruthless mobster of tax evasion. Cast: Glenn Ford, Nina Foch, James Whitmore. Dir: Joseph H. Lewis. BW-84 mins, TV-PG
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Tuesday—July 14th
1:00 AM—The Mob (1951) A police detective fakes a suspension so he can go undercover. Cast: Broderick Crawford, Richard Kiley, Ernest Borgnine. Dir: Robert Parrish. BW-86 mins, TV-14
2:30 AM—The Case Against Brooklyn (1958) A rookie cop takes on criminals who have the local government in their pocket. Cast: Darren McGavin, Margaret Hayes, Warren Stevens. Dir: Paul Wendkos. BW-81 mins, TV-PG, Letterbox Format
4:00 AM—Bunco Squad (1951) Police try to get the goods on a phony seance racket. Cast: Robert Sterling, Ricardo Cortez, Joan Dixon. Dir: Herbert Leeds. BW-67 mins, TV-G
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Wednesday—July 15th
6:15 AM—The Firebird (1934) A young girl's secret romance is exposed when her lover is murdered. Cast: Verree Teasdale, Ricardo Cortez, Anita Louise. Dir: William Dieterle. BW-74 mins, TV-PG
8:00 PM—The Quare Fellow (1962) A prison warden finds his belief in capital punishment tested. Cast: Patrick McGoohan, Sylvia Sims, Walter Macken. Dir: Arthur Dreifuss. BW-90 mins, TV-14
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Thursday—July 16th
6:00 AM—The Locked Door (1929) A woman once kidnapped by a wealthy womanizer tries to save her sister from him. Cast: Rod La Rocque, Barbara Stanwyck, William 'Stage' Boyd. Dir: George Fitzmaurice. BW-74 mins, TV-G
7:30 AM—Remember the Night (1940) An assistant D.A. takes a shoplifter home with him for Christmas. Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, Beulah Bondi. Dir: Mitchell Leisen. BW-94 mins, TV-G
9:00 AM—Double Indemnity (1944) An insurance salesman gets seduced into plotting a client's death. Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, Edward G. Robinson. Dir: Billy Wilder. BW-108 mins, TV-PG, CC
4:00 PM—A Woman's Face (1941) Plastic surgery gives a scarred female criminal a new outlook on life. Cast: Joan Crawford, Melvyn Douglas, Conrad Veidt. Dir: George Cukor. BW-106 mins, TV-PG, CC
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Friday—July 17th
4:45 PM—Love Me or Leave Me (1955) True story of torch singer Ruth Etting's struggle to escape the gangster who made her a star. Cast: Doris Day, James Cagney, Cameron Mitchell. Dir: Charles Vidor. C-122 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format
7:00 PM—James Cagney: Top of the World (1992) Michael J. Fox hosts this documentary featuring film clips and rare behind-the-scenes footage that traces superstar James Cagney's rise to the top. Cast: James Cagney, Michael J. Fox, Jack Lemmon. Dir: Carl Lindahl. C-47 mins, TV-G, CC
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Saturday—July 18th
12:00 PM—Dick Tracy (1945) Dick is faced with a series of murders in which the victims all come from different social and economic backgrounds. Cast: Morgan Conway, Anne Jeffreys, Mike Mazurki. Dir: William A. Berke. BW-61 mins, TV-PG
1:15 PM—Dick Tracy vs. Cueball (1946) A police detective uses his girlfriend to track down a homicidal maniac. Cast: Morgan Conway, Anne Jeffreys, Dick Wessel. Dir: Gordon Douglas. BW-62 mins. TV-PG
2:30 PM—Dick Tracy's Dilemma(1947) Dick Tracy takes on "The Claw" in this crime thriller. Cast: Ralph Byrd, Lyle Latell, Kay Christopher. Dir: John Rawlins. BW-60 mins, TV-PG
3:45 PM—Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome(1947) Dick Tracy tracks down a bank robber using nerve gas. Cast: Boris Karloff, Ralph Byrd, Anne Gwynne. Dir: John Rawlins. BW-65 mins, TV-PG
5:00 PM—Dick Tracy (1990) The intrepid comic strip detective fights off a ruthless gangster and his seductive girlfriend. Cast: Warren Beatty, Madonna, Al Pacino. Dir: Warren Beatty. C-105 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format
'Bruno' Slaps Leftist Elites Under Cloak of Irony, Obscenity
I haven't yet seen Bruno, the new film from Sacha Baron Cohen, but I can point you to John Nolte's superbly informative and analytical critique at Big Hollywood. Nolte praises the film for consistently mocking contemporary liberal elites and political correctness, but laments its unceasing excessive obscenity and nudity, which he says becomes tiring very quickly:
With “Bruno,” and to his eternal credit, the Jester has turned on his masters and as we’ve seen in all those “Does ‘Bruno’ go too far?” articles, not surprisingly, many of them find turnabout unfair play. Because it’s now celebrity culture and other protected classes (gays and blacks) also facing Baron Cohen’s withering fire, suddenly what was once so daring, illuminating, brave and hilarious - guffaws at the expense of others - must now be met with beard scratching over “false gayness” and heavy, solemn pauses due to a “nasty streak.”
If you define politically incorrect as I do - having the guts to satirize the Left’s sacred cows (or everything Stewart, Letterman and Maher don’t do) - ”Bruno” hits the mark with an across the board ambush which, because everyone’s taking fire, goes a long way to mitigate the mean-spiritedness that made “Borat” such an exercise in elitist cruelty. The downside, and it’s a steep one, is that “Bruno” is relentlessly smutty and lewd, packed with full-frontal male nudity (much of it in close-up), outrageous but explicit portrayals of gay sex, and most disturbing, a swingers’ orgy with only the smallest of black dots to avoid an X-rating. This is easily the most off-putting film in years. . . .
Over time the relentless nudity and crudity starts to wear. Even though you’re laughing, at the same time you’re hoping the next scene gives it a rest. But as the film rolls on things only get worse until - even though you’re still laughing - you can’t wait for it to come to an end.
As Nolte describes it, Bruno appears to be one of those cultural products that send morally positive or anti-elite messages through astonishingly unpleasant and obscene surface content. That's a common approach these days, and enables culture-makers to reach jaded audiences with salubrious truths.
We'll know things are really getting better when those truths can regularly be told openly and without irony or a cloak of obscenity needed to sneak them past the vigilant political correctness police.
NBC's 'Philanthropist' Offers Bad Economics, Worse Melodrama
NBC's new series The Philanthropist means well but does its subject matter a disservice, writes S. T. Karnick.
The Philanthropist (NBC, Wednesdays, 10 p.m. EDT) is a bad idea for a television series, but in the execution it manages to be even worse. In fact, in making extravagant claims about the value of philanthropy, the show actually undermines the very things that make such giving possible.
Telling the story of an emotionally troubled American billionaire who travels the world in order to help desperately poor strangers in need, the show manages to condescend to the philanthropist himself, the society that allowed him to become rich, and the poor people he helps.
It condescends to the philanthropist, Teddy Rist (Phillip Purefoy) by positing that his quest was caused by an emotional reaction to a devastating personal loss--the death of his young son and subsequent breakup of his marriage. Near the beginning of the pilot episode, Rist establishes this theme strongly by saying that few people are happy these days, even people with money.
That will strike many viewers as a quite offensive notion, as it posits that happiness is based on an accumulation of material things and creature comforts. Even worse, it is false in all of its particulars: people in the United States are wealthier than ever, despite the current recession, and if material things and creature comforts made for happiness, we'd be happier than ever.
In addition to being untrue to life, this premise undermines the dramatic value of the show. By positing Rist's philanthropy as an emotional reaction to a gnawing need within him for meaning in his life, the premise diminishes the moral praiseworthiness and dramatic power of his actions by characterizing them as not really freely chosen, as not flowing naturally from his character. Hence he cannot deserve full moral credit for his actions, as he's really using them to fulfill his emotional needs.
Given its premise, the show can hardly help but condescend to the poor people he helps, as these ethnic people in Africa, Asia, and the like obviously need the assistance of this superior caucasian person. Yes, their troubles are sometimes caused by natural events, such as a hurricane in Nigeria, but natural disasters in wealthy places such as the United States don't result in the kind of devastation we see in The Philanthropist.
Obviously sensing this, the showmakers try to forestall any complaints of racism by having Rist's business partner--designated as co-CEO of their multibillion-dollar natural resources investment firm--played by an African-American, Jesse L. Martin (Law and Order). But that is an obvious sop to Hollywood's absurdly unrealistic (though well-meaning) affirmative action plan in which African-Americans are continually cast in roles of corporate and government managers and commen-sense conscience figures who keep flighty white people in line (those that aren't gang members or prostitutes).
The unreality and stereotyped nature of that premise destroys its effectiveness, and in the present case it serves only to underscore the artificiality and didacticism of the show's concept and story lines.
The first episode of The Philanthropist even tries to blame businesses for everything that's wrong in Nigeria, with a Nigerian official claiming that the rebel activities there are "a rebellion agains the very corporate intrusion that companies like your routinely perpetrate on sovereign nations like Nigeria.
That's absolute rot. Nigeria's entire economy depends on Western corporations and consumers making the nation's oil and other resources worth something. To claim that the one thing that brings wealth to that nation creates turmoil is to argue that the people there are better off scraping off a living in subsistence farming and starving to death whenever the weather isn't just right.
In attempting to absolve the Nigerians of responsibility for their nation's problems, the people behind The Philanthropist paint Nigerians as inferior beings who cannot even respond reasonably to being saved from starvation.
Later in that same episode, Rist is bullied by U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents, whose presence in Nigeria is spectacularly inexplicable but of course thoroughly sinister. This scene adds the United States government to the disruptive American forces whose involvement in Nigeria is the cause of the nation's problems. The Philanthropist exemplifies the phenomenon noted by former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick when she noted that many people in the United States always seem eager to "blame America first."
The second episode, "Myanmar," has Rist explicitly asking whether economic sanctions against oppressive governments do more harm to the government or to the people of the nation thus punished. Naturally, Rist ultimately comes to the conclusion that his corporation must not be tainted by even a secondhand relationship with such a nation by doing business with a company that does business in Myanmar.
His partner and co-CEO refers to this as "the right thing, the moral thing, the financially responsible thing." It's certainly the sentimental and most immediately sympathetic response, but the morality of the situation is much more complex than that, just as Rist initially thought. After all, Cuba, North Korea, and Iran have not become more humane by being cut off from Western investments, or as The Philanthropist calls them, "corporate intrusion."
The speech by the Nigerian official mentioned earlier exemplifies another element of the show, the characterization of Rist as hubristic and somewhat clueless about the practical difficulties involved in getting help to people, which requires regular rebukes and object lessons by the locals. Hence the locals are portrayed as morally superior and more practical than Rist. But if that's so, why are they so poor?
The answer, of course, is in the Nigerian official's rant: Evil corporations from the West exploit the nation and strip it of its resources. But that's obvious nonsense, as those resources are worth nothing to the locals unles they can sell them to people who can make some use of them. Hence the show is mired in contradictions in addition to being untrue to life.
Finally, The Philanthropist condescends to the society that makes possible the riches Mr. Rist distributes. In an interview for a television news show, Rist begins to talk about how much his corporation gives to charity, and then stops, disgusted that 1.9 percent is so paltry. He storms off the set and heads off to Nigeria to "look them in the eye' and personally deliver a large shipment of necessities such as food and blankets.
This is false in two important ways in addition to the aforementioned conceit of Rist using his philanthropy to fill a psychological and emotional need.
First, the notion that corporations do good mainly by giving to charity is false and pernicious. Rist's company buys and sells natural resources such as oil, natural gas, etc. That in itself does society an incredible amount of good--which is why people pay for it.
Thus any profit that the corporation makes that does not go back to its shareholders in the form of (very well-earned) dividends should go back into doing the good things that the corporation is already doing, or other ones which the firm can do well. The big amounts of money the corporation earns, after all, come about because they are fulfilling needs and desires which people are willing to pay for.
Yes, charity is a fine thing, but the real function and ability of corporations is to make money for their stockholders, which they can only legally accomplish by selling goods and services people want or need. In fact, many corporations have been notably pernicious in their philanthropic endeavors, often funding organizations that undermine the market system, personal liberty, and freedom of association that make the increasing wealth of the nation possible. We'd all be much better off if they stuck to what they do best.
Corporations make money by doing social good (unless assisted by government in making money from unnecessary or harmful things), and the surplus they generate--their profits--goes to additional investment (which leads to more good or decreases the corporation's value) or to shareholders, who may then distribute it as they choose. The latter, over the entire economy, are the source of much of the nation's monetary and in-kind philanthropy.
Even if a corporation gives no money at all directly to philanthropic endeavors, it cannot help but do good, as all the money corporations make can only go to reinvestment, debt paydown, distributions to shareholders, or taxes. Of all these categories, the only one not especially likely to do good is the tax payments.
The second false and condescending notion in The Philanthropist regarding American business is the conceit that the forcible redirection of corporate profits by an individual is morally good and proper. It is, in fact, quite wrong for Rist to divert even what he considers a piddling amount--1.8 percent--to pet charities that will make him feel better about himelf.
That is an outrageously elitist notion, that Rist knows more about what's good for society than his stockholders do. The money he gives to charity would be much more productive, as noted earlier, by being reinvested, paying down debt, or distributed to shareholders. All of those things have the potential to create further economic value, from which all of society ultimately benefits.
Rist is doing exactly what governments do, forcibly extracting money from other people and claiming moral superiority for doing so. He does show courage, determination, and self-sacrifice in bringing help to people in need, but that doesn't make what he's doing morally right.
Finally, the notion that what really makes the world a better place is philanthropy is entirely false.
What makes the world better, at least in simple material terms and in the creation of opportunities for personal fulfillment, is increasing wealth. And although many people--such as the producers of The Philanthropist--make extravagant claims about how philanthropic activities created various breakthrough developments, the reality is that the wealth of nations is created by the daily effort on the part of millions of people to earn their keep by doing things that benefit other people sufficiently that the latter are willing to pay for them.
Philanthropy is a good and fine thing indeed, but it's a choice best made by individuals to give of their own wealth in a compassionate hope of doing good for others. Forcible extraction of other people's money, even for charitable purposes, is not philanthropy; it's tyranny.
Like its protagonist, The Philanthropist means well, but its premises undermine the very things that make philanthropy possible.
TAC correspondent Mike Gray has landed two short fiction stories in the latest edition of the very good literary magazine The Southern Literary Messenger.
The online magazine tends to have real stories with actual things happening, not the kind of impressionistic or overly psychologizing approach common to contemporary literary fiction. Most of the stories in TSLM are reasonably short, with straightforward but sufficiently deep characterizations. Background information on the characters is limited to what is important to tell the story.
Thus the stories move quickly while conveying what the reader really wants to know.
In the current issue, Gray handles current-day political issues in an unusual and interesting way in the scifi story "Reaper Nine One."
Set in the near future in a united North American political entity that has apparently gone entirely socialist and ruthlessly suppresses political dissent and any attempt by citizens to live differently from government-mandated rules, the story deals with a family of three trying to escape over frozen wastelands into Indian country. They're pursued by a helicopter, the two-man crew of which is assigned to obliterate them on sight.
Gray does an excellent job of switching between the crew members and the escapees to build tension and suspense, and provides a good twist at the end. Rather amusingly, the story turns the current concern about immigration in the United States around, making it about the U.S. government trying to keep people from emigrating, as in the old Soviet Union and other communist countries.
In addition, there are good observations such as Gray's name for a prison camp--Pelosi Rehab. In all, "Reaper Nine One" has the flavor of a 1950s scifi story, where a strong concept, direct literary style, and straightforward story line make for an insightful look at life today and where it might lead.
Gray's second story in the issue is a Sherlock Holmes parody, "The Adventure of the Natal Treaty; or, A Fight at the Opera." It's amusing in a zany style reminiscent of the great S. J. Perelman. (Perelman is one of the top masters of American humor, and you really should read him.)
My favorite line from Gray's story: "You may rest assured, Humes, that such secrets are safe with me and my editors and three million readers of the STRAND."
Despite being trashed by the critics, Transformer: Revenge of the Fallen led at the U.S box office for the second weekend in a row.
With its strong complement of Christian themes and images, the Transformers sequel edged out the premiere weekend performance of the animated comedy entry Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, the third in that series, $42.3 million to $41.7 million.
Indicating that Christian themes, likable characters, and stories depicting people with a positive purpose outweigh critics' cavils, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen continued to draw well from all audience segments and shows signs it will sustain its ability to garner good numbers, according to a studio source.
I did not realize that Malden was a defender (and a too-lonely one) of Kazan. And, naturally, that he was a spirited and serious anti-communist. That only raises the esteem in which I held him.
When I was a kid, I only knew him from the American Express commercials — which he pulled off in such a memorable way. And there was something about his bulbous nose and voice that always appealed to me.
As I grew older and viewed some of his performances, though, I see my memories of him reflected in your tribute, Sam. The way he gave dignity and intelligence and depth to the "everyman" roles he was given by Hollywood.
What I will remember is the intensity that Malden poured into every role. Sometimes it was subtle, exactly when called for. Sometimes it was in our faces. But, always, there was a sense that an honorable and real intensity was boiling beneath the surface. And "intensity" doesn't always mean anger. In the characters Malden played, it was usually not anger, or at least not unhinged anger. If his character got heated, you knew — because of the way he played it — the anger was righteous, and not childish. It was not mindless rage. And he did not over do it (as Pacino, as great as he is, often does).
RIP to a great American actor and a great, patriotic American.
Just what does cause so-called "global warming" (recently hastily relabeled "climate change"), if, indeed, there is such a thing? The answer is blindingly obvious:
What he says about the unwillingness of some climatologists even to consider the sun-causing-climate change scenario speaks volumes about the politics and sociology of this issue and implies that good old empirical observations can be ignored or not pursued at all — after all, we're trying to save the planet, people!
As you can see from the pictures, solar activity — as evidenced by sunspots — is presently at a low ebb, and that could mean global cooling, not warming:
Today there is still reluctance to accept a sunspot explanation because of its connection to those who deny climate change. But now the speculation about an earth/sun connection has grown louder because of what is happening to the sun. No living scientist has seen it behave this way.
But the sun has behaved this way in the distant past, resulting in, for example, frozen rivers in northern Europe which permitted military invasions that would never have been attempted at that time of year and North American Indians confederating to deal with food shortages. (As you can see, climate change can have an up side and a down side.)
People with political agendas (e.g., the CEO of Chicken Little, Inc.) are unfazed by empirical science and prefer to rely on unverifiable computer models that support their programs (which might be a commission of the formal logical error of affirming the consequent, since alternative hypotheses are discarded in such models); in any event, as Vardiman indicates, it's really too soon to make definitive — and hideously expensive — judgments on this issue:
It is true that the observed increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere likely contributes to global warming, but it is not at all evident that it is the primary cause. Unfortunately, the actions by advocates of carbon dioxide-caused global warming to mediate the effect may prematurely incur a massive debt load on our nation before we know the answer ....
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Charlie, we hardly knew ye ....
"Darwin suits my purpose." — Karl Marx
Two thousand and nine marks the sesquicentennial of the publication of Charles Darwin's magnum opus, The Origin of Species, an event which even some apostate "Christian" churches are willing to celebrate — and never mind how unbiblical, inhuman, and fallacious Darwin's book and so-called "theory" are: Charlie's notion doesn't even qualify as a hypothesis, much less a full-blown theory, but that doesn't dissuade many in or outside of mainline denominations from attempts at apotheosizing this English "agnostic" (which I define as an atheist without the courage of his convictions).
In his glancing book review ("Making a Monkey out of Darwin"), paleocon Patrick Buchanan takes Darwin to task for not merely being wrong but also for lying about his own views in print:
Darwin ... lied in The Origin of Species about believing in a Creator. By 1859, he was a confirmed agnostic and so admitted in his posthumous autobiography, which was censored by his family.
As with the controversy of "global warming," it's clear that a scientist with an agenda just might not always tell the truth. In fact, he might also engage in a little intellectual property theft:
Darwin, [author Eugene Windchy] demonstrates, stole his theory from Alfred Wallace, who had sent him a "completed formal paper on evolution by natural selection." .... "All my originality ... will be smashed," wailed Darwin when he got Wallace's manuscript.
Think you know everything about the "Monkey Trial" because of a film you might have once seen? Think again:
The most delicious chapter is Windchy's exposure of the Scopes Monkey Trial and Hollywood's Bible-mocking movie Inherit the Wind, starring Spencer Tracy as Clarence Darrow .... The trial was a hoked-up scam to garner publicity for Dayton, Tenn. Scopes never taught evolution and never took the stand. His students were tutored to commit perjury. And William Jennings Bryan held his own against the atheist Darrow in the transcript of the trial.
In Darwin's world it's not hard for knighthoods to be conferred on hoaxers, so strong is the will to attack Scripture:
Discovered in England in 1912, Piltdown Man was a sensation until exposed by a 1950s investigator as the skull of a Medieval Englishman attached to the jaw of an Asian ape whose teeth had been filed down to look human and whose bones had been stained to look old.
Buchanan doesn't ask the obvious questions, however, so I will:
If Darwinian "theory" has indeed been discredited, then why is tax money being diverted to support programs that assume Darwinism has credibility? And if it's all just yarn spinning, then why is this "theory" being taught in public school science classes as fact rather than in literature classes as mythology?
Christians know the answers to these questions; everybody else, however, without spiritual discernment simply won't be able to connect the dots.
This week TCM offers: * several seldom-seen crime mellers from the '30s (see Friday); * the first and best The Manchurian Candidate (which, contrary to what some assert, is not about the current occupant of the White House — we hope) (see Monday); * two Man from U.N.C.L.E. shows edited into feature-length films (see Thursday); * and two films, one about the fallibility of man's law, the other about the finality of God's (see Sunday).
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Monday—July 6th
6:00 AM—Psycho (1960) A woman on the run gets mixed up with a repressed young man and his violent mother. Cast: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles. Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. BW-109 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format
8:00 AM—The Manchurian Candidate (1962) A Korean War hero doesn't realize he's been programmed to kill by the enemy. Cast: Laurence Harvey, Frank Sinatra, Angela Lansbury. Dir: John Frankenheimer. BW-127 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format
6:00 PM—Who Was That Lady? (1960) A cheating husband convinces his wife his flirtations are actually spy missions. Cast: Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh, Dean Martin. Dir: George Sidney. BW-114 mins, TV-G, Letterbox Format
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Tuesday—July 7th
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Wednesday—July 8th
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Thursday—July 9th
6:00 AM—To Trap a Spy (1964) Secret agents try to stop the assassination of an African leader touring the U.S. Cast: Robert Vaughn, David McCallum, Luciana Paluzzi. Dir: Don Medford. C-93 mins, TV-PG
7:45 AM—The Spy with My Face (1966) Enemy agents turn one of their own into a dead ringer for Man from U.N.C.L.E. Napoleon Solo. Cast: Robert Vaughn, David McCallum, Senta Berger. Dir: John Newland. C-86 mins, TV-PG
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Friday—July 10th
3:45 AM—Blind Alley (1939) When a gangster takes him hostage, a psychiatrist psychoanalyzes the criminal. Cast: Ralph Bellamy, Chester Morris, Ann Dvorak. Dir: Charles Vidor. BW-69 mins, TV-PG
5:00 AM—Each Dawn I Die (1939) A crusading reporter becomes a hardened convict when he's framed. Cast: James Cagney, George Raft, Jane Bryan. Dir: William Keighley. BW-92 mins, TV-PG, CC
6:45 AM—The Roaring Twenties (1939) Three WWI Army buddies get mixed up with the mob in peacetime. Cast: James Cagney, Priscilla Lane, Humphrey Bogart. Dir: Raoul Walsh. BW-107 mins, TV-G, CC
10:00 AM—The Good Bad Girl (1931) A gangster's moll tries to go straight to marry an honest man. Cast: Mae Clarke, James Hall, Marie Prevost. Dir: Roy William Neill. BW-71 mins.
11:15 AM—Attorney for the Defense (1932) A ruthless attorney tries to make amends for convicting an innocent man. Cast: Edmund Lowe, Evelyn Brent, Constance Cummings. Dir: Irving Cummings. BW-72 mins, TV-PG
12:30 PM—Final Edition (1932) A newswoman comes on to a mobster to solve the police commissioner's murder. Cast: Mae Clarke, Pat O'Brien, Mary Doran. Dir: Howard Higgin. BW-66 mins, TV-PG
6:00 PM—The Young in Heart (1938) A family of con artists saves the life of a wealthy old woman and plots to fleece her. Cast: Janet Gaynor, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Paulette Goddard. Dir: Richard Wallace. BW-91 mins, TV-G
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Saturday—July 11th
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Sunday—July 12th
9:00 AM—Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956) A novelist frames himself for murder to prove the fallibility of circumstantial evidence. Cast: Dana Andrews, Joan Fontaine, Sidney Blackmer. Dir: Fritz Lang. BW-80 mins, TV-PG, CC
10:00 PM—The Night of the Hunter(1955) A bogus preacher marries an outlaw's widow in search of the man's hidden loot. Cast: Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish. Dir: Charles Laughton. BW-93 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format
This year marks the 70th anniversary of Hollywood's greatest year, 1939.
Accordingly, Turner Classic Movies is celebrating the anniversary this month by showing 39 films released in '39, beginning tonight with a showing of The Wizard of Oz at 8 EDT, followed by a new documentary, 1939: Hollywood's Greatest Year.
It's a truism among fans of classic movies that 1939 was the Hollywood cinema's greatest year. But if it has become something of a cliche to say so, it's only because it's so undeniably true.
It's really rather amazing to consider how many classic or transcendentally classic films were released during that annus mirabilis. Among the most highly praised then and in the ensuring years were the following:
Gone with the Wind
The Wizard of Oz
Stagecoach
Beau Geste
Goodbye, Mr. Chips
Gunga Din
The Women
Wuthering Heights
The Roaring Twenties
Love Affair
Those would be enough for a great year in itself, but there was so much more--such as Ninotchka, Only Angels Have Wings, Drums Along the Mohawk, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Allegheny Uprising, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Stanley and Livingston, The Man in the Iron Mask, Dark Victory, Of Mice and Men,Young Mr. Lincoln, The Rains Came, Midnight, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, Union Pacific, Babes in Arms, The Little Princess, Another Thin Man, The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle, The Hardys Ride High, Golden Boy, Dodge City, Gulliver's Travels, The Light That Failed, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Old Maid, Son of Frankenstein, Destry Rides Again, and many, many others of like quality.
And from overseas: The Rules of the Game, The Four Feathers, The Stars Look Down, The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums, and others.
And perhaps even more impressive is the high quality of even the year's lower-budget films, such as Code of the Secret Service and Secret Service of the Air, both starring Ronald Reagan.
What all the Hollywood films mentioned here shared was the industry's ability at the time to alternate scenes of grandeur and intimacy with consummate skill and confidence.
The Hollywood movie factories had been perfected by the mid-1930s, and the studios were amazingly adept at turning out greatly entertaining movies that reflected and reinforced the values of their audience. Although the stars and other filmmaking principals were paid amazing sums of money then as they are now, the industry did not then reflect the elitism now rampant in Hollywood.
The studio moguls, who were largely self-made and from humble origins, enthusiastically accepted the nation's founding values and made sure that their product reflected those notions.They did so both for patriotic reasons and because they knew that was the best way for them to make money.
Thus while MGM head Louis B. Mayer was a staunch Republican and the Warner Bros. were supporters of FDR, all shared a strong patriotic love for their nation and shared their audience's values.
Also important was the more conservative social values that arose during the Depression 1930s after the social excesses of the Roaring Twenties. Audiences preferred movies to reflect values such as personal responsibility, long-term thinking, the value of hard work, personal sacrifice for the good of others, modesty, and the like. Hollywood was voluntarily under the authority of the Production Code, which set moral standards for the industry and protected the studios from a race to the moral bottom and an unbridled pursuit of sensationalism.
The Production Code was clearly not a straitjacket on creativity, given the impressive films made while it was in place during the 1930s through the 1950s. Contrary to the claims of many critics (and the Wikipedia entry cited here), the Production Code Administration was willing and in fact eager to work with producers to ensure that films could be as creative as possible without undermining the nation's morals.
Refraining from undermining people's morals may seem rather a quaint notion to many people today, but it indicates a sense of honor, decency, and humility that is sorely lacking among all to many purveyors of cultural products today.
Of course, there's no sense in hoping for a return of the Production Code, but a greater sense of responsibility on filmmakers' part would certainly be welcome. It would benefit the movies both morally and esthetically.
Do you prefer Facebook over MySpace? Then you're a racist
According to a story at The Inquisitr, it reflects very poorly on American society that social networkers have been leaving MySpace in droves and flocking to Facebook.
As The Inquisitr story notes, Danah Boyd, a social media researcher for Microsoft and fellow of the Harvard University Berkman Center for Internet and Society, recently delivered the keynote speech during New York’s Democracy forum at Lincoln Center. Boyd said she was disturbed by the possible reasons for mass abandonment of MySpace for the "more cultured" and "less cheesy" social networking site Facebook. The phenomenon apparently exposes a form of digital racism for which America should feel shame.
"We might as well face an uncomfortable reality … what happened was modern day ‘white flight’," Boyd said. "The fact that digital migration is revealing the same social patterns as urban white flight should send warning signals to all of us. It should scare the hell out of us."
Boyd, from the looks of her resume, is the embodiment of the over-educated elite who consider themselves our "cultural betters." Only they have the insight and courage to filter seemingly innocuous social trends through the left's race and class prism and reveal the real truth. That's why she's "scared," and must sound the alarm by referring to MySpace as the "ghetto of the digital landscape."
She said her research has found that MySpace users are more likely to be "brown or black" and espouse a different set of ideals in conflict with those espoused by the teens she surveyed over four years. She said that patterns in migration across social networking sites echoed those of a white exodus from cities in the past.
Ok. Let's play along. Perhaps it's true that a higher percentage of MySpace devotees are more likely to be "brown or black" than Facebook users. Is this proof that a white user is revealing his or her racism by leaving it in favor of Facebook? It is, I suppose, if one confuses correlation with causation — something a serious researcher takes great pains to avoid — and is careful to never venture far from the echo chamber of the academic elite.
Aside from that, Boyd's invocation of "white flight" is beyond absurd. Unlike the "white flight" to the suburbs of decades ago — where poor inner-city "browns and blacks" did not have the economic power to join the exodus to a more comfortable living environment and better public schools — there is no barrier at all to those "left behind" in the "digital ghetto" of MySpace. Migrating to Facebook takes about 30 seconds of computer time. That's one of the great things about the Internet age: It breaks down, rather than erects, racial and socioeconomic barriers. The question to ask is why "browns and blacks" remain at MySpace instead of joining the Facebook community. Voluntary self-segregation, perhaps?
At any rate, MySpace is being abandoned because it's annoying — most pages I'd visit would automatically start playing the host's favorite and obnoxious music, and often quite loudly; many pages are photo-heavy with crazy backgrounds that are hard on the eye and make it difficult to consume; and it is also less intuitive than Facebook. It should also be noted that even Facebook is becoming a victim of its own success, becoming increasingly clunky and annoying to many users (like me) who are now utilizing Twitter as a more streamlined way to socially interact on the Web.
MySpace was, and remains, primarily a social network for teens. MySpace is in the "digital ghetto" only in the sense that its own institutional inertia has resulted in it being lapped by a superior service. To suggest that it is racist for one to leave it behind for better, more mature alternatives is not only silly, but insulting.
But if Microsoft wants to put such a fool on its payroll and Harvard wants to keep subsidizing such "research," that's their business. Who am I to get in the way of them eroding their credibility?
Charming, quirky films such as Away We Go aren't always as innocent as they seem, S. T. Karnick writes.
In his excellent review of the new film Away We Go, critic R. J. MacReady extensively outlines the ideas and attitudes conveyed by the film, which seems on the surface to be quite light and appealingly "quirky," as the modern critical praiseword has it.
MacReady is spot-on in intuiting that there is something going on in Away We Go that's more than just a fond, heartwarming look at two people trying to find their way in a cold and indifferent world. There is. Throughout his critique, MacReady captures the little secret behind some of these seemingly raffish, charming, shaggy-dog tales. They have a message, and it is a toxic one.
To wit, they express the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, which, with Marxism, is the foundation for the modern, statist perversion of liberalism.
Rousseau's fundamental idea is that humans are born good and are subsequently corrupted by society. (A common expression of an aspect of this philosophy is the idea of the "noble savage," as is the contemporary illusion that primitive tribes are actually better than corrupt modern societies.)
Here's a quote from his 1754 Discourse on Philosophy that summarizes Rousseau's primary notion:
The first man who, having fenced in a piece of land, said "This is mine," and found people naive enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.
This notion, which contradicts both Christianity and scientific observation, was the foundation for Romanticism in the 19th century and of the twentieth century modern-liberal notion of universal self-fulfillment, an obvious impossibility.
(As it happens, Rousseauism, like Marxism, is a perversion of statements made by Christ and the Apostles in the Bible. In their materialistic perversion of Scripture, we are to impose on all of the world what Christ and his disciples said we would all voluntarily do if we truly loved God and our neighbors more than ourselves.)
Several observations in MacReady's review indicate this philosophy as a foundation of Away We Go:
We're lead to believe they will be good and rational because they're the goodest and rationalest of the bunch, not because their actions give us any reassurances.
That's the modern elite notion that real self-fulfillment can only be manifested in, selfish, antisocial behavior bexause society is corrupt and corrupting. Thus the couple's "wisdom" is made evident by the intensity of their selfish and eccentric pursuit of self-fulfillment.
it was also our last chance for these characters to learn that parenting is not all about them.
They make the choices they do because in fact everything is all about them, and we are supposed to see that as good.
The fact that the writers answer his fears (and the audience's) with the couple essentially saying to each other 'we can do this on our own' instead of acknowledging that some things may be harder than they realize seems like anti-development to me.
This is obvious Rousseauian thinking. Throughout the film the couple at the center have been trying to have things both ways: to get the benefits of modern society while living as Noble Savages who are not corrupted by society. This is the great quest of what in the past century was called liberalism and is now called progressivism.
And this ideal of having the benefits of civilzation without being corrupted by it--to be in civilization but ot of it, in another perversion of Christian thinking--is of course impossible. For someone must make the personal sacrifices to produce the quirky things these quirky people quirkily consume, to keep them alive and healthy to quirkily pursue their quirky whims, and to keep them safe from other quirky people whose quirky desires happen to involve inflicting suffering and even death on others.
Finally, McReady notes that the film's use of marriage as a theme "makes it seem like [the filmmakers] are trying to tell us something."
Malden Brought Depth, Moral Responsibility to Movie Roles
Actor Karl Malden, who died today at age 97, was a fine performer who stood for good principles and conveyed a sense of moral responsibility in his performances, S. T. Karnick writes.
Malden was instrumental in pushing the Motion Picture Academy to give a lifetime achievement award to writer-director Elia Kazan, who directed Malden in perhaps his best and most memorable role, that of Father Berry in On the Waterfront.
Kazan had been an outcast in Hollywood for several decades before the 1999 award, because of his opposition to communism.
A measure of Malden's integrity is that he was married to the same woman for seventy years and was surrounded by family members when he died.
By no means handsome or dashing, Malden was seen by critics an Everyman type, but he did not settle for allowing his characters to be ordinary or dull. Having grown up in no privileged environment, he knew just how much strength it often took for ordinary people just to survive. Thus he invested his characters with real strength, regardless of whether the person was basically good or not. He succeeded purely on the strength of his acting ability and the availability of roles playing real adult human beings in real, dramatic stories.
Malden clearly made an effort to understand why his characters did what they did, and as a result his performances emphasize the characters' freedom of moral choice and consequent moral responsibility for their actions. Thus his performances worked against the prevailing cultural notion that our actions are determined by our circumstances.
Malden had numerous memorable film roles, including Gen. Omar Bradley in Patton, the complex sheriff and former bank robber Dad Longworth in One-Eyed Jacks, the cuckolded husband in Baby Doll, the domineering father in Fear Strikes Out (an awful film), and of course as Lt. Mike Stone in the 1970s TV series The Streets of San Francisco.
.jpg "'Dick Tracy' (1945)")
