The American Culture

(Updated 10/01 12:29 EDT)

In all the controversy over what to do about fugitive film director Roman Polanski, currently in Switzerland awaiting possible extradition to the United States to face a thirty-year-old rape charge in California, the one moment that stands out for me is the reaction of French filmmaker Luc Besson, as quoted in the London Daily Telegraph:

The French director Luc Besson refused to sign the petition calling for Polanski's release.

He said: "I have a lot of affection for him, he is a man that I like very much but nobody should be above the law. I don't know the details of this case, but I think that when you don't show up for trial, you are taking a risk."

"Nobody should be above the law": That's just straightforward common sense from Besson, the man behind Subway, La Femme Nikita, The Professional, The Fifth Element, Taxi, Unleashed, The Transporter, Taken, etc.

One might well feel sympathy for Polanski and hope that the California legal system would ultimately go somewhat easy on him, but he should have to face the authorities as anyone else would be required to do. Calling for his release, as numerous Hollywood figures have done, is entirely the wrong thing. The principle of equality before the law is the bedrock of a good society, and we undermine it only at great peril.

Update (10/01/09, 12:29 p.m. EDT): Writer-director Kevin Smith (Clerks, Dogma, Reaper, Zack and Miri Make a Porno), certainy no prude, agrees with Besson:

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 09:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

After a couple of weeks of unsubstantiated rumors, it has been confirmed that the forthcoming film The Invention of Lying is indeed intended to satirize religion and religious believers.

New York Post critic Kyle Smith has seen the film and describes it as "a full-on attack on religion in general and Christianity in particular. It might be the most blatantly, one-sidedly atheist movie ever released by a major studio, in this case Warner Bros."

Although the commercials and theatrical trailers have presented the film as a cute comedy and made no allusion at all to any religious angle, much less a concerted case for atheism, Smith reports that the basis of the film is its attack on religion:

Gervais delights in what a faith-based society would call blasphemy, setting up an imaginary world in which no one ever lies. Except his character, who spreads what Gervais obviously sees as the biggest lie of all: Belief in God.

Smith's description of the film makes it clear that the protagonist's behavior represents a simpleminded atheist's idea of the meaning of religion:

There is a “Man in the Sky,” he says, who is looking down at all of us and is responsible for everything that happens. Yes, he explains to one woman, he gave your mom cancer — but he’s also responsible for curing her. The people aren’t happy that “The Man in the Sky” is behind all human suffering. “F— The Man in the Sky!” cries one citizen, and the crowd begins to get angry. A magazine cover exclaims, “Man in the Sky Kills 40,000 in Tsunami!” But Gervais’s character insists that whatever damage the Man in the Sky causes, he eventually makes up for it all in the end by providing a beautiful mansion for everyone after they die, at least for those who don’t commit three or more immoral acts, and by making it so that everyone can reunite with their loved ones in the next life.

Smith concludes by stating that the film is mean-spirited overall and that audiences are unlikely to be pleased by Gervais's attack on their basic beliefs while critics will enjoy this latest attempt to epater la bourgeousie:

Gervais is an atheist, which is fine, but his mean-spiritedness (even before the atheism theme enters the movie, it’s sour and misanthropic) and the film’s reduction of all religion to an episode of crowd hysteria are not going to be warmly received. Except maybe by critics.

In a comment on Smith's article, a reader quotes from Gervais's long, poorly written, and unapologetic but highly defensive and spectacularly cliched response to the building controversy on the film, published on the actor's blog. Here's Gervais's post, with some responses of my own in brackets:

A couple more web sites have picked up on a few Christians (not all - most Christians have a sense of humour) saying that The Invention of Lying is blasphemous.

Here are my seven deadly sins of jumping to conclusions:

1. No one has seen the film. [False--SK]

2. Even if the film suggests there is no God, it is a fictional world.[a truly pathetic evasion.] One of my favourite films is 'It's a wonderful life' and at no time am I offended by the suggestion in this wonderful work of fiction that there is a God.[Nice but irrelevant.]

3. If the film was not set in a fictional world and suggested there is no God then that's fine too, as it is anyone's right not to believe in God.[and it's other people's right to criticize a filmmaker for what he chooses to put in his movies.]

4. By suggesting there is no God you are not singling out Christianity.[but you certainly are including Christianity, so Christians have a right to answer back.]

5. Not believing in God cannot be blasphemous. Blasphemy is acknowledging a God to insult or offend etc.[Gervais's atheism is not the complaint: characterizing God as Gervais allegedly does in the film is what people are concerned about, and it is definitely a case of blasphemy if the film is at all as described.]

6. Even if it was blasphemous, which it isn'[false]t, then that's OK too due to a little god I like called "freedom of speech."[freedom of speech is not at issue. Blasphemy and contempt for other people's beliefs are the topic of discussion.] That said, I am not trying to offend anyone[but offending them all the same, while hiding behind a fig leaf of good intentions.]. That would be a waste of such a privilege.

7. I am an atheist, but this is not atheist propaganda[Well, if it looks like atheist propaganda, and it walks like atheist propaganda, and it quacks like atheist propaganda...]. When creating an imaginary world you have to make certain decisions. We decided also that there would be no surrealist art, no racism, no flattery, no fiction, no metaphor, and no supernatural. However, we decided that apart from that one "lying gene", humans evolved with everything else as we have it today. Joy, hope, ambition, ruthlessness, greed, lust, anger, jealousy, sadness, and grief. It's just a film[another pathetic evasion]. If any of the themes in it offend you or bore you, or just don't make sense to you, you should put everything right when you make a film[How revoltingly arrogant and elitist. As if the only way to answer a person were to go back in time, pursue the same career they have taken up, and answer them in the same form. This is a truly astonishing insult to his potential audience.].

I really hope everyone enjoys the film[Even though he lives in the relatively unchurched UK, it's quite amazing that he can be so grotesquely ignorant as to have imagined that the great majority of his potential American audience would not find this movie idea offensive.].' and keeps an open mind[regarding whether they like blasphemy? That is even more arrogant than the last sentence of his deadly sin number seven.]. I believe in peace on Earth, and good will to all men.[Not all harmful things are done with ill will. Gross negligence can be just as destructive, and merits an equal response.] I do as I would be done by, and believe that forgiveness is one of the greatest virtues[but of course he claims to have nothing in his film that requires forgiving.]. I just don't believe I will be rewarded for it in heaven[It seems likely he's right about that much.]. That's all.

It will be interesting to see whether audiences take to the film as more people find out what The Invention of Lying is all about. Telling your audience that their most profound beliefs are stupid and wrong seems a fine plan for eliciting positive reviews from elitist movie critics but a very bad way to lure people into movie theaters.

--S. T. Karnick

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 03:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (28) | TrackBacks (0)

Mark R. Levin, Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto (2009)
Threshold Editions (Simon & Schuster, Inc.)
245 pages
ISBN 13: 978-1-4165-6285-6
$25.00
Buy it here for less.

There is simply no scientific or mathematical formula that defines conservatism. Moreover, there are competing voices today claiming the mantle of "true conservatism"—including neo-conservatism (emphasis on a robust national security), paleo-conservatism (emphasis on preserving the culture), social conservatism (emphasis on faith and values), and libertarianism (emphasis on individualism), among others. Scores of scholars have written at length about what can be imperfectly characterized as conservative thought. But my purpose is not to give them each exposition, as it cannot be fairly or adequately accomplished here, nor referee among them. Neither will attempt to give birth to totally new theories. Instead, what follows are my own opinions and conclusions of fundamental truths, based on decades of observation, exploration, and experience, about conservatism and, conversely, non-conservatism—that is, liberty and tyranny in modern America.

Mark Levin is worried. What worries him is the inexorable drift away from the principles of self-government as formulated by the Founding Fathers and formalized in the Declaration of Independence and the Consitution.

Does he have a justification for his concerns? Let's see: The electorate have installed a person whom Levin characterizes as "the most ideologically pure Statist and committed counterrevolutionary to occupy the Oval Office," elected as representatives people who continually prove their unworthiness to manage a lemonade stand much less propose, approve, and oversee multi-trillion-dollar public policy spending programs that tend to undermine the nation's economic structural foundation, and allowed appointments of Supreme Court judges who progressively look abroad for guidance on how to administer American justice. Yeah, I'd say he's justified.

In Liberty and Tyranny, Levin not only proffers a detailed analysis of what has been going wrong with America's grand experiment in self-government but also presents in general outline steps that need to be taken to remedy these problems. Since Karl and Friedrich had their manifesto, I suppose Levin figures turnabout is fair play.

Throughout his manifesto, Levin continually compares and contrasts the philosophical viewpoints of the notional "Conservative" and his nemesis the "Statist." A more profound difference in outlook it is hard to imagine. The two diametrically opposed philosophies have been in conflict with one another since the foundation of the American republic. At their base, each rests upon a fundamental view of what constitutes human nature and the society derived from it: One says man is basically flawed and needs minimal government to restrain him from his tendencies to harm others; the other says man is basically good and that government's function is to enlarge that goodness without limit—hence Levin's dichotomous distinction between "Conservative" and "Statist."

For Levin, "civil society" may be the highest expression of American civilization, but it is constantly under threat:

The Statist's counterrevolution has turned the instrumentalities of public affairs and public governance against the civil society. They can no longer be left to the devices of the Statist, which is largely the case today.

According to Levin, one recently controverted policy program being promoted by the Statist has the potential to be the final nail in the coffin of American freedom:

Fight all efforts to nationalize the health-care system. National health care is the mother of all entitlement programs, for through it the Statist controls not only the material wealth of the individual but his physical well-being. Remind the people that politicians and bureaucrats, about whom they are already cynical, will ultimately have the final say over their choice of doctors, hospitals, and treatments—meaning the system will be politicized and bureaucratized.

A final note: Levin's recommendations are all praiseworthy, but he needs to be more exact in some details (wherein, as we know, the devil is). For example, when he advocates "the denial of most social services to illegal aliens to deter their migration to the United States," you stumble on that word "most." You must wonder just which social services illegal aliens are entitled to in Levin's estimation. Long-time readers of V-DARE.com are acutely aware that such imprecise statements are loopholes through which tens of millions of illegal aliens and hundreds of billions of tax dollars can be and have been funneled. Here Levin seems to be replicating the standard Wall Street Journal/National Review boilerplate advocacy for cheap labor.

In addition, Levin supports eliminating the progressive income tax, the automatic withholding of taxes, the corporate income tax, and the death tax—and correctly so—but then also asserts: "All federal income tax increases will require a supermajority vote of three-fifths of Congress." Unless I've misunderstood him, he seems to concede that the federal government has a moral right to confiscate some, most, or all of a wage earner's income; but who, when, where, how, and why was it decided that the government has any right to anyone's earnings? Unexamined assumptions such as these could undermine Levin's intent; he needs to revisit and clarify them in subsequent editions of his book.

Chapters:

1. On Liberty and Tyranny
In the midst stands the individual, who was a predominate focus of the Founders. When living freely and pursuing his own legitimate interests, the individual displays qualities that are antithetical to the Statist's—initiative, self-reliance, and independence. As the Statist is building a culture of conformity and dependency, where the ideal citizen takes on dronelike qualities in service of the state, the individual must be drained of uniqueness and self-worth, and deterred from independent thought or behavior. This is achieved through varying methods of economic punishment and political suppression.

2. On Prudence and Progress
The Conservative believes, as Burke and the Founders did, that prudence must be exercised in assessing change. Prudence is the highest virtue for it is judgment drawn on wisdom. The proposed change should be informed by the experience, knowledge, and traditions of society, tailored for a specific purpose, and accomplished through a constitutional construct that ensures thoughtful deliberation by the community. Change unconstrained by prudence produces unpredictable consequences, threatening ordered liberty with chaos and ultimately despotism, and placing at risk the very principles the Conservative holds dear.

3. On Faith and the Founding
The Statist may wrap himself and his deeds in the language of enlightenment—claiming to be the voice of reason, the beholder of knowledge, and the architect of modernity—but recent history has shown him to be unenlightened in his understanding of mankind, moral order, liberty, and equality .... For the Statist, revolution is an ongoing enterprise, for it regularly cleanses society of religious dogma, antiquated traditions, backward customs, and ambitious individuals who differ with or obstruct the Statist's plans. The Statist calls this many things, including "progressive." For the rest, it is tyranny.

4. On the Constitution
[Current administration official Cass] Sunstein believes that economic value and private property are not natural occurrences in human interaction but rather the outgrowth of government and law. Therefore, he and other legal "realists" assert that government authority should be used to better exploit and redistribute wealth .... Sunstein's "realism" is not new. He creates the false choice between anarchy (where there are no laws protecting the individual, private property, and contracts) and tyranny (where the sovereign and the sovereign alone arbitrarily grants fundamental rights, including property rights). Having declared the sovereign paramount to God and nature, and having delinked liberty from property, the individual must rely on the government for his sustenance. Of course, history shows that man will starve and freeze if he relies on the government for his sustenance—and surrender his liberty as well.

5. On Federalism
In many respects, the once-powerful states, thirteen of which ratified the Constitution in the first place, have themselves become administrative appendages of the federal government  .... Does anyone believe that the states would have originally ratified the Constitution had they known this would be their fate? [In undermining the founding document] the Statist has also constructed a Fourth Branch of government—an enormous administrative state—which exists to oversee and implement his policies. It is a massive yet amorphous bureaucracy that consists of a workforce of nearly 2 million civilian employees.

6. On the Free Market
... the Conservative believes the free market is a vital bulwark against statism. And it would appear the Statist agrees, for he is relentless in his assault on it. Indeed, the Statist's rejection of the Constitution's limits on federal power is justified primarily, albeit not exclusively, on material grounds.

7. On the Welfare State
But it is the Statist's purpose to make as many individuals as possible dependent on the government. Most Americans are, in fact, satisfied with what they pay for their own health care, the quality of the health care they receive, and their health-care coverage. However, the Statist continues to press for government control over the entire health-care system. He is not satisfied with constraining liberty today. He seeks to reach into posterity to constrain liberty tomorrow.

8. On Enviro-Statism
The Enviro-Statist poses as the defender of clean air, clean water, penguins, seals, polar bears, glaciers, the poor, the Third World, and humanity itself. But he is already responsible for the death and impoverishment of tens of millions of human beings in the undeveloped world. Now he has moved on to bigger tasks—imposing his societal designs on a free and prosperous people, dictating their lifestyle, controlling their movement, and breaking their spirit.

9. On Immigration
The Statist's argument for "comprehensive immigration reform" reduces to this: America is a nation of immigrants .... Of course, to say [that] is to say every nation is a nation of immigrants. Mexico, the source of most immigrants to the United States today, is a nation of Spanish (and other) immigrants. The implication is, however, that both legal and illegal immigration, no matter how extensive, is another moral imperative justifying the transformation of the civil society. This is not so.

10. On Self-Preservation
The Conservative does not seek rigid adherence to any specific course of action: neutrality or alliance, preemptive war or defensive posture, nation building or limited military strike. The benchmark, again, is whether any specific path will serve the nation's best interests. It is difficult to imagine a theory under which a society could otherwise survive .... For the Statist, however, U.S. foreign policy is another opportunity to enhance his own authority at the expense of the civil society.

Epilogue: A Conservative Manifesto
So distant is America today from its founding principles that it is difficult to precisely describe the nature of American government. It is not strictly a constitutional republic, because the Constitution has been and continues to be easily altered by a judicial oligarchy that mostly enforces, if not expands, the Statist's agenda. It is not strictly a representative republic, because so many edicts are produced by a maze of administrative departments that are unknown to the public and detached from its sentiment. It is not strictly a federal republic, because the states that gave the central government life now live at its behest. What, then, is it? It is a society steadily transitioning toward statism. If the Conservative does not come to grips with the significance of this transformation, he will be devoured by it.

~~~~~~~~~~~

—Mike Gray

Posted by Mike Gray at 02:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

Less than a week after the official inauguration of the new TV season, the first series cancellation has been announced. The CW Network has axed the Wednesday night drama series The Beautiful Life after just two episodes.

The show will be replaced initially by reruns of Melrose Place, beginning this Wednesday at 9 p.m. EDT.

It's easy to see why the CW felt compelled to dump The Beautiful Life so quickly: the show brought in an awful 0.5 rating among those aged 18-49 for the two episodes the network broadcast.

The show dealt with the lives of gorgeous high-fashion models in glamorous Manhattan. In the pilot episode a farm boy from Iowa is initiated into this world as an aspiring model--and he and Raina, a young female model from a disturbed family, provide the point of view characters for the dumb, loser schlubs who presumably were expected to watch the show.

The intentional irony in the show's title is that although the young people are indeed physically beautiful, their lives are anything but, as the cutthroat competition for the best assignments leads to blackmail, backbiting, obstacles to romance, attempts to destroy one another's career, and the like. But of course even with all these difficulties and the basic decency of the two main characters it would have been immensely difficult for the audience to identify with these beautiful people.

In addition, there was really nothing major at stake for the characters. After all, should they fail to make it in the fashion world, they would simply have to get ordinary jobs like the people in the TV audience. Not exactly a tragedy.

Plus, they'd still be gorgeous.

The Beautiful Life wasn't unpleasant to watch, and it did begin to set up some interesting dilemmas for the characters, but from the start it was destined to strike people as just too trivial and superficial--much as we tend to see fashion models themselves, regardless of whether they deserve it.

Hence it's quite telling that The Beautiful Life will initially be replaced by Melrose Place reruns. Although Melrose Place likewise deals with the struggles of gorgeous young people in a glamorous location, its greater emphasis on the moral issues facing the central characters makes it much easier for audiences to identify with them and see the value in the show's soap-opera story lines.

As Melrose Place shows, even formulaic TV dramas can do more than just parade pretty faces across the screen. Those who would succeed in that business would do well to recognize that.

--S. T. Karnick

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 02:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

This week:
* Tuesday—Laurence Harvey chases himself while Angela Lansbury gets "croc"ed;
* Wednesday—Cliff Robertson falls for a doppleganger;
* Thursday—Claude Rains fools everybody and Robert Mitchum gets fooled by a dame—again;
* Friday—The Marx Brothers battle Nazis while Raymond Burr is just a cutup;
* Saturday—Lee Marvin is hiding something and Dick Tracy unzips a zep;
* Sunday—Richard Harris wonders if it's the red wire or the green while Peter Lorre is a bit too handy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Monday—September 28th

6:00 AM—The Get-Away (1941)
A jailed cop befriends a mob chieftain and stages a breakout with him.
Cast: Robert Sterling, Dan Dailey, Donna Reed. Dir: Edward Buzzell. BW-89 mins, TV-PG, CC

4:45 PM—Scandal Sheet (1952)
A tabloid editor assigns a young reporter to solve a murder the editor committed himself.
Cast: John Derek, Donna Reed, Broderick Crawford. Dir: Phil Karlson. BW-82 mins, TV-PG

----------

Tuesday—September 29th

11:45 PM—See No Evil (1971)
A blind woman returns home not knowing that a madman has murdered her entire family.
Cast: Mia Farrow, Norman Eshley, Paul Nicholas. Dir: Richard Fleischer. C-89 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

1:30 AM—A Dandy in Aspic (1968)
A double agent has to take out an enemy spy who's really himself.
Cast: Laurence Harvey, Tom Courtenay, Mia Farrow. Dir: Anthony Mann, Laurence Harvey. C-107 mins, TV-PG, Letterbox Format

3:30 AM—Death on the Nile (1978)
Hercule Poirot investigates the murder of an heiress during an Egyptian tour.
Cast: Peter Ustinov, Mia Farrow, Bette Davis. Dir: John Guillermin. C-140 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format

5:15 PM—The Law and the Lady (1951)
A society jewel thief falls for one of her marks.
Cast: Greer Garson, Michael Wilding, Fernando Lamas. Dir: Edwin H. Knopf. BW-104 mins, TV-G, CC

8:00 PM—The Bride Wore Black (1968)
A woman seeks revenge on the five men who murdered her fiancé.
Cast: Jeanne Moreau, Jean-Claude Brialy, Michel Bouquet. Dir: FrancoisTruffaut. C-108 mins, TV-14, Letterbox Format

10:00 PM—The Road Builder (1971)
A drifter with a deadly secret ignites passions in two lonely women.
Cast: Patricia Neal, Pamela Brown, Nicholas Clay. Dir: Alastair Reed. C-96 mins, TV-PG

----------

Wednesday—September 30th

12:00 AM—Obsession (1976)
A businessman falls in love with a double for his murdered wife.
Cast: Cliff Robertson, Genevieve Bujold, John Lithgow. Dir: Brian Da Palma. C-98 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format

8:00 PM—They Won't Forget (1937)
Bigotry flares when a Jewish businessman is accused of killing a small-town girl in the South.
Cast: Claude Rains, Gloria Dickson, Allyn Joslyn. Dir: Mervyn LeRoy. BW-95 mins, TV-G, CC

10:00 PM—Twilight of Honor (1963)
A struggling lawyer takes on a controversial murder case that could make or break him.
Cast: Richard Chamberlain, Claude Rains, Nick Adams. Dir: Boris Sagal. BW-104 mins, TV-PG, Letterbox Format

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Thursday—October 1st

12:00 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

1:45 AM—The Unsuspected (1947)
The producer of a radio crime series commits the perfect crime, then has to put the case on the air.
Cast: Claude Rains, Joan Caulfield, Constance Bennett. Dir: Michael Curtiz. BW-103 mins, TV-PG, CC

3:30 AM—Where Danger Lives (1950)
A psychopath draws her doctor into her murderous schemes.
Cast: Robert Mitchum, Faith Domergue, Claude Rains. Dir: John Farrow. BW-80 mins, TV-PG, CC

10:00 AM—Mrs. Soffel (1984)
A prison warden's wife is seduced into helping a notorious killer escape.
Cast: Diane Keaton, Mel Gibson, Matthew Modine. Dir: Gillian Armstrong. C-112 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format

----------

Friday—October 2nd

12:15 AM—Heroes for Sale (1933)
A veteran fights drug addiction to make his way in the business world.
Cast: Richard Barthelmess, Aline MacMahon, Loretta Young. Dir: William A. Wellman. BW-71 mins, TV-G

12:45 PM—A Night in Casablanca (1946)
A hotel manager in postwar Casablanca tackles renegade Nazis.
Cast: The Marx Brothers, Charles Drake, Sig Ruman. Dir: Archie Mayo. BW-85 mins, TV-G

2:15 PM—Double Dynamite (1951)
A bank teller reaps the rewards of saving a gangster's life, but can't reveal where he got the money.
Cast: Frank Sinatra, Jane Russell, Groucho Marx. Dir: Irving Cummings. BW-81 mins, TV-G, CC

5:15 PM—Dangerous Mission (1954)
A woman flees westward after witnessing a mob killing.
Cast: Victor Mature, Piper Laurie, William Bendix. Dir: Louis King. C-75 mins, TV-G, CC

9:00 PM—Rear Window (1954)
A photographer with a broken leg uncovers a murder while spying on the neighbors in a nearby apartment building.
Cast: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Raymond Burr. Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. C-114 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

----------

Saturday—October 3rd

12:00 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

2:00 AM—Shack Out on 101 (1955)
A greasy spoon diner provides a base for a spy smuggling nuclear secrets.
Cast: Terry Moore, Frank Lovejoy, Keenan Wynn. Dir: Edward Dein. BW-80 mins, TV-PG, CC

9:00 AM—Stratosphere Adventure (1937)
In the ninth chapter of Dick Tracy, the famed detective's plane is shot down by his own brother.
Cast: Ralph Byrd, Kay Hughes, Smiley Burnette. Dir: Alan James, Ray Taylor. BW-18 mins, TV-G

9:30 AM—The Gold Ship (1937)
In the tenth chapter of Dick Tracy, the famed detective must escape from a burning zeppelin.
Cast: Ralph Byrd, Kay Hughes, Smiley Burnette. Dir: Alan James, Ray Taylor. BW-18 mins, TV-G

----------

Sunday—October 4th

2:15 AM—Juggernaut (1974)
Two demolitions experts race the clock to find and disarm a set of bombs placed on an ocean liner at sea.
Cast: Richard Harris, Omar Sharif, Anthony Hopkins. Dir: Richard Lester. C-110 mins, TV-MA, CC, Letterbox Format

6:15 AM—The Beast with Five Fingers (1946)
After a famous pianist's murder, his hand returns to wreak vengeance.
Cast: Peter Lorre, Robert Alda, J. Carrol Naish. Dir: Robert Florey. BW-89 mins, TV-PG, CC

7:45 AM—Mad Love (1935)
A mad doctor grafts the hands of a murderer on to a concert pianist's wrists.
Cast: Peter Lorre, Frances Drake, Colin Clive. Dir: Karl Freund. BW-68 mins, TV-PG, CC

12:30 PM—Candleshoe (1977)
A street urchin infiltrates a noblewoman's impoverished household in search of hidden treasure.
Cast: David Niven, Helen Hayes, Jodie Foster. Dir: Norman Tokar. C-101 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

~~~~~~~~~~~

—Mike Gray

Posted by Mike Gray at 09:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As part of its revamped Wednesday night lineup featuring racy situation comedies, ABC has grabbed popular actress Courtney Cox for Cougar Town. Despite the smirking (though already overused) premise and fashionably risque subject matter, the show is occasionally more critical of the Sexual Revolution than one might expect. And Courtney Cox is quite good as the lead character.

Cox, 45, plays Jules Cobb, a recently divorced woman in her forties who is desperate for male companionship but losing her looks, as is of course inevitable with the passage of time. The central comic premise is the horrible indignities that her situation forces her into.

Jules's lack of confidence about going out to meet men--while feeling a strong desire to do so anyway--is both comic and seems quite true to life. Adding to her confusion--and making her more attractive as a character--she never was into the singles scene when she was younger, and hence doesn't know how to be appropriately selfish, vulgar, and insincere. Her big character flaw is that she too often says what she thinks without censoring herself, which likewise leads to comical effects.

Jules's feckless ex-husband and anxiety-prone high-school student son add to her worries. In addition, countless situations and events remind her that she's no longer what most men are looking for and hence make her feel old and unwanted. That, of course, has been one of the biggest consequences of the Sexual Revolution, which gives greater power to those who invest little meaning in sexual encounters.

That rather tragic element makes Jules a sympathetic character, and Cox does an excellent job of conveying it. And even a successful sexual encounter for her in the pilot episode is undercut by humor as she's interrupted by both her son and her ex-husband. Later she feels guilty over the encounter itself, saying, "One time. I did it one time, and I'm already one of them"--meaning the pathetic, sex-hungry older women she sees on her daily rounds.

Cougar Town strikes me as a good deal funnier and more enjoyable than fellow newcomer sitcom Modern Family, which precedes it in the Wednesday night lineup and likewise tries to explore contemporary sexual notions, because Cougar Town is truer to life and Jules is understandable and likable with all her flaws. She wants to do right while still having irresponsible fun, which is certainly a common contemporary point of view.

Unfortunately, the show's producers seem to want to do the same, giving lip service to morality and reality while ultimately conveying a fantasy of sexual freedom without any seriously bad consequences--at least in the pilot episode. It's rather obvious, for example, that Jules's affair with a younger man--which is presented at the end of the episode a quite a delight for her--would, in real life, almost certainly end in heartbreak on her part when he moved on.

That indicates the limitations of the show's willingness to embrace reality, and it's likely to cause viewers to lose interest over time, as such phoniness is death to audience identification with the characters. In addition, the effort to titillate audiences with bare skin, sexual situations, and innuendo after double entendre makes it all too clear that the people behind the show don't have any real argument with the premises of the Sexual Revolution.

They're true conservatives in that regard, wanting to preserve the present social mores.

If the producers resist the temptation to try to have it both ways, Cougar Town could be both edifying and a ratings success.

But I wouldn't bet on it.

--S. T. Karnick

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

Great Britain and the United States — despite a few dust-ups in the late 18th and 19th centuries — have long been the best of friends. Our alliance, forged in a shared culture of respect for democracy and liberty, has been responsible for the preservation and promotion of freedom across the globe. And it is a relationship to be honored.

Someone needs to tell that to our current president. His latest petty but harmful slight to our greatest and most essential ally is one of a string of insults that may eventually do irreparable damage, writes TAC contributor Jim Lakely.

Winston Churchill rightly called the bond between Great Britain and the United States a "special relationship," and its strength has greatly served both countries and the cause of freedom around the world. America's culture of freedom doesn't flower without Britain's cultural underpinnings. Indeed, our spirit of independence has much to thank to Scotland's centuries-long and righteous yearning for liberty. William Wilberforce's work to abolish slavery in the British Empire in the early 19th century gave moral and political authority to America's abolitionists — which after unimaginable bloodshed finally put deed to the desires of our Founding Fathers to make true the declaration that "all men are created equal."

In the mid-20th century, Britain stood firm against the advance of Nazism and fascism. And in freedom (and Britain's) darkest hour, we were there to fight for liberty — together. The alliance held firm through the Cold War, eventually bringing down the Soviet Empire without firing a shot. And in our darkest hour, the wake of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Britain immediately jumped to our side, no questions asked.

Churchill, so good with words, sort of underplayed the American-British relationship by characterizing it as "special." But in one word, it sums up the historical, cultural, political and philosophical ties our countries share. Yet President Obama, in just eight months, seems to be doing his damnedest to damage that relationship at every opportunity. We all remember the details of what can only be described as high-level petulance:

• unceremoniously sending back the Churchill bust without even a thank you note;

• snubbing UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown in his first visit by not having a joint presser (which is quite odd coming from a guy whose desire to stand before the cameras and pontificate is unmatched in presidential history);

• giving Brown the insulting afterthought gift of unusable DVDs while Brown presented thoughtful and meaningful gifts reflective of the long friendship of Britain and America;

• sending lackeys out to say: "There’s nothing special about Britain. You’re just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. You shouldn’t expect special treatment." (No. If you want special treatment, it's better to be a thuggish dictator like Hugo Chavez, who has never had to beg for face time.); and

• giving the Queen of England an iPod of his speeches.

It's a string of shameful embarrassments from the man who said he'd rescue our foreign policy from the bumbling idiot from Texas who supposedly couldn't get anyone to like him or America. It is not much individually, but in sum, the stab is deep. I note that Obama is quick to apologize on the world stage for every real (and mostly imagined) sin perpetrated by the United States — all of which happened before Obama arrived to redeem us, of course. But not only does Obama not apologize for his boorishness towards our greatest and most important ally, he keeps doubling down.

Via Scott Johnson at Power Line, we learn the latest instance of Obama giving Great Britain the back of his hand. Apparently, Gordon Brown had asked repeatedly to be granted a brief audience with The One at this week's UN confab, and was rebuffed by the Obama administration. Brown had to resort to scrambling through the U.N. kitchen and trapping Obama somewhere between the line cooks and the walk-in. This kind of treatment towards the leader of a country that has sacrificed 217 soldiers in Afghanistan — you know, that war Obama said was not a "war of choice" but one we "must win" — is disgraceful.

Or, as David Hughes of The Telegraph of London puts it in the headline of his blog post: Barack Obama's churlishness is unforgivable. The whole post is brief, but powerful, so I paste it here in its entirety:

The juxtaposition on our front page this morning is striking. We carry a photograph of Acting Sgt Michael Lockett - who was killed in Helmand on Monday - receiving the Military Cross from the Queen in June, 2008. He was the 217th British soldier to die in the Afghan conflict. Alongside the picture, we read that the Prime Minister was forced to dash through the kitchens of the UN in New York to secure a few minutes “face time” with President Obama after five requests for a sit-down meeting were rejected by the White House.

What are we to make of this? This country has proved, through the bravery of men like Acting Sgt Lockett, America’s staunchest ally in Afghanistan. In return, the American President treats the British Prime Minister with casual contempt. The President’s graceless behaviour is unforgivable. As most members of the Cabinet would confirm, it’s not a barrel of laughs having to sit down for a chat with Gordon Brown. But that’s not the point. Mr Obama owes this country a great deal for its unflinching commitment to the American-led war in Afghanistan but seems incapable of acknowledging the fact. You might have thought that after the shambles of Mr Brown’s first visit to the Obama White House - when there was no joint press conference and the President’s “gift” to the Prime Minister was a boxed DVD set - lessons would have been learned. Apparently not. Admittedly, part of the problem was Downing Street’s over-anxiety to secure a face-to-face meeting for domestic political purposes but the White House should still have been more obliging. Mr Obama’s churlishness is fresh evidence that the US/UK special relationship is a one-way street.

Scott offers an apology to the British people. I extend the same, and ask again: What the hell is wrong with this guy? I took a little flak back in March at Infinite Monkeys when I observed the defining characteristic of Obama's foreign policy seemed to be to piss off our allies and curry favor with our enemies. Not much has changed. Obama's obsequious speech before the UN Wednesday was applauded most heartily by the worst tyrants in the world — the same tyrants who always seem to have nice things to say about President Obama but always had awful things to say about President Bush.

I don't know about you, but I'd rather British journalists had reason to praise my president, rather than call him out for churlishness and graceless behavior. And I rather British Prime Ministers didn't have to re-enact a Benny Hill sketch to catch up with an American president.

The behavior of the Obama administration towards Great Britain is unforgivable, and a national embarrassment. And there is but one man responsible for it. We can only hope the damage can be repaired one day — if not by this president, then the next.

Posted by Jim Lakely at 12:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

If we didn't know that they're all scrupulously honest, one might almost think mainstream media TV critics are trying to convince audiences that the new ABC sitcom Modern Family is a good deal better than it really is. Otherwise, why the extremely laudatory reviews calling it the best new sitcom of the year and even the best new series overall, when it is anything but? See Reuters and USA Today, for example.

The reality is that for most ordinary and thoughtful Americans, Modern Family (Wednesdays, 8 p.m. EDT) will be mildly amusing and seriously annoying. Judging by the pilot episode, the show exemplifies the progressive mindset, which holds individual self-fulfillment as the highest social value, as opposed to bourgeois liberalism, the traditional American value set, which holds that political, social, and cultural respect for personal responsibility are the best organizing forces for society and lead to human thriving.

Central to Modern Family is the contemporary progressive cliché that the traditional family is no longer the norm and is not the best way to organize families anyway. Thus the show centers on three suburban couples, who turn out to be related to one another: one a husband and wife in their late thirties with three children (a conventional family with Hollywood-cliché silly and ineffective father and Hollywood-cliché smart wife with an apparently racy past), one an older man (Ed O'Neill) married to a young, attractive, feisty Latina with a socially awkward son, and the third constituting two homosexual males who have just adopted an infant Vietnamese girl.

Yes, just three ordinary American suburban families.

Just not the norm in any real American suburb, where despite the numerous pathologiies the progressive culture and politics have inflicted on the American people in recent decades, the most common type of family with children actually does consist of a male husband and female wife of similar ages, and the children growing up in those that don't fit this rough mold are at a distinct disadvantage.

Contrary to the claims of its critical champions that Modern Family is a more realistic look at contemporary family life, the show is actually a progressivist fantasy presenting blatant lies about how families really work and what family life is like in the United States.

As such the show is by no means adventurous. On the contrary, it adheres firmly to progressive conventional thinking.

Most egregiously, there's not one strong, hardworking, morally upstanding father in the entire show (or in much of contemporary network series television, for that matter). That's an outrageous calumny on American fathers, as anyone with any experience of real family life in this nation knows quite well. Personally, I know a wide variety of fathers in a great number of different personal situations and income levels, and while some of them fall well short of the ideal, most try very hard to be good husbands, good parents, and good men.

For Modern Family to show only fathers whose own desires clearly are their biggest concern is grossly inaccurate and indeed quite contemptible.

It's clear that the producers of the show are trying to make a case for a wider notion of what makes a good family, and that intention is perfectly reasonable and to some extent quite laudable.

However, in order to posit greater understanding of and sympathy for those who make different choices about how to structure their families, the producers of the show quite unnecessarily choose to portray the traditional family structure as unsound and ill-fitted to contemporary life. Both social science statistics and common sense, however, strongly show that the normal family structure is best for the raising of children.

In addition, the producers' suggested alternative to respect for common sense (given during a didactic speech by a member of the homosexual couple) is far too ambiguous: love. Yes, love is essential to the formation of a good family, but exactly what love requires in any particular case remains up for discussion.

A homosexual man who truly loves a Vietnamese orphan girl, for example, might decide that love requires him to seek out a loving heterosexual couple who can adopt her, instead of indulging his own desire to pretend to be a perfectly normal but unusual type of family man. In fact, in the pilot episode the character's father briefly suggests that the adoption is indeed selfish, but just moments later he retracts his statement and agrees that love basically conquers all. Including, in this case, the characters' reasoning capacity, unfortunately.

To be sure, the people who make Modern Family are talented, hence there are laughs to be found, some of them quite hearty and some rather edifying. For example, the father in the traditional family tries hard to be a friend to his children (as opposed to a loving authority) and act very with-it, with amusing if predictable results. That approach to parenting is ripe for satire, and there are some funny moments in Modern Family that really hit the mark, as when he is shown being carried to the sofa by his teenage daughter's boyfriend after injuring his back in an effort to intimidate him into keeping his hands off of her. It's a funny and even rather touching moment.

In addition, the show includes interview scenes in which various characters talk directly to the camera, as in The Office, and these have some funny moments.

Unfortunately, Modern Family's tendentious, jaundiced view of the American family is not funny at all.

--S. T. Karnick

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 02:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Top Secret! (1984)
Val Kilmer (Nick Rivers), Lucy Gutteridge (Hillary), Christopher Villiers (Nigel), Omar Sharif (Cedric), Peter Cushing (Bookstore Owner), Warren Clarke (Colonel Von Horst), Michael Gough (Dr. Paul Flammond), Jeremy Kemp (General Streck), Harry Ditson (Du Quois), Jim Carter (Déja Vu), Eddie Tagoe (Chocolate Mousse), Dimitri Andreas (Latrine), Sydney Arnold (Albert Potato), Richard Bonehill (the Scarecrow), Jim Abrahams and David and Jerry Zucker (German soldiers)
C-91 mins.
Producer: Frederick Zollo, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker, Jon Davison, Jim Abrahams, Hunt Lowry
Director: David Zucker, Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams (ZAZ)
Screenplay: David Zucker, Jerry Zucker, Martyn Burke, Jim Abrahams
Art Direction: John Fenner, Michael Lamont
Cinematography: Jack Lowin, Christopher G. Challis
Editing: Bernard Gribble
Music: Maurice Jarre

"This movie will cheerfully go for a laugh wherever one is even remotely likely to be found. It has political jokes and boob jokes, dog poop jokes, and ballet jokes .... The dance sequence in the East Berlin nightclub develops into something Groucho Marx would have been proud of. The malt shop musical number demolishes a whole tradition of Elvis Presley numbers. And how the ballerina makes her exit in Swan Lake will, I feel confident, be discussed for years wherever codpieces are sold." — Roger Ebert

Before he went to pot, Val Kilmer was a pretty good actor. His very first top-billed starring role was in Top Secret!, a typical Abrahams-Zucker brothers (ZAZ) parody/satire which, like Airplane! before it, throws so many wacky aural and sight gags at the viewer that he's bound to laugh at something.

Actually, though, Top Secret! isn't that typical; in fact, I think it's better than anything else ZAZ have done. Sure, a gag may cause a groan, but just wait around because something funny will be along soon. Time and again ZAZ have proven themselves to be masters of comic timing in the film medium.

This, in my view, is Kilmer's best movie. As with all actors in ZAZ comedies, he just plays it straight and the humor comes rolling out. And, mirabile dictu, he sings and dances very well. He could have become a master of light comedy, like Cary Grant, but unlike Grant he brought that leaden method-acting approach to too many of his later serious roles and neglected to continue developing his comedic talents.

Nevertheless, we shouldn't overlook those pluperfect song parodies of Elvis, the Beach Boys, Little Richard, and others, performed flawlessly by Kilmer.

"So what's the film about?" you may ask. You may ask, but don't expect a coherent answer, because one isn't possible. The Movie Critic gamely tries, though:

Top Secret! phenomenally distinguishes itself from other parodies of the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker trio. Even their other (earlier) films carry their typical humor, but it was never so excellently blended with masterful comic direction, rhythm of the story and passionate details like here. All scenes are fantastic fun — the viewers are so glued to the screen that they can only feel pity that they are not a part of the movie — while some jokes literally cause stomach pain. They deliberately mixed up the '40s and '50s, the Nazi era and the era of East Germany, but since this a parody of World War II films set in its own universe, it works either way. The scene of the fight under water and the visit to the library with Peter Cushing where every movement is filmed in reverse even today cause amazement of the technique with which they were filmed. Some crude bits of humor and innuendo are bothersome, but whenever they are childishly naive the film is a blast and enjoys cult status (and the German dub is even funnier). Top Secret! is arguably even the best parody in the career of the trio: the jokes with the cow in the boots or Chocolate Mousse throwing a grappling hook that accidentally also grabs his colleague and throws him up to the wall are hilarious as ever. — From the Movie Critic website

Still confused? Good, because that's just what ZAZ want.

Here's some dialogue from the film; let this be a warning:

"My uncle was born in America."
"Oh, really?"
"But he was one of the lucky ones. He managed to escape in a balloon during the Jimmy Carter presidency."
-----
[Asked if she knows any German] "I know a little German. He's sitting over there."
-----
"Nigel, what are you saying?"
"How do we know he's NOT Mel Tormé?"
-----
"Is this the potato farm?"
"Yes, I'm Albert Potato."
-----
"People change ... hairstyles change ... interest rates fluctuate ...."
-----
[Listening to a German teaching tape] "Die Sauerkraut ist in mein Lederhosen."
-----
[People sing the East German national anthem]
"Hail, hail East Germany
"Land of fruit and grape
"Land where you'll regret
"If you try to escape
"No matter if you tunnel under or take a running jump at the wall
"Forget it, the guards will kill you, if the electrified fence doesn't first."
-----
"Hillary. That's an unusual name."
"It's a German name. It means 'she whose bosoms defy gravity'."
"I'm pleased to meet you. My name's Nick."
"Nick? What does that mean?"
"Oh, nothing. My dad thought of it while he was shaving."
-----
[The Underground leader introduces his men]
"This is Chevalier, Montage, Détente, Avant Garde, and Déja Vu."
[Déja Vu eyes Nick suspiciously] "Haven't we met before?"
"I don't think so."
"Over there, Croissant, Soufflé, Escargot, and Chocolate Mousse."
-----
[Two spies exchange recognition code phrases]
"Who do you favor in the Virginia Slims tournament?"
"In women's tennis, I always root against the heterosexual."
-----
"If they find out you've seen this, your life will be worth less than a truckload of dead rats in a tampon factory."
-----
[Latrine throws a dead pigeon on the table]
"We have a traitor in our midst!"
"Well done, Latrine. I see that you have taken care of him appropriately."
"Not the bird, you fool! This is a carrier pigeon on its way to German Headquarters."
-----
[A Shetland pony is singing and then starts coughing]
"What's wrong with him?"
"Oh, he caught a cold last week and he's just a little hoarse."
-----
"They're still working on him. He won't break. We've tried everything! Do you want me to bring out the Leroy Nieman paintings?"
"No. We cannot risk violating the Geneva Convention!"
-----
"Listen to me, Hillary. I'm not the first guy who fell in love with a woman that he met at a restaurant who turned out to be the daughter of a kidnapped scientist only to lose her to her childhood lover who she last saw on a deserted island who then turned out fifteen years later to be the leader of the French underground."
"I know. It all sounds like some bad movie."
[There is a long pause. Then both slowly turn and look at the camera]

And we haven't even mentioned the sight gags that fill this movie: the giant telephone, the elaborate scale model of the objective (complete with working railroad signals), the falling German soldier, the book store sequence (a minor masterpiece), the parachuting fireplace, and so on.

If you've never seen the inexplicably obscure Top Secret!, you're in for a treat.

~~~~~~~~~~~

—Mike Gray

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Posted by Mike Gray at 06:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by Mike Gray at 05:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

During a recent weekend’s film viewing, the difference between a film that enslaves culture to ideology and politics, and films that embrace the freedom art offers to explore the reality underlying ideology, was cast in stark contrast

Ridley Scott’s 1977 The Duellists was first up in my viewing schedule. It stars Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel as two soldiers in Napoleon’s cavalry whose personal rivalry results in a series of duels over the span of some 15 years. The duels are set against Strasbourg in 1800, Lubeck in 1806, Russia in 1812 and finally Tours in 1814. Gabriel Féraud (Harvey Keitel), in defense of his honor, demands satisfaction from Armand d'Hubert (Keith Carradine) in the form of single combat with rapiers, sabers and finally pistols.

Through d’Hubert and Féraud, Scott explores the role of honor in a man’s life. In d’Hubert, the consummate gentleman, we see how honor can provide meaning and structure in an otherwise capricious and violent world. In Féraud, the aristocratic bully and snob, we see honor twisted and manipulated to maintain a personal grudge, keeping him locked in a worldview that cannot allow for change and compromise.

The Duellists explores how two very different men are bound together by honor. Babette’s Feast, meanwhile, explores how service and gratitude bind three women to each other and to those around them.

Babette’s Feast is set in a small Danish coastal town in the late 1800s, and focuses on Martina and Philippa, two sisters devoted to their faith, their father - the town minister, and the community. A devotion that is so deep they deny themselves the allure of love and fame.

Martina is courted by Lorenz, a young soldier, who spends days sitting next to her in silence during prayer meetings. He confesses his love for her, in a manner of speaking, but she turns him away remaining by her father’s side. Lorenz refuses to love anyone else and devotes his life to military service.

Singer, Achille Papin, who happens to be resting in the village following a strenuous schedule, discovers Philippa. Philippa agrees to voice lessons from Achille, and during the course of his coaching he too falls in love. Achille tells Philippa that one day she shall perform for all of France. He tells her, “You have enough talent to distract the rich and to comfort the poor.” Philippa, however, ends the lessons and turns her back on fame, breaking Achille’s heart. Martina spurning Lorenz and Philippa turning away Achille reinforces their devotion to the people in their church and community.

The sister’s sense of service and devotion to others inspires them to take in Babette, who is sent to the sisters by Achille in order to help her escape persecution during the French Revolution. Babette agrees to be Martina’s and Philippa’ servant, without taking pay, and is soon making the meals for the town’s shut-ins in addition to the two sisters.

Babette brightens the pious lives and austere diets as best she can with the meager provisions obtained from the town’s lone grocer and local fishermen. When she comes into some money, she decides to show her gratitude to the sister’s, their prayer group, and Lorenz who is now a general in the King’s army. Service and gratitude come to a rousing climax as Babette prepares a proper French meal and the screen is blessed with one of the most sumptuous and dramatic presentations of food on film.

The Duellists and Babette’s Feast show how the arts can explore with great depth and intelligence human truths. In the former, we see honor both building one life and destroying another. In the latter, we see that “an artist is never poor” when her art is presented in service and gratitude to others.

Joe Wright’s The Soloist stands in stark contrast to these two films and shows what a disaster results when culture is made to serve politics.

The Soloist is based on a true story about Steve Lopez (Robert Downey, Jr.) discovering Nathanial Ayers (Jamie Foxx), a homeless man who once studied cello at the Julliard School but who now lives under a freeway as a result of untreated schizophrenia. It is little more than a 105-minute public service announcement on behalf of the homeless.

The Soloist focuses on Lopez, a reporter searching for one good story in order to save his job during layoffs at the LA Times. (See the connection? Yes, it's absurdly obvious.) While pondering his future in a park, he hears Ayers playing a violin. In a short conversation filled with Ayers' disjointed, schizophrenic ramblings, Lopez is able to make out Ayers’ name and “Julliard School.” Lopez follows up and discovers that a once promising student of the cello now lives under a freeway, playing a two-string violin.

The film follows the same basic Hollywood-meets-homeless storyline, where the guy who seems to have everything struggles to help the downtrodden. The Soloist is less about Ayers than it is Lopez. The movie’s message is if we befriend the homeless, and maybe dropped $50 Million of taxpayer’s money on programs now and again, the guilt felt over the homeless will be lessened.

The problem with this self-righteous scenario is that the homeless who desperately need treatment, whether for drug addiction, alcoholism or mental disorders would never get it. Just as Ayers, in the film, never receives the treatment he so desperately needs in order to live a life not shattered by voices bubbling into his consciousness.

In a scene that should make any rational person scratch his head, Los Angeles Mayor Antonia Villaraigaso appears on Skid Row, surrounded by security and media, to announce, in the midst of homeless drug addicts, alcoholics, psychotics and thugs, $50M worth of government beneficence. This is presented with Lopez prominent in the background as if he is actually doing something for what ails these poor souls. Like the rest of the film, it is surreal in its naïveté.

There is a moment in The Soloist when the film could have taken a turn and gotten beneath the ideology driving the picture. Steve is demanding that the Lamp Community, a place for mentally ill homeless in Los Angeles, get Ayers treatment. Lamp’s staff says, simply, “No, not if Ayers doesn’t want it.” This turns the film’s message of friendship (and government aid) on its head.

If a friend suffered from an illness and you knew a treatment, if not a cure, was available, and yet you not only fail to obtain said treatment you shrug your shoulders and move on as if nothing had happened, then what does that say about your friendship? That is exactly what happens when Lopez fails in his one effort toward getting Ayers real treatment. The film effectively shrugs its shoulders and moves on. The movie closes with Lopez in voice-over, extolling the healing power of friendship.

The Soloist is the product of journalists, storytellers, and filmmakers who have enslaved their talents to their ideology. By so doing, they have enslaved their artistic cultural expression to their politics, for ideology and politics are two sides of the same coin.

Filmmakers and journalists have long offered their work up on the political altar. Is it any wonder that politicians and bureaucrats now put those offerings to use to push a particular agenda?

--Daniel Crandall

Posted by Mike D'Virgilio at 11:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

Once again, low-rated shows, largely with a negative attitude toward American institutions and the conventions of bourgeois life, dominated Hollywood's Emmy Awards for primetime television programming this year.

In the awards announced on Sunday night's telecast, the industry's elites once again demonstrated their disregard for their audiences' preferences and their intent to continue using their bully pulpit to turn the nation into a banana republic.

For details on winners and losers, see the Reuters report.

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

TV's The Newlywed Game is bowing to the progressivist zeitgeist and including a homosexual couple among its contestants for an episode expected to air in October.

The show, which the great majority of Americans surely believed to be long gone and has aired for the past few years on the obscure, low-rated Game Show Network (GSN), will present an episode featuring former Star Trek actor George Takei and his mate, Brad Altman, who married last year during the brief period when such marriages were declared legal by a California court before the state's citizens ended the practice by voting it down in a referendum.

It seems possible that the episode will bring a brief increase in the show's ratings as curiosity seekers take a look, which is surely what its producers and GSN hope.

But given the huge amount of airtime already given to Takei and his sex life, there may not be much curiosity left to exploit.

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

 

Given the huge advertising and publicity push, plus the presence of star actor Matt Damon (Bourne spy film series) and star director Steven Soderbergh (Ocean's series of heist films), I thought The Informant had a good chance to win the box office sweepstakes during its opening days this past weekend.

I considered that a potentially baleful eventuality, considering that the new comedy seemed likely to be very anti-business, given the scenes shown in the trailers and the presence of politically active Damon and Soderbergh (director of Che, which lionized the Cuban Marxist revolutionary). I haven't seen it yet, and so will reserve judgment on that score, but perhaps it makes sense that although The Contender did better than expected, it was clobbered by the animated comedy Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.

Meatballs brought in a very healthy $30.1 million in North American ticket sales in its first weekend during the past three days (50 percent more than industry analysts had expected), far outpacing The Contender's take of $10.5 million. The Damon-Soderbergh comedy finished just ahead of Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All by Myself, which brought in $10.1 million in its second weekend. Another comedy, Love Happens, finished fourth.

With three comedies leading the pack and two highly promoted horror-suspense films with attractive female stars in the lead roles tanking with unexpectedly low ticket sales (Jennifer's Body, Whiteout), it's apparent that U.S. audiences are tired of downbeat material and want a more positive, optimistic type of entertainment,

That's especially important with the economy remaining in bad condition long after recovery typically begins (average of ten months after onset) and Congress and the President considering a multitude of expensive new initiatives guaranteed to make the situation even worse.

With so many comedies to choose from, the weekend's total U.S. box office was up 14 percent over the same weekend of last year and 17 percent over the previous weekend. Clearly, the Hollywood studios would be smart to press their filmmakers to move toward a more optimistic, positive, pro-American, classical liberal approach to the stories they tell.

If not, they may find themselves in a recession of their own.

--S. T. Karnick

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 09:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

As overly serious police procedurals have begun to saturate the primetime network TV schedules, the FOX network has quietly but wisely been exploring alternatives. Introduced a few years ago, the highly popular House varied the formula by moving it to a medical setting, and last year Fringe interestingly revived the delight in adventure characteristic of mid-1960s network TV dramas.

The new drama Glee (Wednesdays, 9 p.m EDT) represents another approach and a bolder break with current trends--and it may point the way toward a welcome increase in variety among network TV dramas.

Produced by Ryan Murphy (Nip/Tuck), Glee tells the story of high school teacher Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison) a married high school teacher in his thirties, who wants to restore McKinley High School's glee club to its former glory, achieved when he was a member during his high school years and the club won the nationals.

Unfortunately, glee is now way out of style and is just about the lowest rung on the school's status ladder. But Will is not one to be easily stopped, even by the school's powerful cheerleading coach, Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch), who hates the glee club and wants it stopped.

The presentation of high school status issues and depictions of how peer pressure paradoxically enforces conformity to an odd mix of rebellious attitudes is both insightful about high school and American society in general, where the media and much of the culture tend to function like the higher-status kids in high school, enforcing a foollish, unfocused sense of rebellion and entitlement.

Schuester, on the other hand, exemplifies what makes a good teacher: he takes great joy in developing young people's talents--and the singing of the glee club is so entertaining that it induces the audience to share that feeling.

"We're all here for the same reason: because we want to be good at something," says Finn Hudson, a glee club member and star quarterback who is forced to stand up to his coach and teammates in order to take part in the club, becasue of its unacceptably low status in the school's social hierarchy.

That scene, from the pilot episode, exemplifies the kind of drama and meaning the producers are able to find in this seemingly inhospitable subject.

If comparisons to Disney's High School Musical movies are inevitable, Glee can stand the heat. Its greater realism and recognition of the economic and social limitations of small-town life move Glee significantly beyond a mere show-biz story.

In fact, the show of which Glee is most reminiscent is Friday Night Lights, the brilliant DirecTV/NBC drama series centered on a Texas small-town high school football team. Each show looks sympathetically but realistically at a social organization in an American high school and extracts drama and real social insights. Glee includes a good deal more humor than Friday Night Lights, and is less inclined toward the tragic view evident in that show, but the result is the same: a show that's both enjoyable and edifying.

Similarly, traditionalists might be tempted to take offense at the presence of so many references to homosexuality in the show, which could be taken as advocacy of it. One of the glee club members, Rachel, has "two daddies," as the saying goes, and another, Kurt, reveals that he's a homosexual, in episode two, "Acafellas." Yet that is simply a function of the show's realism: one could very well expect those particular kids to be among the few who would gravitate toward the high school glee club, given the low status of the group. Those of already low status have less to lose.

In addition, all of the episodes shown so far have mocked political correctness shibboleths and satirized moral failings such as disloyalty, selfishness, and dishonesty. Although Glee displays a certain amount of surface sympathy with contemporary moral relativism, it's really showing sympathy with the individuals, not their failings, and the first three episodes of the show suggest that it's on the right side regarding general moral principles.

Fox is taking a chance by going against contemporary TV drama conventions, but the rewards could be worth it--for network and audience alike.

--S. T. Karnick

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 03:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by Mike Gray at 03:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Disclaimer: Films listed here may be terrible, but they must have at least one scientifically interesting idea, however badly they may exploit that concept.

~Village of the Damned (1960)
George Sanders, Barbara Shelley, Martin Stephens, Michael Gwynn, Laurence Naismith, Richard Warner, Jenny Laird, Sarah Long, Bernard Archard, Peter Vaughan, John Phillips, Richard Vernon
BW-77 mins.

Based on the 1957 novel The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham

"People, especially children, aren't measured by their IQ. What's important about them is whether they're good or bad, and these children are bad."
-----
"You have to be taught to leave us alone."
-----
"A brick wall ... a brick wall ... I must think of a brick wall ... a brick wall ... I must think of a brick wall ... a brick wall ... brick wall ... I must think of a brick wall ... It's almost half past eight ... brick wall ... only a few seconds more ... brick wall ... brick wall ... brick wall ... nearly over ... a brick wall ...."

This movie follows John Wyndham's thriller fairly closely, and benefits from it. George Sanders normally played villains but not here; if there's any hero in this film, he's it.

As with INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1956) before it, 1960's VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED is a cold-war allegory that uses extraterrestrial infiltration to represent Western fears of Communist invasion. Even so, this flick is still one of the best SF thrillers ever made, and it has become one of the SF cinema classics. When a group of albino children born under mysterious circumstances begin to demonstrate superhuman mental prowess, they come to be viewed by their community and the military as a threat to the survival of mankind. Though faithful to the novel on which it is based — THE MIDWICH CUCKOOS by Brit SF author John Wyndham — the film is in many ways more frightening, mainly due to simple but effective special FX and outstanding performances from adult leads George Sanders, Barbara Shelley, and Michael Gwynn and from child actor Martin Stephens. Indeed, the unusually reserved and sympathetic performance from Sanders — well known in England at the time for his over-the-top portrayals of villains or cynical antiheroes — makes the film's climax extremely dramatic and affecting. Caveat: Avoid John Carpenter's far inferior 1995 remake. — Michael R. Gates on Amazon.com

A small countryside village in England experiences a time period of several hours where all living things lie lifeless and helpless. Anything living that connects within this sphere of lifelessness gets the like treatment. Everyone soon awakens from whatever happened, and the women of child-bearing years all get pregnant and are all due on the same day. Village of the Damned is one of those discerning, intelligent science fiction films of yesteryear that tends to leave much to your imagination in terms of gore and violence as well as make you think and ponder important questions about the limits with which humanity should go to procure knowledge. The children are decidedly very creepy as their eyes glow when they are angered. Martin Stephens as George Sanders' boy is particularly good as he looks and speaks with such class and distinction yet has the conscience of a cold-blooded, calculated killer. Sanders is also very good in his role as a man torn between bridging the field of knowledge with the unknown and protecting mankind from foreign/alien harm. His wife, played with credibility, is Hammer beauty Barbara Shelley. A great British science fiction film and certainly one of the more thought-provoking ones around. — BaronBl00d on IMDb

~Master of the World (1961)
Vincent Price, Charles Bronson, Henry Hull, Mary Webster, David Frankham, Richard Harrison, Vito Scotti, Wally Campo, Peter Besbas, Steve Masino, Gordon Jones, Ken Terrell
C-99/102 mins.
Screenplay by Richard Matheson
Loosely based on Robur the Conqueror (1886) and its sequel Master of the World (1904) by Jules Verne
Tie-in novel Ace D-504

Poor Jules Verne rarely gets the A treatment from Hollywood, and this film is a classic example. It really deserved better, such as Disney's version of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. A supercomputer would probably have a breakdown calculating the dynamic forces generated by all those propellers festooning Robur's (Vincent Price) "cloud clipper" airship, and there's yet another misuse of stock film footage (see below).

While it boasted a larger cast and more location work than was then the norm for AIP, it still betrayed its budget, particularly in the use of stock footage. It's anachronistic reuse of the opening miniature shot of Elizabethan London from Laurence Olivier's Henry V as a stand-in for Victorian London has become legendary. But it offered Vincent Price an excellent role as the dangerously idealistic Captain Robur, who travels the globe in his "cloud clipper," destroying the minions of war in order to force peace on the world. — Wikipedia

It's interesting to see Charles Bronson in an early role (before he hooked up with Mr. Winner and went-all bitter vigilante); he turns in a good performance. And the late-great Vincent Price is just right as Robur, captain of the flying ship "The Albatross", in one of his trademark not-strictly evil genius roles — more like, men who usually have good or honourable intentions, but are driven to madness and the use of terrible means to acheive them. The rest of the cast are all of a fairly good standard, except the character of Mr. Prudent [Henry Hull]; I find him extremely annoying and the acting is also quite poor. The effects are alright (you have to take into account it's the early '60s), and the set of the ship itself looks good and is well crafted. But the parts where the ship is supposed to be over land (some country-or-other) are almost funny because you can clearly see that the ship is super-imposed on to a completely different piece of film. — Kim Williams on IMDb

~Crack in the World (1965)
Dana Andrews, Janette Scott, Kieron Moore, Alexander Knox, Peter Damon, Jim Gillen, Gary Lasdun, Mike Steen, Sydna Scott, John Karlsen, Todd Martin, Ben Tatar
C-96 mins.

"A crack in the world?!"
"Gentlemen! Gentlemen! Don't let this fall apart. We have work to do. We must hear Dr. Rampion complete his report. You were saying that the crack is extending to the east."
"Along the Macedo Trench. It's following a geological flaw in the Earth's crust, known as the Macedo Fault. That runs from here, to the tip of India, veers off towards Indonesia, and terminates off the Australian continental shelf."
"How do you know that the crack will stop there?"
"We don't."
"What if the crack keeps going? Right around the world. What happens then?"
"Where the land masses split, the oceans will be sucked in, and the colossal pressure generated by the steam will rip the Earth apart and destroy it."
"You mean, the world will come to an end?"
"The world as we know it, yes."
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"The question now is not who is to blame, but how we can stop the catastrophe."
"At present we don't know any way we can stop it. First, we have to learn to understand the natural forces involved, and if possible, find some way to control them in the time that is permitted to us."
"What is being done — now?"
"Every university, every scientist, every thinking military leader is helping us."
"Is there anything that we can do?"
"Pray."
-----
"... how do you start up a volcano?"
"With a nuclear bomb."
"He never learns."
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"What's the hurry, Stephen? Can't you wait for another Nobel Prize?"
-----
"How do you feel?"
"Medium rare."

A soap-operatic love triangle superimposed on the imminent destruction of the Earth — hey, why not? They've tried just about everything else. Still, when the film concerns itself with the destructive meddling of well-meaning scientists trying to tap the virtually limitless energy contained within the Earth itself, it's absolutely engrossing. All we have to do is fire a missile with an atomic bomb into the mantle, crack it open, and reap the benefits. But Nobel Prize laureate Dana Andrews fails to take pockets of hydrogen into account .... The FX (special effects) are very convincing, with the actors sometimes taking real chances (this was long before CGI).

Intelligent, suspenseful science-fiction drama which is still worth a look despite modern science/plate tectonics theory having rendered it largely superfluous. Fine acting by Dana Andrews and Alexander Knox elevate the proceedings considerably. Excellent special effects and photography. I saw this on a double bill (it was the 2nd feature) with a Japanese giant monster flick back in the 60's; can't remember the monster (maybe Ghidrah?), but this is the one that sticks in my mind. The denouement is awesome. — jckruize on IMDb

~Cyborg 2087 (1966)
Michael Rennie, Karen Steele, Wendell Corey, Warren Stevens, Eduard Franz, Harry Carey, Jr., Adam Rourke, Chubby Johnson, Tyler MacDuff, Dale Van Sickel, Troy Melton, Jimmy Hibbard, Betty Jane Royale, John Beck
C-86 mins.

A surprisingly engaging low-budget time travel yarn; not great by any means, but fun in its own way. A good cast helps things along nicely. Hey, James Cameron, can you say Terminator without even a hint of a blush?

In the future world of the year 2087, freedom of thought is illegal and the thoughts of the world's populations are controlled by the government. A small band of "free thinkers" send a cyborg back in time to the year 1966 to prevent a scientist from making the breakthrough that will eventually lead to the mass thought control of the future. Our time traveler soon discovers he is not alone when government agents from the future try to prevent him from carrying out his mission. — Kevin Steinhauer on IMDb

Let's see ... Michael Rennie plays a cyborg. He is sent back in time by rebels to prevent a scientist from inventing a device that will have an impact upon the future by enslaving mankind. In turn, Rennie is being chased by agents from the future who are intent that he does not complete his mission. A woman in the present day begins to fall for Rennie. Sounds awful familiar to me. The music will have you rolling; it's from Saturday morning cartoons, [so] you're almost expecting that Hanna-Barbera sound effect when someone starts running. Still, the movie has an above average cast for its low budget: Michael Rennie, Karen Steele, Eduard Franz (the Jonathan Drake of Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake), Harry Carey, Jr., Warren Stevens (Forbidden Planet), Wendell Corey, and even future M*A*S*H star and Mrs. Chuck Woolery, Jo Ann Pflug, can be glimpsed. — clore-2 on IMDb

~Journey to the Center of Time (1967)
Scott Brady, Anthony Eisley, Gigi Perreau, Abraham Sofaer, Austin Green, Poupée Gamin, Tracy Olsen, Andy Davis, Lyle Waggner (Waggoner), Larry Evans, Jody Millhouse, Monica Stevens
C-82 mins.

An unofficial remake of The Time Travelers, and like its predecessor it just manages to overcome its budget limitations. If you can tolerate Scott Brady's overbearing character, you might enjoy it.

Low-budget romp through the backwaters of time and space. The distant past and far-off future collide in what amounts to a fiery blast furnace of ideas and images. A trio of scientists, on the threshold of a major breakthrough in time travel, race against the clock and a funding cut. Stanton, the main source of cash, played by a blustery Scott Brady, behaves like an ignoramus. He doesn't see a profit margin in such an endeavor. At first glance, this remake of A.I.P.'s The Time Travelers, would appear to be a poor relation. Not so fast. I think there are some good ideas spinning around here. You might notice that Star Trek helped themselves to a few. One plot device, involving a time-displacement and frozen duplicates of the main players in a conference room, was lifted for "Wink of an Eye." And the dark and minimalist set for the alien leader must have inspired "The Empath." Any takers? The one love scene, strangely, involves a time travel limerick and a lengthy kiss. Uncomfortable. The mutant attack has an Andy Warhol feel to it. Abstract. Cockeyed. Out of whack. The door to the lab breaks into quarters when opened. Cool effect. Even stranger is the small elevator that takes Stanton down four feet, when he could have easily walked down the four steps on his own. A very quick shot of the infamous bat-rat-spider-crab from Angry Red Planet, a previous writing credit of the director, is a shout out to that film's director. The opening credits reveal time pieces from the past. Good touch. So where's the original flick? Put it out on DVD now. Let's compare. The sands of the hour glass are running out. At warp speed. — copper1963 on IMDb

~~~~~~~~~~~

—Mike Gray

Posted by Mike Gray at 02:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This week:
* Monday—Buster Keaton walks into a mystery;
* Tuesday—Paul Muni gets into all kinds of trouble;
* Wednesday—Dick Powell encounters a Moose;
* Thursday—Robert Mitchum strips his gears;
* Friday—Broderick Crawford gets devious;
* Saturday—Dick Tracy submerges;
* Sunday—Edward G. takes a bath, nyah.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Monday—September 21st

3:45 PM—The Window (1949)
A boy who always lies witnesses a murder but can't get anyone but the killer to believe him.
Cast: Bobby Driscoll, Barbara Hale, Arthur Kennedy.
Dir: Ted Tetzlaff. BW-74 mins, TV-G, CC

5:00 PM—Walk Softly, Stranger (1950)
A small-time crook on the run is reformed by the love of a crippled woman.
Cast: Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Spring Byington.
Dir: Robert Stevenson. BW-81 mins, TV-PG, CC

6:30 PM—Behave Yourself! (1951)
A young couple's dog gets them mixed up in a string of murders.
Cast: Farley Granger, Shelley Winters, William Demarest.
Dir: George Beck. BW-81 mins, TV-PG, CC

8:00 PM—Sherlock, Jr. (1924)
In this silent film, a movie projectionist dreams himself into a mystery movie.
Cast: Buster Keaton, Kathryn McGuire, Ward Crane.
Dir: Buster Keaton. BW-44 mins, TV-G

10:15 PM—On the Waterfront (1954)
A young stevedore takes on the mobster who rules the docks.
Cast: Marlon Brando, Eva Marie Saint, Rod Steiger.
Dir: Elia Kazan. BW-108 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

----------

Tuesday—September 22nd

4:30 AM—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

6:30 AM—I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (1932)
A World War I veteran faces inhuman conditions when he's sentenced to hard labor.
Cast: Paul Muni, Glenda Farrell, Helen Vinson.
Dir: Mervyn LeRoy. BW-93 mins, TV-PG, CC

8:15 AM—Hi, Nellie! (1934)
A crusading newspaper editor keeps digging into corruption, even when he's forced to write advice to the lovelorn.
Cast: Paul Muni, Glenda Farrell, Ned Sparks. Dir: Mervyn LeRoy. BW-75 mins, TV-G, CC

9:45 AM—Black Fury (1935)
A coal worker gets mixed up in the mob's efforts to infiltrate his union.
Cast: Paul Muni, Karen Morley, William Gargan.
Dir: Michael Curtiz. BW-94 mins, TV-G, CC

11:30 AM—Bordertown (1935)
An ambitious Mexican-American gets mixed up with his boss's neurotic wife.
Cast: Paul Muni, Bette Davis, Margaret Lindsay.
Dir: Archie Mayo. BW-91 mins, TV-PG, CC

8:00 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

10:30 PM—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

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Wednesday—September 23rd

12:30 AM—Marnie (1964)
A rich man marries a compulsive thief and tries to unlock the secrets of her mind.
Cast: Tippi Hedren, Sean Connery, Diane Baker.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. C-130 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

4:30 AM—Ransom! (1956)
A wealthy couple tries to cope with the press and the police when their son is kidnapped.
Cast: Glenn Ford, Donna Reed, Leslie Nielsen.
Dir: Alex Segal. BW-102 mins, TV-PG, CC

6:15 PM—Murder, My Sweet (1944)
Detective Philip Marlowe's search for a two-timing woman leads him to blackmail and murder.
Cast: Dick Powell, Claire Trevor, Anne Shirley.
Dir: Edward Dmytryk. BW-95 mins, TV-PG, CC

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Thursday—September 24th

7:45 AM—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

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Friday—September 25th

9:45 AM—The Circus Queen Murder (1933)
A vacationing DA gets mixed up in a tangled case involving a touring circus.
Cast: Adolphe Menjou, Greta Nissen, Dwight Frye.
Dir: Roy William Neill. BW-65 mins.

11:00 AM—A Man's Castle (1933)
An unemployed man turns to crime when he gets his girlfriend pregnant.
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Loretta Young, Marjorie Rambeau.
Dir: Frank Borzage. BW-69 mins, TV-PG

8:00 PM—Scandal Sheet (1952)
A tabloid editor assigns a young reporter to solve a murder.
Cast: John Derek, Donna Reed, Broderick Crawford.
Dir: Phil Karlson. BW-82 mins, TV-PG

9:30 PM—The Phenix City Story (1955)
A crusading lawyer takes on the corrupt machine running a Southern town.
Cast: John McIntire, Richard Kiley, Kathryn Grant.
Dir: Phil Karlson. BW-100 mins, TV-14, Letterbox Format

11:30 PM—The Brothers Rico (1957)
A reformed mob accountant tries to get to his gangster brother before the criminals can.
Cast: Richard Conte, Dianne Foster, Kathryn Grant.
Dir: Phil Karlson. BW-92 mins, TV-PG

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Saturday—September 26th

9:00 AM—The Ghost Town Mystery (1937)
In the seventh chapter of Dick Tracy, the famed detective is dragged underwater behind a submarine.
Cast: Ralph Byrd, Kay Hughes, Smiley Burnette.
Dir: Alan James, Ray Taylor. BW-20 mins, TV-G

9:30 AM—Battle in the Clouds (1937)
In the eighth chapter of Dick Tracy, the famed detective must escape a deadly pit.
Cast: Ralph Byrd, Kay Hughes, Smiley Burnette.
Dir: Alan James, Ray Taylor. BW-18 mins, TV-G

10:00 AM—They Made Me a Fugitive (1947) [a.k.a. I Became a Criminal]
After being framed for a policeman's murder, a criminal escapes prison and sets out for revenge.
Cast: Trevor Howard, Sally Gray, Griffith Jones.
Dir: Alberto Cavalcanti. BW-101 mins, TV-PG

----------

Sunday—September 27th

6:00 PM—Key Largo (1948)
A returning veteran tangles with a ruthless gangster during a hurricane.
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Lauren Bacall.
Dir: John Huston. BW-101 mins, TV-G, CC, DVS

~~~~~~~~~~~

—Mike Gray

Posted by Mike Gray at 09:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The latest public polling information from the Pew Research Center "finds crumbling trust in the news media's accuracy hits a 24-year low," as AP put it. The story continued:

Nearly two-thirds of Americans think the news stories they read, hear and watch are frequently inaccurate, according to a poll released Sunday by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. That marks the highest level of skepticism recorded since 1985, when this study of public perceptions of the media was first done.

The drop was an astonishing ten percentage points in one year, the story notes:

The survey found that 63 percent of the respondents thought the information they get from the media was often off base. In Pew Research's previous survey, in 2007, 53 percent of the people expressed that doubt about accuracy.

It hardly seems merely coincidental that this decline happened in the very year that the media went in the tank for Barack Obama and did their level best to help make him President.

The AP story correctly noted that the poll question didn't distinguish between "new" and "old" media, but media critic Howard Kurtz tacitly acknowledged that this is all about the lack of credibility of the mainstream media, not the internet, in his Washington Post column, by giving examples only of opinions on the mainstream media. The conclusion is inevitable, Kurtz writes:

Public respect for the media has plunged to a new low, with just 29 percent of Americans saying that news organizations generally get their facts straight.

That figure is the lowest in more than two decades of surveys by the Pew Research Center, which also found just 26 percent saying news outlets are careful that their reporting is not politically biased. And 70 percent say news organizations try to cover up their mistakes. That amounts to a stunning vote of no confidence.

The new wrinkle is that Democrats are increasingly unhappy with a profession long viewed as liberal, with 59 percent saying news reporting is often inaccurate, up from 43 percent two years ago.

The AP story notes that as the public increasingly perceives the mainstream media as biased, they are abandoning them and the media are suffering severe and likely ultimately fatal financial losses:

The financial problems mainly stem from a steep decline in the ad sales that generate most of the media's revenue. Newspapers' print editions have been losing readers to the Internet, and broadcasters' audiences are fragmenting in an age of cable TV and satellite radio.

Newspaper ad sales plunged by 29 percent, or nearly $5.5 billion, during the first half of this year, according to the Newspaper Association of America. TV ad revenue on broadcast stations dropped by 12 percent, or nearly $3 billion, during the same period, according to the Television Bureau of Advertising. Radio advertising fell by 23 percent, or $2.3 billion, according to the Radio Advertising Bureau.

Some of this surely has to do with the recession, but newspaper and magazine ad revenue had been dropping precipitously for several years before this, as the public got tired of all the bias and the media elite's open contempt for commonly held values. With the press being perceived as at its most biased since the 1980s (when they were hammering President Reagan with all their might), they've too clearly separated themselves from the people who pay their salaries.

The difference between the '00s and the '80s, of course, is that there's now somewhere else to go, as the internet set off an explosion of alternative sources of news, analysis, commentary, and entertainment.

Hence, as the AP story put it, "The findings indicate U.S. newspapers and broadcasters could be alienating the audiences they are struggling to keep as they try to survive financial turmoil." Yes, the internet provides an alternative, but people are going there because the mainstream media are pushing them away. That's what the facts say.

--S. T. Karnick

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 06:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Instead, I noted, the American culture is an omniculture, providing all things for all people. What conservatives typically overlook when they complain about what is wrong with the culture is that there is so much that is good happening at the same time. The fact is, I noted then and reiterate now, the culture is not monolitically getting better or worse but simply more diverse and widening the extremes, with a proliferation of what traditionalists would say is good and also what they would designate as bad.

But conservatives aren't the only ones who see the culture as a monolith that moves from "good" toward "bad" and vice versa. And the "progressives" have a hobbyhorse of their own: an open hostility to certain types of ideals. An article at The Daily Beast, "Good Girls Are Back," exemplifies this view:

But lately, raunch culture appears to be in remission. In its place is a new cultural paradigm: the nice girl.

Instead of being photographed getting carried out of bars at last call, nice girls, like Harry Potter star Emma Watson, enroll in Ivy League schools (she’s headed to Brown). They, like Disney singer/actress Demi Lovato, give interviews about being bullied in school and how much they love their parents and best friends. They wear purity rings to show the world just how virginal they are, like American Idol’s Jordin Sparks. They are everywhere in teen culture: Abigail Breslin, Emma Roberts, Dakota Fanning, Taylor Swift, iCarly’s Miranda Cosgrove.

An adherence to modesty—the antithesis of the thong—is also intrinsic to the nice girl package, and we’ve seen it in the jumpsuits and maxi dresses in fashion this summer. The September issue of Teen Vogue, a magazine that has always championed niceness, has a story about how its readers can set appropriate boundaries with teachers, coaches, bosses, and other authority figures.

Note the use of the terms 'remission' and 'in place of'. First, it seems absurd to say that raunch is 'in remission'. Does it really appear to you that there is a scarcity of vulgarity in the culture? I'm not seeing that. And the implication that such a thing would be lamentable is bloody quaint.

No, while there is indeed a rise of niceness among young ladies in the culture, it's not pushing aside the raunch culture. They coexist. There is an ebb and flow of how much attention each will get from Entertainment Weekly, and an ebb and flow in the total cultural tendency toward each (though that must be very difficult to measure, if not impossible), but there will continue to be plenty of each as long as we retain a little of what remains of our liberties.

The rising cultural respect for "good girls" is certainly happening, however, and it's a very good thing, in my view. The Daily Beast writer, however, thinks good is not so good. She laments all this niceness:

But all this niceness can be stifling. Rachel Simmons, author of Odd Girl Out and the founder of the Girls Leadership Institute, takes a critical look at the pressure to be nice in her new book The Curse of the Good Girl. “Unerringly nice, polite, modest, and selfless, the Good Girl is a paradigm so narrowly defined that it’s unachievable.”

But that's why it's an ideal, not an expectation. No one realistically expects anybody to be perfect. Ideals are made for us to aspire to, and are very good for that. Accepting whatever people feel they can do without much effort is simply moral relativism. The author, by contrast, sees the presence of ideals as an offense and as a crippling obstacle to young people's development:

The problem with nice is that it doesn’t particularly encourage a full range of emotions. Nice girl culture doesn’t give much in the way of advice for how to deal with normal conflict or disappointment. As a result, Simmons finds that good girls are paralyzed by self-criticism.

The author doesn't provide any evidence of this paralysis, however, and the copious examples of perfectly healthy and in fact thriving good girls in the culture absolutely contradicts this claim. And she cites many of them in her article, so she can hardly be unaware of this. Undaunted by the facts, however, she goes on to propose an alternative to all of this niceness:

“Without having robust models of revolt that mainstream culture embraces, young girls are far less likely to explore their own self-defined, diverging paths,” writes Maria Raha in her book Hellions: Pop Culture’s Rebel Women. Uniformly nice culture creates female personae that is just as limiting as raunch culture’s ersatz rebellion. What girls need is to be encourages to show a range of traits: The good, the bad, and the full spectrum in between.

Um, no, thank you. What girls and boys alike both need is to be encouraged to be good always (which may indeed at times require revolt, as the Tea Party movement suggests). There's plenty of temptation to be bad, and we should all practice generosity, understanding, and forgiveness, but common sense and science both tell us that encouraging people to be bad just makes them more likely to be bad and does not make them happy.

The article concludes:

In Not That Kind of Girl, by the time Bauer has become one of the “virginal and staunchly sober girls” at a Catholic college, she also finds the rebellion of the early ‘90s unavoidable. It was a time when girls were trading their perms for Manic Panic hair dye, singing along to Liz Phair, purging their closets of any traces of floral prints, and keeping their legs “profoundly unshaven.” Her weekends as an undergrad might include hanging out at Tower Records (“Stone cold sober. Fully dressed”), attending a pro-choice march, and still making it to church on Sunday morning. Bauer was able to become the kind of girl who was both rebellious and pious, good and little bit bad. It’s the kind of life you can’t easily label, but hopefully one more girls will consider adopting.

This is fatuous in at least two ways. One, there is no lack of social and cultural acceptance of the sort of behavior posited as "bad" in this description--and the author acknowledges this by referring to "the rebellion of the early ‘90s" as "unavoidable." In fact, the ubiquity of cultural relativism and outright rebellion against decency is one of the things conservatives continually complain about. If a girl wants to listen to Liz Phair, let her legs get hairy, and go on pro-abortion marches, she's perfectly free to do so; she'll just have greater difficulty in getting the most sought-after guys to go out with her--but if she wants to keep her clothes on she'll have the same problem anyway.

Two, exactly what is going to keep girls--and boys, for that matter--just "a little bit bad"? What will prevent them from deciding that their own imperfections are quite inevitable and unavoidable, that they can resist anything but temptation, as Oscar Wilde aptly put it?

Only ideals, and a firm expectation that people will strive to meet them while never achieving perfection, can give people a sense of how and why they should regulate their behavior. Nothing else will do so except rules backed by force. Without ideals, all that is left is to lay down the law. That means obliterating people's liberties.

That is why as American (and indeed Western) society increasingly lost its respect for ideals (which the nation's founders called virtues) in the decades since World War II our elites have increasingly taken away the people's liberties. The proliferation of government intervention, political correctness, and cultural shibboleths all testify to this. Without ideals--a respect for virtues--the force of law and its cultural and social surrogates becomes society's only recourse.

Although she seems largely sympathetic to the good girl trend, the author of the Daily Beast essay misses the real truth about ideals: as the nation's Founders understood, respect for ideals--virtues--is essential to liberty. Without them, people cannot be truly free, nor truly happy.

That's another reason why niceness is so nice, and why we need more of it, not less.

--S. T. Karnick

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by Mike Gray at 09:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Key passage:

No, the summer tea party revolution was not from the top. Institutional conservatism was just too compromised after Bush to rouse by itself this new mass of Americans concerned about what government will do to ruin their valued health and political systems. The intellectual case that government intervention is the root cause of the health crisis and that it will produce bankruptcy in the years ahead had not been made by any major political figure in years. Indeed, many conservatives have taken the position that the government health system is sacrosanct and should not be changed at all in order to rouse elderly opposition, ignoring the stacks of rightist think tank reports detailing the urgent need to put patients in charge rather than bureaucrats as the only way to prevent bankruptcy and rationed health care.

Conservatism post-Bush has been opportunistic rather than principled. If the GOP took control of Congress tomorrow, as indicated by a recent op-ed by the party chairman Michael Steele and what the Republican Congressional leader reinforced in California, there is no question it would support some compromise solution that would make the health care system more inefficient, more unfair and more expensive, further hastening insolvency.

The good news is that a critical mass at the grass roots is seeing through the bipartisan tomfoolery and will not take it any longer. Beyond the sloganeering Congressional speeches, the formulistic think tank studies and the hot air TV expert commentary, an exhausted conservative movement is being regenerated by activists who really care about political principles and are determined to do something serious to advance them. Conservatism’s regeneration is happening just as it did in the 1960s, out in the country, spontaneously, below the establishment radar, awaiting a leader and a favorable opportunity.

Read the full article here.

--S. T. Karnick

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 01:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The late Patrick Swayze wasn't a great actor, but he was a dude, which is more important and is what makes his best films well worth watching. Andrew Klavan fondly remembers Swayze at Klavan on the Culture.

My Swayze recommendations: Red Dawn, Road House, Point Break, Next of Kin, Uncommon Valor, North and South, Donnie Darko, City of Joy.One to avoid: To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything Julie Newmar. (They must have paid him a fortune to do this drag-queen film. I certainly hope so.)

--S. T. Karnick

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 10:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

After my highly critical review of the premiere episode of The Jay Leno Show, I think it's important to acknowledge that Leno has typically been a bastion of decency and fairness when compared with truly odious comedy talk-show hosts such as David Letterman and Bill Maher. For a good article on Leno's comic persona, see John Nolte's appreciation of Leno at Big Hollywood.

--S. T. Karnick

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 09:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Last night's premiere of The Jay Leno Show, the former Tonight Show host's primetime consolation prize from NBC for ousting him from his highly successful late-night perch, did very well in the ratings. According to the Nielsen ratings service, the show drew 17.7 million viewers, more than triple his average audience for the Tonight Show.

Of course the great majority of last night's audience won't be returning night after night, and that is a big worry for NBC, which is placing its fortunes on a very risky move. Running the show every week-night in the 10 p.m. slot risks destroying the affiliates' nighttime newscasts if Leno's ratings are not strong night after night.

Last night's premiere episode provided little reason to expect a large regular audience for the show. The new set is reminiscent of those used in old variety shows from the Milton Berle Show to the Carol Burnett Show--and thus rather refreshing in that regard.

Having Leno and a guest sit in comfortable-looking chairs facing each other at an angle is quite appealing, giving the interviews a less strained look.

Unfortunately, the interviews--usually a strength for Leno--were rather weak. His first-half interview with Jerry Seinfield was uninspired and not particularly diverting. It showcased Leno's laudable willingness to take a back seat and let others shine, but the discussion of the Seinfield show's forthcoming cast reunion on HBO's Larry David Show was old news, and Seinfeld's gag of interviewing Oprah Winfrey while both ignored Jay was a clever idea that didn't go anywhere.

If it weren't the show's first night, I imagine a good many viewers would have switched channels at that point.

Whereas the Seinfeld interview was weak, the talk with singer-rapper Kanye West was truly awful. West sat for the interview in an attempt to defuse some of the anger against him that had occurred during the past couple of days as a result of his bizarre, astonishingly rude, and offensive commandeering of a microphone from seventeen-year-old songstress Taylor Swift during an awards ceremony to tell the studio and TV audiences that someone else deserved the award, not she. Rather understandably, West was clearly uncomfortable during the interview and was largely unresponsive to Leno's questions.

Clearly desperate for some sort of interesting response, Leno even asked West what the rapper's late mother would have said about his boorish award-show misdeed--and had to provide the answer himself when West muttered a nonanswer. It was a truly bizarre moment, but neither entertaining nor enlightening.

This floundering interview was followed by an even worse musical performance by West, Jay-Z, and Rihanna. Their song was just wretched, and one cannot help but wonder why the producers chose such an aesthetically weak offering as the show's first musical number. Did Taylor Swift refuse to appear?

A worse sign for the future was the amount of vulgar humor thrown about. For some reason, jokes about sexual sadism abounded, and an extended sequence of phallic humor was not funny but was spectacularly stupid. Confounding common sense, Leno and his team made the new show seem dirtier than the Tonight Show. Audiences will surely take note of this.

On the positive side, the humorous-headlines bit at end was as solid as usual (it was a popular element during Leno's tenure on the Tonight Show)--though it might not be overly churlish of me to note that it's the one segment the show's viewers help write.

And there was a quite amusing fake interview with President Obama in the style of those beer commercials in which fans ask National Football League coaches questions in news conferences and the coaches' real-life answers are edited in with humorous results. In this instance the answers were from Obama's previous-day 60 Minutes interview, and Leno's questions were cleverly written to make Obama's responses quite funny.

The piece was innocent of political content, however, suggesting that Leno does not wish to satirize the president very much, as is the case with most other TV comedy hosts. But it's also emblematic of the oddly routine nature of the entire program and a serious failure to connect with the public, who are, after all, regularly marching in the streets in protest against the policies of Obama and the congressional Democrats.

Overall, one might have expected a good deal more inspiration from a comedy team who had three months to fashion the best premiere episode they could create. Of course the real test will be what they can come up with five nights a week, forty-six weeks per year.

But if this is the best they can do on night one, it's difficult to imagine that this is going to be must-see TV.

Or even bearable.

--S. T. Karnick

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Another critic has joined the chorus recommending the superb mystery novel The Red Right Hand, by Joel Townsley Rogers:

I had heard that it was a difficult book to read, that the language was turgid and the action was slow-moving, but in fact I was soon into things and though the layout was rather unusual it never lost my interest. . . .

An unusual style, but I thoroughly enjoyed the book and I’m glad I can now add it to my list (still being compiled) of books read.

Read the review here. Then, buy the book.

--S. T. Karnick

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 10:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Proving once again the power of appealing to Christian moviegoers, Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All By Myself finished at the top of the U.S. box office during its opening weekend.

Despite this and countless other examples, however, Hollywood's major studios continue to put out numerous politically and culturally charged films that offend the great majority of their audience and don't draw appreciable numbers of moviegoers. As Perry and others show, politically biased Hollywood is throwing away huge amounts of money that's just waiting for better-natured filmmakers to pick up.

USA Today provides further details on the weekend's movie attendance here.

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 09:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As the pilot episode begins, we follow a beautiful young woman into a glamorous nightclub--where a variety of attractive young people find their fun being interrupted by personal crises.

This leads to one of those incredibly snarled soap-opera plots in which several sets of characters are plunged into disaster after catastrophe. Thus a gooey-tender scene in which a young man asks his girlfriend to narry him is interrupted by an offscreen woman's terrified scream and the discovery of a corpse bleeding into a nearby swimming pool.

Two-thirds of the way through the episode, things get quite interesting as a couple of the decent characters are presented with serious moral dilemmas involving financial and career temptations. A nurse is offered an urgently needed $5,000 to sleep with a man she has just met, and a young filmmaker is offered $100,000 to keep quiet about witnessing an extramarital affair.

The moral implications of these dilemmas are made so clear and taken so seriously that it doesn't really matter what the characters choose; the viewer will be nonetheless encouraged to think about how they would react in such a situation and thus contemplate their own moral probity. That's a good thing, and it's what popular fiction at its best always does.

And, yes, there is a happy ending--for the good characters. This being television, however, the happy scene is of course followed by a coda sequence full of fear, longing, venery, and crime, to remind the viewer to return next week. All in all, the show seems rather more serious than one might expect, with a suitably modern noir approach to the cinematography, direction, story, and performances.

The biggest question is whether the producers--who also make the CW series Smallville--will retain the moral seriousness shown in the pilot as Melrose Place continues. So far, it's not great art, but it might turn out to be good popular fiction.

—S. T. Karnick

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 07:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Filmmaker George Romero has had exactly one good idea in his life: the original, 1968 zombie film Night of the Living Dead. Since then, he has been coasting on a reputation as a maker of smarter than average horror films. Although he has made some good movies since Night of the Living Dead, few of his films have above par for the horror genre, and the average quality of horror films in the decades since his breakthrough movie is a very low bar to surpass.

In particular, Romero has revisited the zombie film in quite a few movies over the years, usually providing the press with some serious intellectual/social/political commentary his latest film is supposed to make. So it is once again with his new film, the Venice Film Festival entry Survival of the Dead. Reuters reports that Romero, age 69, said his new film deals with questions about when it's right to go to war:

"I wasn't looking at Iraq and saying, well, lets make a movie about Iraq," Romero told reporters on Wednesday.

"It's much more about man's underlying inability to forget enmity, forget their enemies even long after they've forgotten what started the conflict in the first place.

"I think that part of the problem is that nobody looks at both sides of any issue, it's automatically: I'm on this side or I'm on that side."

There's nothing dishonorable in being a hack filmmaker; truly accomplished hacks can make enjoyable movies. But hack filmmakers with big ideas just become increasingly worse bores as the years wear on. Their vapid nattering reminds one of . . . zombies.

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

The government-owned U.S. TV network PBS and the British Broadcasting Corporation, both government-owned, tends to soft-pedal the evils of communism while placing every imperfection of life in the United States under a microscope. Hence it's rather noteworthy when those that organizations airs a program in which the central problems are traceable to communism. That's what happened in last Sunday's episode of Masterpiece Mystery, which PBS coproduces with the privately owned UK media company ITV.

[Mild plot spoiler warning--'mild' because it won't fully identify the murderer.]

In "Music to Die For," the latest episode of the smart and interesting British mystery series Inspector Lewis, coproduced by PBS and BBC, the killer turns out to have been an informer for the East German secret police, the Stasi, two decades earlier, who is trying to keep that past hidden.

Moreover, that is not merely an incidental aspect of the episode but in fact central to it. The evils of the Communist system, including the scarcity of material goods, the dreariness of life without hope of personal advancement and opportunities to use one's talents to their fullest, and, in particular, the paranoia and personal corruption induced by the police-state government's cultivation of a huge network of informers to identify alleged subversives are made quite clear and in fact set in motion the plot element that drives the entire story forward.

In addition to all of that, the episode, like the show in general, is intelligent, sophisticated, and morally sound, and it has an excellent plot and story line and strong central and supporting characters alike. Mixing Wagner, boxing, politics, boating, murder, and a police investigation, "Music to Die For" is entertaining while informing viewers about a subject not sufficiently often considered on U.S. television.

Inspector Lewis continues on Sunday nights through October 19, and is well worth watching.

It won't make up for years of political bias, of course, but it's a start.

Inspector Lewis: Recommended.

--S. T. Karnick

Update, 10.19.09 10:25 EDT: A commenter at Big Hollywood corrrectly informs us that the BBC did not coproduce this series. The series was coproduced by ITV, which is a private media corporation based in the UK. That may help explain the good sense displayed in this program. I have corrected the original item accordingly, with deletions indicated by strikethrough text.--STK

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 07:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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 Power (1968)
George Hamilton, Suzanne Pleshette, Michael Rennie, Arthur O'Connell, Earl Holliman, Nehemiah Persoff, Richard Carlson, Gary Merrill, Yvonne De Carlo, Barbara Nichols, Aldo Ray, Celia Lovsky, Lawrence Montaigne, Vaughn Taylor, Ken Murray, Miiko Taka, Forrest J. Ackerman, Miss Beverly Hills
C-108 mins.
Based on Frank M. Robinson's 1956 novel

Opinion is divided on The Power: Some love it, others hate it. I like it, despite its flaws. A terrific cast does well in this George Pal sci-fi/mystery thriller, a hybridization that actually works. And that eerie musical score by Miklos Rozsa is just right. Too bad they resort to stock military footage at one point. Nevertheless, several scenes simply won't fade from memory. One reviewer, however, is less than thrilled:

A panel of brilliant professors studying human endurance for the space program discover one of their colleagues harbors transcendental powers and is out to kill each one of them (causing heart attacks by the force of his mind). A good example of the mid-'60s major studio B-picture: all the money has gone into the 'idea', presented here with sleek visuals and designs ... but with a middle-drawer cast left to sort out the screenplay, which is distinctly without much power. George Pal produced, with amusing shock effects and editing tricks, but the potentially intriguing plot gets muddled up in dead-end scenes and red herrings. Suzanne Pleshette (as the one female on the panel) looks lovely, yet her character keeps popping up without explanation — and her confusing final scene leaves behind nothing but disenchantment. George Hamilton is the film's star, which should tell you how much thought went into the casting. — moonspinner55 on the IMDb

~The Andromeda Strain (1971)
Arthur Hill, David Wayne, James Olson, Kate Reid, Paula Kelly, George Mitchell, Ramon Bieri, Frances Reid, Ken Swofford, Richard Bull, Peter Hobbs, Eric Christmas, Kermit Murdock, Joe Di Reda, Mark Jenkins, Peter Helm, Carl Reindel, Richard O'Brien, James W. Gavin
C-130 mins.
Based closely on Michael Crichton's 1969 novel

There is a science fiction subgenre called "hard SF," in which the science is respected and represented as accurately as possible (or at least as plausibly as can be done with the budget). The Andromeda Strain may be the best example of hard SF on film, with the only SFnal aspect here being the extraterrestrial life form itself. An excellent cast of actors convinces us of the "reality" of what's happening (although one monkey manages to outperform all the humans). And I've never seen a book more closely followed on the big screen:

The best-selling novel by Michael Crichton was faithfully adapted for this taut 1971 thriller, about a team of scientists racing against time to destroy a deadly alien virus that threatens to wipe out life on Earth. As usual with any Crichton-based movie, the emphasis is on an exciting clash between nature and science, beginning when virologists discover the outer-space virus in a tiny town full of corpses. Projecting total contamination, the scientists isolate the deadly strain in a massive, high-tech underground lab facility, which is rigged for nuclear destruction if the virus is not successfully controlled. The movie spends a great deal of time covering the scientific procedures of the high-pressure investigation, and the rising tensions between scientists who have been forced to work in claustrophobic conditions. It's all very fascinating if you're interested in scientific method and technological advances, although the film is obviously dated in many of its details. It's more effective as a thriller in which tension is derived not only from the deadly threat of the virus, but from the escalating fear and anxiety among the small group of people who've been assigned to save the human race. The basic premise is still captivating; it's easy to see how this became the foundation of Crichton's science-thriller empire. — Jeff Shannon

P.S.: If you want to read a more detailed critique of this film, go here; but beware of SPOILERS.

~A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Malcolm McDowell, Warren Clarke, James Marcus, Patrick Magee, Michael Tarn, Adrienne Corri, Sheila Raynor, Philip Stone, David Prowse
C-136 mins.
Based on Anthony Burgess' 1962 novel

"As I was saying, Alex, you can be instrumental in changing the public verdict. Do you understand, Alex? Have I made myself clear?"
"As an unmuddied lake, Fred. As clear as an azure sky of deepest summer. You can rely on me, Fred."
-----
"What we were after now was the old surprise visit. That was a real kick and good for laughs and lashings of the old ultraviolence."
-----
"Initiative comes to thems that wait."

Decidedly not a pleasant satirical film; if you're at all squeamish, avoid it. Still, it gamely tries to score political and social points and does have an intriguing underlying philosophical basis concerning human nature and how it can be conditioned to adapt to society's mores. Definitely not for children.

Stanley Kubrick's striking visual interpretation of Anthony Burgess's famous novel is a masterpiece. Malcolm McDowell delivers a clever, tongue-in-cheek performance as Alex, the leader of a quartet of droogs, a vicious group of young hoodlums who spend their nights stealing cars, fighting rival gangs, breaking into people's homes, and raping women. While other directors would simply exploit the violent elements of such a film without subtext, Kubrick maintains Burgess's dark, satirical social commentary. We watch Alex transform from a free-roaming miscreant into a convict used in a government experiment that attempts to reform criminals through an unorthodox new medical treatment. The catch, of course, is that this therapy may be nothing better than a quick cure-all for a society plagued by rampant crime. A Clockwork Orange works on many levels — visual, social, political, and sexual — and is one of the few films that hold up under repeated viewings. Kubrick not only presents colorfully arresting images, he also stylizes the film by utilizing classical music to underscore the violent scenes, which even today are disturbing in their display of sheer nihilism. Ironically, many fans of the film have missed that point, sadly being entertained by its brutality rather than being repulsed by it. — Bryan Reesman

~THX 1138 (1971)
Robert Duvall, Donald Pleasence, Don Pedro Colley, Maggie McOmie, Ian Wolfe, Sid Haig, Marshall Efron, James Wheaton, Robert Feero, David Ogden Steers (Stiers)
C-86/88 mins.
Original screenplay by George Lucas and Walter Murch
Novelized by Ben Bova in 1971

"If you feel you are not properly sedated, call 348-844 immediately. Failure to do so may result in prosecution for criminal drug evasion."
-----
"Blessings of the state, blessings of the masses."
-----
"Thou art a subject of the divine, created in the image of man, by the masses, for the masses."
-----
"Let us be thankful we have an occupation to fill. Work hard, increase production, prevent accidents and be happy."
-----
"Let us be thankful we have commerce. Buy more. Buy more now. Buy. And be happy."
-----
"You have nowhere to go. I am here to protect you."
-----
"Please come back. We only want to help you."

What is intended as a criticism of the Republican Party (and Richard Nixon in particular) seems ironically more ominous now with Obamacare in the offing, because every point liberal George Lucas scores against a society he regards as oppressive could just as equally be applied to the totalitarian nanny state being imposed on America by the present regime. Granted, THX 1138 is highly derivative (cf. Nineteen Eighty-four and Brave New World) and the pacing is off; nevertheless, it still manages to involve the viewer and doesn't clobber you over the head with its "message."

~Silent Running (1972)
Bruce Dern, Cliff Potts, Ron Rifkin, Jesse Vint, Joseph Campanella, Roy Engel, and Mark Persons, Steven Brown, Cheryl Sparks, Larry Whisenhunt (as robot drones)
C-89 mins.
Original screenplay by Deric Washburn, Michael Cimino, and Steven Bochco

"It calls back a time when there were flowers all over the Earth ... and there were valleys. And there were plains of tall green grass that you could lie down in — you could go to sleep in. And there were blue skies, and there was fresh air ... and there were things growing all over the place, not just in some domed enclosures blasted some millions of miles out in to space."

Only the stunning visuals by Douglas Trumbull make this one worth viewing; the storyline is deeply flawed and out-and-out illogical — how smart is it to put orbiting forests out near Saturn, when the wise thing would be to put them near Venus or even Mercury where sunlight is available in abundance? Another viewer begs to differ:

One of the best science fiction films of the 1970s, Silent Running stars Bruce Dern as Freeman Lowell, a nature-loving crewmember aboard the Valley Forge, a gigantic spaceship in a small fleet that carries the last surviving forests of the Earth, which has fallen victim to overpopulation and ecological neglect. Freeman's name reflects his nonconformist philosophy, which runs counter to the prevailing recklessness of his three ill-fated crewmates, who are eager to jettison their precious payload and return to the bleakness of Earth. Before they can sabotage the forests, Freeman does what he must, and spends the remainder of his mission with three robotic "drones" as his only companions, struggling to maintain his sanity in the vastness of space. Dern is superb in this memorable role, representing the lost soul of humankind as well as the back-to-nature youth movement of the 1960s and the pre-Watergate era. (Appropriately, Joan Baez sings the film's theme song.) A rare science fiction film that combines bold adventure with passionate social conscience, Silent Running will remain relevant as long as the Earth is threatened by the ravages of human carelessness. — Jeff Shannon

~~~~~~~~~~~

—Mike Gray

Posted by Mike Gray at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This week:
* Tuesday and Wednesday—Spend 415 minutes with Alfred Hitchcock;
* Wednesday—Dana Andrews goes fishing and catches Nazis;
* Friday—Greta Garbo doesn't want to be left alone for a change;
* Saturday—Dick Tracy really should update his flight insurance and Peter Cushing gets hounded.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Monday—September 14th

Behold this day thud and blunder with musclemen and artistry with George Pal.

----------

Tuesday—September 15th

8:00 PM—The Trouble with Harry (1955)
A corpse creates a world of trouble for several passersby who each believe they may have caused the death.
Cast: Edmund Gwenn, John Forsythe, Shirley MacLaine.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. C-99 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

10:00 PM—The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
International spies kidnap a doctor's son when he stumbles on their assassination plot.
Cast: James Stewart, Doris Day, Brenda De Banzie.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. C-120 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

----------

Wednesday—September 16th

12:15 AM—Vertigo (1958)
A detective falls for the mysterious woman he's been hired to tail.
Cast: James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. C-130 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

6:00 AM—Number Seventeen (1932)
A detective sets out to recover a necklace lifted by jewel thieves.
Cast: Leon M. Lion, Anne Grey, John Stuart.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. BW-61 mins, TV-PG

8:45 AM—Lady for a Day (1933)
A gangster helps an old apple-vendor pose as a society woman to fool her visiting daughter.
Cast: May Robson, Warren William, Guy Kibbee.
Dir: Frank Capra. BW-96 mins, TV-G

1:45 PM—Les Miserables (1935)
An obsessed policeman relentlessly pursues an escaped convict.
Cast: Fredric March, Charles Laughton, Cedric Hardwicke.
Dir: Richard Boleslawski. BW-109 mins, TV-PG, CC

10:00 PM—Sealed Cargo (1951)
A fisherman tangles with Nazi smugglers off the Canadian coast.
Cast: Dana Andrews, Carla Balenda, Claude Rains.
Dir: Alfred Werker. BW-89 mins, TV-G, CC

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Thursday—September 17th

8:30 AM—Stolen Holiday (1937)
A Paris fashion model marries a fortune hunter to protect him from the law.
Cast: Claude Rains, Kay Francis, Ian Hunter.
Dir: Michael Curtiz. BW-80 mins, TV-G, CC

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Friday—September 18th

6:00 AM—Mata Hari (1931)
Romantic biography of World War I's notorious lady spy.
Cast: Greta Garbo, Ramon Novarro, Lionel Barrymore.
Dir: George Fitzmaurice. BW-89 mins, TV-PG, CC

3:00 PM—Hold Your Man (1933)
A hard-boiled babe and a con man wear down each other's rough edges.
Cast: Jean Harlow, Clark Gable, Stuart Erwin.
Dir: Sam Wood. BW-87 mins, TV-PG, CC

4:30 PM—Dust Be My Destiny (1939)
A young misfit lands on a prison chain gang and falls for the foreman's daughter.
Cast: John Garfield, Priscilla Lane, Alan Hale.
Dir: Lewis Seiler. BW-88 mins

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Saturday—September 19th

9:00 AM—Brother Against Brother (1937)
In the fifth chapter of Dick Tracy, the famed detective must escape a crashing plane.
Cast: Ralph Byrd, Kay Hughes, Smiley Burnette.
Dir: Alan James, Ray Taylor. BW-19 mins, TV-G

9:30 AM—Dangerous Waters (1937)
In the sixth chapter of Dick Tracy, the famed detective must survive a fall of several stories.
Cast: Ralph Byrd, Kay Hughes, Smiley Burnette.
Dir: Alan James, Ray Taylor. BW-16 mins, TV-G

10:00 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

12:00 AM—The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959)
Sherlock Holmes investigates the haunting of an isolated British estate by a murderous canine.
Cast: Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Andre Morell.
Dir: Terence Fisher. C-87 mins, TV-G, CC, Letterbox Format

----------

Sunday—September 20th

10:00 AM—The Trouble with Harry (1955)
A corpse creates a world of trouble for several passersby who each believe they may have caused the death.
Cast: Edmund Gwenn, John Forsythe, Shirley MacLaine.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. C-99 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

~~~~~~~~~~~

—Mike Gray

Posted by Mike Gray at 09:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by Mike Gray at 08:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Rush Limbaugh (or, rather, his voice) will be "appearing" on an episode of Seth MacFarlane's culturally corrosive "cartoon show," Family Guy, sometime next year.

If Family Guy were the harmless entertainment everyone seems to think it to be, I wouldn't be writing about it. The show is anything but, however, recycling every cherished liberal anti-Christian smear it can find an occasion for. The show, while still in production (God knows why), is also in syndication; thus, our totally clueless (or consciously irreverent, or both) local station broadcasts this excremental effluvium during the supper hour, thus potentially and thoughtlessly exposing young children to every unfiltered obscenity conjured up by the so-called "writing staff" under MacFarlane's close supervision. (And, please, don't give me the "That's what the channel selector's for" argument; only the terminally naive don't know how things go in real life.)

So Family Guy is aimed at "adults" (that is, people who have yet to grow up and develop a moral sense). Historically, most cartoons have had grown-ups as their intended audience, and nothing wrong with that, but this show and its appalling twin American Dad have been relentless in attacking Middle America. There must be some big special interest money behind these projects to keep them on the air; I can't explain otherwise how they can persistently assault the shared values of three out of every four Americans and remain in production.

A typical ho-hum, morality-free reaction to Limbaugh and Karl Rove's upcoming "appearance" on Family Guy comes from this weblogger:

[I]t’s actually a pretty good show, a little vulgar at times and they tend to make fun of Christianity quite a bit. But overall a pretty entertaining show; Stewie is great .... Those of you worried about Rush and Rove allowing themselves to be seen in a bad light, don’t worry, they’re smarter than that; plus they’re capitalists, it’s just a job.

"[T]hey tend to make fun of Christianity quite a bit" — indeed, Family Guy is consistently and explicitly anti-Christian at all times. For Limbaugh to lend his support to MacFarlane's project in any way indicates which direction Limbaugh's moral compass is pointing. If Limbaugh sees no wrong in it, you have to wonder just how morally reliable his pronouncements on other topics may be.

"[T]hey're capitalists, it's just a job" — which just goes to show the shortcomings of any system that puts money before morals (i.e., a species of idolatry).

Since he's an inveterate golfer, my guess is Limbaugh will get a new set of clubs with his paycheck. Stewie would probably approve.

(See also this article.)

~~~~~~~~~~~

—Mike Gray

Posted by Mike Gray at 09:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (12) | TrackBacks (0)

This week:
* Monday—a film adaptation of a Sheridan Le Fanu Gothic novel;
* Tuesday—several enjoyable comedy-mysteries from Hollywood's Golden Age;
* Wednesday—nine quite serious (as well as relatively rare) crime thrillers;
* Friday—The Thin Man develops a shadow and Dr. Gillespie transforms into a crime fighter;
* Saturday—Dick Tracy dodges death and Lee Marvin is out to dispense it;
* Sunday—a top secret recipe goes missing and Michael Rennie wishes he'd gone on a low-carb diet.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Monday—September 7th

11:00 AM—Uncle Silas (1947) [a.k.a. The Inheritance]
A young woman's uncle and governess plot to kill her for her inheritance.
Cast: Derek Bond, Frederick Burtwell, O. B. Clarence.
Dir: Charles Frank. BW-103 mins.

8:00 PM—They Made Me a Fugitive (1947) [a.k.a. I Became a Criminal]
After being framed for a policeman's murder, a criminal escapes prison and sets out for revenge.
Cast: Trevor Howard, Sally Gray, Griffith Jones.
Dir: Alberto Cavalcanti. BW-101 mins, TV-PG

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Tuesday—September 8th

6:00 AM—Off the Record (1939)
A lady reporter adopts the young delinquent her crime exposes helped send to jail.
Cast: Pat O'Brien, Joan Blondell, Bobby Jordan.
Dir: James Flood. BW-71 mins, TV-G

7:15 AM—Three Girls about Town (1941)
Sisters working at a hotel try to hide a dead body before the next convention arrives.
Cast: Joan Blondell, Robert Benchley, Binnie Barnes.
Dir: Leigh Jason. BW-73 mins, TV-G

8:45 AM—There's Always a Woman (1938)
While working on a simple case, married private eyes uncover a murder.
Cast: Joan Blondell, Melvyn Douglas, Mary Astor.
Dir: Alexander Hall. BW-81 mins, TV-G

10:15 AM—The Amazing Mr. Williams (1939)
The mayor's secretary competes with her homicide detective fiancé's devotion to his job.
Cast: Melvyn Douglas, Joan Blondell, Clarence Kolb.
Dir: Alexander Hall. BW-85 mins, TV-G

1:15 PM—The Clay Pigeon (1949)
A man awakens from a coma to discover he's accused of treason.
Cast: Bill Williams, Barbara Hale, Richard Quine.
Dir: Richard Fleischer. BW-63 mins, TV-PG

2:30 PM—A Slight Case of Murder (1938)
A gangster finds the straight life ain't so simple.
Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Jane Bryan, Allen Jenkins.
Dir: Lloyd Bacon. BW-85 mins, TV-G, CC

8:00 PM—Five Fingers (1952)
A British valet in Turkey during World War II sells secrets to the Germans.
Cast: James Mason, Danielle Darrieux, Michael Rennie.
Dir: Joseph L. Mankiewicz. BW-108 mins, CC

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Wednesday—September 9th

6:00 AM—They Live by Night (1949)
After an unjust prison sentence, a young innocent gets mixed-up with hardened criminals and a violent escape.
Cast: Farley Granger, Cathy O'Donnell, Howard da Silva.
Dir: Nicholas Ray. BW-96 mins, TV-PG, CC

7:45 AM—Mystery Street (1950)
Criminal pathologists try to crack a case with nothing but the victim's bones to go on.
Cast: Ricardo Montalban, Sally Forrest, Elsa Lanchester.
Dir: John Sturges. BW-93 mins, TV-PG, CC

9:30 AM—Tension (1950)
A man who had planned to murder his wife's lover becomes the prime suspect when somebody beats him to it.
Cast: Richard Basehart, Audrey Totter, Barry Sullivan.
Dir: John Berry. BW-91 mins, TV-PG, CC

11:15 AM—Dial 1119 (1950)
A killer holds the customers at a bar hostage.
Cast: Marshall Thompson, Virginia Field, Sam Levene.
Dir: Gerald Mayer. BW-75 mins, TV-G

12:45 PM—Cause for Alarm! (1951)
A woman fights to intercept a letter in which her husband tries to prove her guilty of murder.
Cast: Loretta Young, Barry Sullivan, Bruce Cowling.
Dir: Tay Garnett. BW-74 mins, TV-PG, CC

2:00 PM—No Questions Asked (1951)
A young lawyer's primrose path to success gets him framed for murder.
Cast: Barry Sullivan, George Murphy, Arlene Dahl.
Dir: Harold F. Kress. BW-81 mins, TV-PG

3:30 PM—The Narrow Margin (1952)
A tough cop meets his match when he has to guard a gangster's moll on a tense train ride.
Cast: Charles McGraw, Marie Windsor, Jacqueline White.
Dir: Richard Fleischer. BW-72 mins, TV-PG, CC

4:45 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

6:30 PM—Nowhere to Go (1958)
A burglar on the run holes up with an innocent English girl.
Cast: George Nader, Maggie Smith, Bernard Lee.
Dir: Seth Holt. BW-87 mins, TV-G, Letterbox Format

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Thursday—September 10th

Spend the day with Lassie, Flipper, and Sabu.

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Friday—September 11th

6:15 AM—Shadow of The Thin Man (1941)
High society sleuths Nick and Nora Charles run into a variety of shady characters while investigating a race-track murder.
Cast: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Donna Reed.
Dir: W. S. Van Dyke II. BW-97 mins, TV-G, CC

8:00 AM—Calling Dr. Gillespie (1942)
A wheelchair-bound doctor fights off a homicidal maniac.
Cast: Lionel Barrymore, Philip Dorn, Donna Reed.
Dir: Harold S. Bucquet. BW-84 mins, TV-G

9:30 AM—Dr. Gillespie's Criminal Case (1943)
A wheelchair-bound doctor tries to prove a convicted killer's innocence.
Cast: Lionel Barrymore, Van Johnson, Donna Reed.
Dir: Willis Goldbeck. BW-89 mins, TV-PG

11:15 AM—Eyes in the Night (1942)
Blind detective Duncan Maclain gets mixed up with enemy agents and murder when he tries to help an old friend with a rebellious stepdaughter.
Cast: Edward Arnold, Donna Reed, Ann Harding.
Dir: Fred Zinnemann. BW-80 mins, TV-G, CC

6:30 PM—Three Hours to Kill (1954)
After escaping a lynch mob, an innocent man returns to find out who framed him for murder.
Cast: Dana Andrews, Donna Reed, Dianne Foster.
Dir: Alfred L. Werker. BW-77 mins, TV-PG, CC

11:15 PM—Man with a Million (1954)
On a bet, a man tries to see how much he can get without breaking a million-pound bank note.
Cast: Gregory Peck, Jane Griffiths, Ronald Squire.
Dir: Ronald Neame. C-89 mins, TV-G

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Saturday—September 12th

4:15 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

7:30 AM—Shield for Murder (1954)
A crooked detective masterminds a robbery, then fights to keep his money.
Cast: Edmond O'Brien, John Agar, Carolyn Jones.
Dir: Edmond O'Brien & Howard Koch. BW-82 mins, TV-PG

9:00 AM—The Fur Pirates (1937)
In the third chapter of Dick Tracy, the famed detective's plane crashes into a railroad bridge.
Cast: Ralph Byrd, Kay Hughes, Smiley Burnette.
Dir: Alan James, Ray Taylor. BW-20 mins, TV-G

9:30 AM—Death Rides the Sky (1937)
In the fourth chapter of Dick Tracy, the famed detective is caught between two ships about to crash.
Cast: Ralph Byrd, Kay Hughes, Smiley Burnette.
Dir: Alan James, Ray Taylor. BW-20 mins, TV-G

10:00 AM—They Drive by Night (1940)
Truck driving brothers are framed for murder by a lady psycho.
Cast: George Raft, Ann Sheridan, Humphrey Bogart.
Dir: Raoul Walsh. BW-95 mins, TV-PG, CC

6:00 PM—Point Blank (1967)
A gangster plots an elaborate revenge on the wife and partner who did him dirty.
Cast: Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, Keenan Wynn.
Dir: John Boorman. C-92 mins, TV-14, Letterbox Format

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Sunday—September 13th

9:00 AM—What's Up, Tiger Lily? (1966)
Woody Allen dubbed in comic dialogue for this outrageous spoof of secret-agent thrillers.
Cast: Voices of Woody Allen, Louise Lasser, Mickey Rose.
Dir: Woody Allen. C-80 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

10:30 AM—High School Confidential (1958)
A young police officer returns to high school undercover to investigate the drug trade.
Cast: Russ Tamblyn, Jan Sterling, Mamie Van Doren.
Dir: Jack Arnold. BW-85 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

4:00 PM—Foul Play (1978)
An innocent woman stumbles onto a plot to murder an important personage.
Cast: Goldie Hawn, Chevy Chase, Dudley Moore.
Dir: Colin Higgins. C-116 mins, TV-MA, Letterbox Format

8:00 PM—Les Miserables (1952)
An obsessive policeman relentlessly hunts a man who escaped prison after stealing bread.
Cast: Michael Rennie, Debra Paget, Robert Newton.
Dir: Lewis Milestone. BW-106 mins, TV-PG, CC

~~~~~~~~~~~

—Mike Gray

Posted by Mike Gray at 11:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by Mike Gray at 09:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Rock musician Kerry Livgren of the popular and celebrated 1970s classic-rock band Kansas suffered a stroke yesterday morning at approximately 4 a.m. and underwent surgery shortly thereafter, according to a friend and musical collaborator of his. Livgren was a cofounder of the group and its major songwriter during the band's most popular years and played guitar and keyboards.

A major driving foce behind Kansas during his tenure with the band, Livgren wrote or cowrote the great majority of the group's most popular songs, including "Carry On, Wayward Son" and "Dust in the Wind," "Porttait (He Knew)," and "Song for America," and was central in developing the songs' complex and creative musical arrangements.

Mutual friends have always had great compliments for Livgren as not just a brilliant musician and composer but also a kind, generous individual.

Livgren left Kansas after its glory years and spent much of his time farming, but he continued to make music and worked with his former bandmates over the years. He wrote all the songs for the group's year 2000 comeback album, Somewhere to Elsewhere.

Livgren's pastor and friends are asking for prayers for healing and encouragement.

Update (Sept. 3, 10:05 a.m.): The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that the surgery "went well" according to nephew Jake Livgren, and that Livgren has been mostly asleep and has yet to talk but does recognize family members.

The paper also stated that a friend of Livgren's "reported Livgren's family is 'encouraged that Kerry does not appear to have any "sagging of the face." The area of the brain which had the clot deals with the language/high-end skills. They are praying there is little damage to the area. A CAT-scan is scheduled for later today.' "

--S. T. Karnick

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 01:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

President Obama is a snob who looks down his nose at those who don't choose an urban lifestyle.

This is not exactly news, but it does matter why Obama hates the suburbs and expresses disdain for those who live there.

I was browsing Ed Driscoll's site Sunday night, and I saw that he posted this enlightening quote from Barack Obama, circa 1990:

"I'm not interested in the suburbs. The suburbs bore me. And I’m not interested in isolating myself."

It's not exactly a newsflash that Obama is a liberal elitist who believes city life is the best life. This is the man, after all, who in the campaign (when he thought no one was recording his words) told his fellow liberal urban elitists in San Francisco tales of the strange God-and-guns clingers in the far reaches of Pennsylvania where NPR comes in scratchy on the wireless ... if at all.

Now, I've lived everywhere — in the sense that I've spent a good amount of time experiencing life in urban, rural, and suburban settings. All areas have their virtues and drawbacks. And I think I could happily make a life anywhere. "Home is where you make it," and all that.

Driscoll, it seems, raised this point for little reason other than to post a classic James Lileks rant from 2000. The great humorist and rant-maker was riffing on the book: "Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream." I highly recommend you go here to read the whole thing on Driscoll's site, but here are a few great nuggets:

This book regards suburbia as the equivalent of a Chemlawn gulag, a vapid archipelago into which Americans have mutely filed like sheep to the abbatoir. The authors hold up Alexandria, Virginia as a model for urban living – everything’s pedestrian-accessible, human-scaled, with mixed-use blocks and definable urban centers. All true. ... I recall a friend’s apartment – the bedroom had room for the bed. That was it. A bed. Two people could not live in that place – well, they could, but only if no one wore nappy fabrics, because you’d get rugburn from rubbing against each other all the time. ...

Here’s the dilemma: if the suburbs are such a horror, and inner-city life a clearly superior option, why do people live in the burbs? ... In the curious mythology of our freedom-encumbered age, the post-war vision of freeways and big back yards has curdled into a dark plot imposed on people, not an option freely chosen. ...

The book frowns on gated communities, of course, because they’re exclusionary. Conversely, they praise urban developments with dense housing — which include, I presume, apartment buildings with doormen and security systems. Driving past a guard booth or getting buzzed up via intercom — what’s the difference? "The unity of society is threatened not by the use of gates, but by the uniformity and exclusivity of the people behind them." Oh, blow it out your ass. Doctors will never live next to janitors. ...

This sort of fatuous moralizing can be found at the heart of most anti-suburban tracts, and it’s why I distrust the general idea. There are millions of Americans living happy lives in affluent comfort, never troubled by the aroma of cabbage wafting in from a neighbor’s window, never knowing the communal experience of being awakened at 4 AM by a siren and knowing that everyone else in the building is up as well, and this fact just galls some people. All that space . . . all that room . . . all those things! It just can’t be right.

Amidst the beautiful rant, Lileks makes some great points. It's not enough for liberal elitist snobs to sing the praises of their paradise — the impossibility of expanding one's living space without moving, convenient parking spaces being harder to find than the Ark of the Covenant, not being able to sensibly own a dog bigger than a flower pot. They have to look down their nose at those who freely choose to live a different life. People who may not feel it is one of life's joys to be harassed by smelly, rude panhandlers on the way to the corner store are somehow inferior. They are "isolating" themselves.

This would simply be an annoyance, akin to the traffic jams suburban dwellers endure, if books like "Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream" were not published as often as a Danielle Steele romance novel. The left wants to impose their version of "enlightened" urban life on the rest of us — and we see it in the endless scolding about how suburban and exurban life is harmful to the environment. We need to give up these decadent ways, and soon. Government, through "planning" our lives, must make it so.

Both sets of my grandparents came to this country from Ireland. They settled in cramped, cheap housing in New York City. And every single one of their progeny grew up to leave New York City for the joys of owning (not renting) a real house, a real yard, and a better life — in the suburbs. To have the taking of that opportunity to improve one's lot in life blithely derided as "isolation" is a little offensive.

I wish I could "isolate" myself from Obama by living in the suburbs. No such luck.

(Cross-posted at Infinite Monkeys, HT: Bartblog for the image)

Posted by Jim Lakely at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)