Another item for our ongoing Everything Happens in the Omniculture department: Shortbus, a film that is highly sexually explicit but allegedly not salacious according to its director, has received a distribution agreement to appear in mainstream theaters in the United States and elsewhere. It is not clear at this point how widely it will be distributed in the United States. Reuters reports: Three months after John Cameron Mitchell showed his sexually explicit film "Shortbus" out of competition at the Cannes film festival, he said it had attracted distributors in dozens of countries, including the United States, Canada, Japan, France and Singapore. "People are ready for change. There is a thirst for something different," Mitchell told reporters on Friday at the Toronto International Film Festival, where "Shortbus" was set for its North American premiere before an October opening in the United States. Mitchell aims to use sex as a metaphor to tell a story about people looking for solace and searching for something more in their lives in a post-September 11 world. "What pissed me off was that it was … generically identified of as porn," Mitchell said of his film. "We are not trying to do anything salacious here. That
ABC Continues Edits on 9/11 Miniseries, Will Air It Despite Dems’ Protests
E! Online reports that ABC is carrying on with its Path to 9/11 miniseries despite complaints by former president Bill Clinton and threats of retaliation from high-ranking Democrat politicians: Don’t believe the hype. Or believe it. Either way, don’t decide either way until you’ve watched all five hours. That’s pretty much the gist of ABC’s message to potential viewers of the network’s two-part miniseries The Path to 9/11, which airs commercial-free Sunday and Monday. (Ironically there will now be a 20-minute break Monday at 9 p.m. to accommodate a speech from President Bush. While ABC has stated that the $40 million production is still in the editing process and is being slightly tweaked in response to concerns that it unfairly attacks the Clinton administration for failure to act on terrorist threats in the years leading up to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the network has not bowed to pressure from former Cabinet members and left-wing groups to "dump," "yank" or otherwise pull the movie from the schedule. ABC has altered at least some of the scenes that have been criticized: According to reports, a scene alluding to the idea that then-National Security Adviser Sandy Berger put the kibosh on an
Perry Mason Season 1, Volume 2 DVD Announced
CBS Home Video has announced that volume two of season one of Perry Mason, the popular 1950s-’60s TV series based on the character created by Erle Stanley Gardner will go on sale on November 21. The five-disc set will include the last twenty episodes of the first season. Volume 1 included the first 19 episodes. That is all the information about the new DVD set available at this time. For information on the Perry Mason Season 1, Volume 1 DVD, click here. For more on Perry Mason and author Gardner, see my Weekly Standard article on "The Case of the Bestselling Author" here. For more information on the Season 1 Volume 1 DVD and an important addition to my Weekly Standard article, see this Karnick on Culture post. Here’s the cover art for the DVD edition:
Action Star Chan to Seek Greater Respect
It’s sad to see wonderfully successful people move away from what they do best, in search of greater approbation than they already have. At the Venice Film Festival yesterday, one of my favorite entertainers, movie action hero Jackie Chan, claimed he was going to work hard for critical respect and to impress audiences instead of merely delighting them. Reuters reports: Tired of his image as all-action hero, Hong Kong film star Jackie Chan said on Friday he wanted to be taken as seriously as Robert DeNiro. In Venice for the premiere of his new film "Rob-B-Hood," the master of the choreographed fight compared how he was greeted by fans gesticulating and shouting wildly, whereas he imagined De Niro commanded something closer to subdued awe. "When they see me, ‘Ah, ah Jackie Chan!"’ the actor told a news conference after the press screening of Rob-B-Hood. "I say, why does nobody say ‘Robert De Niro!’," he added, speaking in English and waving his arms about excitedly. "So I want to change, so that some day they say ‘Wow, Jackie Chan’ and not move again and again. So I want a change," he concluded with a smile, to warm applause from reporters. The
Senate Dems Join Push to Dump ABC 9/11 Miniseries
In a furor echoing conservatives’ continuing claims of left-wing bias among the media, Democrat Sen. Harry Reid (NV) and other senate Democrats have joined former U.S. president BIll Clinton in pressing ABC to cancel its showing of The Road to 9/11, the network’s docudrama based on the 9/11 commission report and other factual sources. Reuters reports: Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada denounced the five-hour television movie, set to air in two parts on Sunday and Monday nights, as "a work of fiction." Reid and other leading Senate Democrats wrote to Robert Iger, president and CEO of ABC’s corporate parent, the Walt Disney Co., urging him to "cancel this factually inaccurate and deeply misguided program." Chronicling events leading to the September 11 attacks, the movie suggests the Clinton administration was too distracted by the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal to deal properly with the gathering threat posed by Islamic militants. The furor comes as Democrats and Republicans jockey for political position in advance of the November 7 congressional elections over who can best secure the United States from another attack. . . . In recent days, former members of the Clinton administration also lodged complaints with Iger, urging ABC and
Quirkiness for Sale
The commercialization of eccentricity continues to reach new levels of absurdity. Charismatically nutty Cincinnati Bengals receiver Chad Johnson is marketing his goofy new hairstyle, AP reports: Chad Johnson, the master of the touchdown dance and the locker room list, is branching out into the field of marketing. Marketing what? Himself, of course. The Pro Bowl receiver changed his hairstyle this season — instead of the shaved head, he’s got a blond-dyed Mohawk — and is helping the Cincinnati Bengals sell his new look at their gift shop. For $30, fans can buy a rubber scalp with a blond Mohawk to slip on the tops of their heads, a sign of unity with the most colorful Bengal. The "Chad Mohawk Head" will be available at the team’s gift shop before the home opener against Cleveland on Sept. 17. "You don’t have to cut a Mohawk anymore," Johnson said, in a late-night infomercial tone. "You can just go buy the hat. You can buy the head. It’s me."
Mozart in the Trenches
In our ongoing Everything Happens in the Omniculture department, British filmmaker Kenneth Branagh has made a movie version of the Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart opera The Magic Flute, set in the trenches of World War I. The picture premiered yesterday at the Teatro La Fenice opera house in Venice. Reuters reports: The $27 million production opens with Tamino as a soldier in the trenches and, instead of the snake that almost kills him in the original libretto he is pursued by a trail of mustard gas. Papageno, the bird catcher, becomes the keeper of canaries used during the war to test for gas and the Queen of the Night’s triumphant first appearance is astride a tank. "I was surprised when I first started listening to it (the opera) of the scale of it, the intensity of it, the drama of it," Branagh told reporters after a press screening of "The Magic Flute" at the Venice Film Festival. "It seemed that in the music there was a kind of plea for peace and it evolved into a sense that perhaps this utterly fascinating and appalling situation of the First World War … was something where the music could meet and the one
Bill Clinton Protests ABC 9/11 Miniseries, Demands Revision or Shutdown
The New York Post reports that former President Bill Clinton has sent ABC president Bob Iger a letter protesting the network’s depiction of his administration’s response to terrorist threats as shown in the upcoming miniseries, The Path to 9/11, to be broadcast by the network this coming Sunday and Monday at 8-10 p.m. EST. The Post reports: A furious Bill Clinton is warning ABC that its mini-series "The Path to 9/11" grossly misrepresents his pursuit of Osama bin Laden – and he is demanding the network "pull the drama" if changes aren’t made. Clinton pointedly refuted several fictionalized scenes that he claims insinuate he was too distracted by the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal to care about bin Laden and that a top adviser pulled the plug on CIA operatives who were just moments away from bagging the terror master, according to a letter to ABC boss Bob Iger obtained by The Post. The former president also disputed the portrayal of then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright as having tipped off Pakistani officials that a strike was coming, giving bin Laden a chance to flee. "The content of this drama is factually and incontrovertibly inaccurate and ABC has the duty to fully
Trial by Media
David Broder points out in his column today, "One Leak and a Flood of Silliness," that the press owe Karl Rove a big apology for their asinine treatment of him in the Valerie Plame leak incident. I agree entirely with Broder’s indictment of the press’s rush to judgment in this case. The media’s overheated and absurd reaction to the Plame case reflects a common but utterly irresponsible and unacceptable phenomenon in journalism today: the assumption that people are guilty simply on the say-so of someone the members of the press want to like, as in the outrageous public execution of the Duke lacrosse team, or because the accused is an individual they are disposed to dislike. Regarding the press’s mistreatment of Rove in the Plame case, I will let David Broder speak for himself in the following excerpts: For much of the past five years, dark suspicions have been voiced about the Bush White House undermining its critics, and Karl Rove has been fingered as the chief culprit in this supposed plot to suppress the opposition. Now at least one count in that indictment has been substantially weakened—the charge that Rove masterminded a conspiracy to discredit Iraq intelligence critic Joseph
Are You Ready for Some Football?
The college football season started last week with a great set of games, and continues this week with a showdown between no. 1 Ohio State University and no. 2 Texas. And the NFL season starts tonight, with a game between the reigning Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers and the up-and-coming Miami Dolphins. The Steelers will be without the services of quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, recovering from an emergency appendectomy. The Dolphins, under second-year coach Nick Saban, are attempting to return to respectability after a long drought. With Daunte Culpepper at quarterback, they should be better, even though the former Minnesota gunslinger is still recovering from knee surgery. Tonight’s game aptly represents one of the great strengths of the NFL as a sports entertainment venture: parity. Parity—the relatively small gap in ability between the league’s best and worst teams—in the past decade has made the NFL in some ways an even more exciting proposition than before. Only one team in the NFC, for example, has reached the playoffs the last two years in a row (the Seattle Seahawks). Hence in week 1 nearly everybody starts out with both optimism and great concern: we can almost imagine that anybody might end up anywhere.
A Magazine for the Modern Lady’s Hectic Schedule
Here’s a publication no one should be without: Four Weeks is a new monthly magazine that includes a variety of articles in four categories customized for the four weeks of a woman’s menstrual cycle. In week 1, the magazine informs us, ladies like things to be "Fun, Familiar," and in subsequent weeks "Exciting, Exotic," "Indulgent, Introspective," and "Cautious, Caring," respectively. This is information that could be very useful to any smart fellow as well, as it is obviously disastrous for a chap to give his lady fair a gift that is of the wrong type for her particular week of the month. We’ve all been forced to puzzle through the mystery of the wrong-week gift, haven’t we? Also of great interest is the magazine’s Hormone Horoscope, which deftly combines two things of utter inscutability into an easily understood guide to life. Thanks, gals!
Anti-Bush Films Hot at Toronto Festival
The British-made film Death of a President, which uses computer generation to create a vivid depiction of the assassination of President Bush, leads a significant roster of films critical of the president and his policies at this year’s Toronto Film Festival, Reuters reports. The 10-day festival opens Thursday, and in addition to the political issues there will be plent of star power with appearances by Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, Penelope Cruz, Russell Crowe and others. Reuters reports that 352 films from 61 countries will be shown. Festival offerings will certainly reflect the visceral hostility many in the entertainment industry feel toward the current U.S. president. Reuters reports: British-made "Death of a President," . . . is one of a number of films with a decided political focus. The documentary-style film raised hackles last week, as several British newspapers ran photos of the fictional assassination it depicts. The controversy elicited a terse "no comment" from the White House. But it is not the only Toronto entry likely to raise eyebrows in Washington, particularly with U.S. midterm elections looming in November. The festival will premiere the documentary "Dixie Chicks: Shut up and Sing," which focuses on the aftermath and fallout of Dixie
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