Walter Who?

I was surfing the web and came across this headline: Former VP Walter Mondale Speaks in Duluth

Man, talk about a slow news day.

Who knew Walter Mondale was still around? Turns out he's as vigorous as ever and speaking in the metropolis of Duluth.

At the speech, Mondale said: "We told the truth we obeyed the law and we kept the peace. Maybe no more than what you'd expect but we can say that of ourselves and I'm proud of that. I hope the next administration will try and do the same."

Not bad. Thumping his chest at being the Vice President of Malaise under Jimmy Carter, and at the same time taking a shot at Bush. I'm sure the American hostages in Iran were delighted that Mondale had such a laid back time in the White House.

Those Were The Days
The irrelevant Mondale has some fans, though. The crackerjack news outlet Northland News covered the speech. A reporter on their website writes, "Weber Music Hall was filled with students and faculty to listen to what this influential political leader had to say."

Hmm. Influential. I'm not so sure about that. I remember Mondale from when I was a kid. I'd tune in to watch Commander Tom out of Buffalo. Mondale was running for President against Reagan. Just when I'd get into the storyline of a sock puppet trying to say the alphabet, they'd cut to commercial and there would be Mondale making a campaign pitch. The sock puppet made more sense. I also learned that his running mate, Geraldine Ferraro, had nothing to do with cool Italian cars. Bummer.

I wonder how many students and faculty "filled" Duluth's Weber Music Hall. Perhaps 13, the same number of electoral votes that the influential Mondale received in 1984 before he disappeared into obscurity.

He rose again, bless him. But in Duluth?

There Will Be Blood - Review

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Writer: Paul Thomas Anderson (from a book
by Upton Sinclair)
Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis/Paul Dano
Runtime: 2 hr 38 minutes

I'm not sure what There Will Be Blood is supposed to be. At 2 hours and 38 minutes, you'd think the point would come across eventually.

Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. Long movies have a tendency to collapse under their own weight, but the critics never seem to mind.

Epics are made for critics. The longer a movie gets, the more chance a critic has to use flowery prose to describe it: sweeping, majestic, inspired, breathtaking. You'll note that these words can also be used to describe panoramic photographs of mountains, which most epics use with abandon.

I'm more in line with Hitchcock: "The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder."

There Will Be Blood is very Paul Thomas Anderson. He wrote it and directed it, which is one of the reasons for its length. Anderson has a hard time editing himself. His movies are usually quite long. In Boogie Nights, Anderson explored the world of pornographic filmmakers. In Magnolia, he explored the world of...something. In There Will Be Blood he explores the world of early oil.

Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) is an early 20th century prospector. He starts out in silver and eventually mines oil. He's good at it. With his 10-year-old son in tow, he buys acres of land from people, mines their oil, cuts them in on the take, then moves on to buy more land. He's charming, efficient, and shrewd.

Early in the film, he comes across a young man named Paul. Paul says that his family has oil on their ranch, and if Plainview gives him a few hundred bucks, he'll tell Plainview where it is. Plainview, fair and charming, agrees.

The rest of the film is a play-by-play of Plainview's dealings with the locals that live near the ranch. They're Christian fundamentalists, led by a faith healer that loves God as much as Plainview loves oil. Plainview wants to buy these people's land to exploit the oil beneath it, and he wants to get richer than he already is.

His relationship with his young son is touching. They're partners in a legal crime, and it's obvious that the boy emulates him. And so it goes, until an accident injures his boy, and Plainview turns into one of the more cynical, monstrous creatures ever put on film.

And I didn't buy it.

Paul Thomas Anderson's writing can be very over-the-top, and when he lets slip the dogs of war, they come out howling. Plainview is no different, and Daniel Day-Lewis can play this role blindfolded. He's excellent.

But is he excellent because he's Daniel Day-Lews, or because he's Plainview? Something that bothered me about There Will Be Blood kept coming up again and again. It was this: I'd met Plainview before, only last time his name was Bill the Butcher, also played by Daniel Day-Lewis, and the film was called Gangs of New York. They are entirely the same character, and I felt like I was watching a time warp: Bill the Butcher, years later, mining for oil and still the meanest sonofabitch alive.

The film is not boring, and is very watchable. I guess it's going for some sort of message. It could be anti-Church, or anti-Oil. Or maybe it's the triumph of Oil over Christ, or the power of greed over faith. Or the similarities between the two. Or not.

Daniel-Day Lewis does a great job with the role, but it seems like the same old, same old. You can see him enjoying the anger of the character, relishing the meanness. Somewhere deep inside Day-Lewis is a very dangerous, dark person. I wouldn't mess with him on the best of occasions. But in this film, you can audibly hear the gears shift from "shrewd, cutthroat, yet loving father," to "insipid, immoral bastard" from minute 100 to minute 101, and there doesn't seem to be any reason behind it, beyond say, letting Daniel Day-Lewis play a very mean Daniel Day-Lewis.

If you've seen as many "important" modern epics as I have, then you'll know that this one has a smash-cut-to-black coming at the end. It is the contemporary filmmaker's way of leaving you hanging and asking you to sit in your seat and say, "Hmm. A lot of unanswered questions. So it must have been good."

To me it is simply cheating. It tells me that no agreeable ending could be found out of the convoluted scenes that came immediately before. Far easier to leave the audience questioning and wondering than to end the story with a satisfying conclusion. No, not "happy," and not "agreeable." I said, "satisfying."

No Country For Old Men is another Best Picture nominee that used the anti-ending ending this year.

I still don't buy it.

Photos: Yahoo Movies

If you haven't seen the film yet, here's a sneak peek:

Yawn and Boredom

I was having a chat the other day about presidential aspirants, and I mentioned Fred Thompson. I asked, "What's Thompson thinking? His campaign sucks."

To which I was told, "He quit last week."

Say what? You know you've run a lousy, sleep-inducing campaign when people don't even know that you've dropped out of the race.

I'm still puzzled by Thompson. Back when he was a Senator, I thought he made some pretty good speeches and sounded like a fairly straight-up guy. I thought his acting ability would get him through a lot of Q&A hurdles. Sure, he sounded kind of hokey, but that was just his shtick.

Nope. It turns out the guy's just some lazy dude from the south that roused himself for a close-up or two on Law and Order and the occasional movie that needed a political type from central casting.

As is my wont, I turned to the political cartoonists to give me a topical take. Here's a few of my favorites:


Rob Rogers


Ed Stein


Nate Beeler

Best Picture - So Far

Anybody else tired of movies being nominated for Oscars when they're not in wide release? Me, too.

For weeks, There Will Be Blood has been heralded as a great flick. It's been nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. The Oscars are less than a month away. So is the general public supposed to kneel at the feet of the Academy and the film critics and thank them for their review, or should the studios let us see the thing and make up our own mind?

In any event, There Will Be Blood has finally shown up at a theatre within fifty miles of me, so I will go and check it out tonight.

For my money, Michael Clayton was the best picture from last year (unlike There Will Be Blood, the studios let us see it in 2007). If you haven't seen Clayton yet, you still can, as it's been re-released because of Oscar hype.

You can catch my review of Michael Clayton here.

Here's a sneak peek of the film:

State of the Union

What union?

At least, that's the thought that comes to mind when listening to the US press. According to them, it's dissension all the time. Business as usual.

Still it has been an enlightening couple of weeks in the American presidential race. I've been silent on it not because I don't care, but because I'm waiting to see how things shake out. Talking about Romney, or Clinton, or Obama, or whoever the hell just seems like a waste of time. You could write fifty pieces about Obama, only to find out that he doesn't get on the ticket. Imagine writing fifty pieces about Tsongas when he was fighting for the ticket against Clinton. Depressing.

Still, it has been fun to watch Bill and Hill find out that they are no longer the cat's ass in the Democratic party. Bill should have gone into a real retirement and just banged NY broads while his wife was busy in Washington. Now he's managed to make her chances for the presidency seem more remote by the day. Bill has to learn to shut his mouth. If she blows this race, she'll be around the house all the time and he won't get a chance to ply his Slick Willy trade.

Obama's all grins, as he should be. The Clintons are old news and now the junior Senator is the man of the hour. I'd be wary if I were him. His is a party of dysfunctional weirdos, and at any moment they could stop taking their meds and stab him in the back.

Obama's joy is interesting. He's been lauded by Senator Ted Kennedy as a great man for "change" and all the rest of the hocus pocus Kennedy tripe. Apparently Obama thinks that a fat cokehead who left a woman to die in a channel is just the kind of guy you need to endorse you as a presidential hopeful.

Kennedy gave a speech and said of Obama, "From the beginning, he opposed the war in Iraq. And let no one deny that truth!" All right, so the guy's a pussy. Big deal.

Kennedy went on to say, "With Barack Obama we will close the book on the old politics of race against race, gender against gender, ethnic group against ethnic group, and straight against gay."

I'm guessing the old fool is kidding, or senile, or just impervious to irony. News for you, Teddy: you're the old politics. You've been a Senator for decades, and you ran for president in the 1970's. So what you're essentially saying is, "I'm a bigot and a sexist. Good thing Obama's here to straighten out all the people that I've royally screwed over."

Naturally Kennedy trotted out the memory of JFK and applied it to Obama. Anytime a Democrat under the age of 60 runs for anything, the Democrats lionize Kennedy.

Ah, yes, JFK the progressive peacenik. He invaded Cuba, considered nuking Russia, put over 16 000 "advisers" into Vietnam, and didn't do a damn thing for civil rights (Hillary, though scorned, is correct: Johnson was the civil rights president). Yes sir, Kennedy was all about progressive change. Now he's being compared to Barack Obama, a man that said "of course" he would have private talks with any dictators that wanted to have a nice chat.

It's going to be a fun few months, watching these political junkies fight for the right to be treated like garbage for the next four years. Then again, some of them might deserve it.

Photos: AP/Yahoo News

The Bucket List - Review

Director: Rob Reiner
Writer: Justin Zackham
Starring: Jack Nicholson/Morgan Freeman
Runtime: 1 hr 37 minutes

Edward Cole (Jack Nicholson) is standing in a courtroom, arguing that the hospitals he owns are doing the right thing. Then he has an attack, and coughs blood into a handkerchief.

Carter Chambers (Morgan Freeman) is standing in his auto shop, taking a smoke break. The phone rings. It's the doctor's office. Chambers' tests are back. Pause. "What does that mean?" Chambers asks, as the cigarette drops from his fingers.

That's how Cole and Chambers end up in the same hospital room for the ghastly experience of surgery, chemo, and suffering.

Following their chemo sessions, they find out that they only have about a year left to live. Total strangers before being struck down by disease, they now find that they're friends who understand each other. That is when Chambers comes up with the idea: the bucket list. A list of things that you want to do before you kick the bucket. Luckily for him, Cole is game, and he happens to be rich.

It's a good idea for a movie. Take two stellar actors in Freeman and Nicholson, throw in a good director (Rob Reiner), and send them off on various adventures. The thing could practically write itself, as there wouldn't be a need for plot. Just send them to Africa, and Asia, and wherever the hell. Let the fun times roll until, as must happen, they die.

Alas, The Bucket List doesn't quite do this. I was into the film until the two men kicked off their adventure. After that, I wondered what I was watching. A comedy? A drama? A dramedy?

The Bucket List can't make up it's mind, and so I couldn't make up mine either. Should I be enjoying this as a thrill ride, or should I be thinking that these guys are going to die, and therefore it's a dark sketch?

Since the movie couldn't pick which direction to go, it doesn't really go anywhere. Freeman's voice-over starts the adventure: "And so it began."

Cut to the two of them skydiving. Cut to the two of them racing nice cars around a track. Cut to...uh-oh. I smell seriousness coming on, as the movie slows down, and down, and down. Frank discussions in front of beautiful sunsets, long talks about the meaning of joy.

The list they came up with turns out to only have about eight things in it, and most of them are generalities: "Kiss the most beautiful girl in the world. See something majestic. Help out a stranger."

Where's the fun in that? If I were a rich guy with one year left to live, I'd be damned specific and I'd make a good time out of it. But, as said, the movie couldn't decide if it should be a fun romp, or a mellow take on two old guys discovering that life is about family and being "happy."

There are no risks and no surprises here. Nicholson has a daughter he hasn't talked to in years, and Freeman isn't sure if he loves his wife the same way he used to. Guess how those threads turn out.

One character that does well is Nicholson's executive assistant, played by newcomer Jonathan Mangum. Considering he was acting across from two screen legends, he does a very good job as the straight man.

The Bucket List doesn't give you much to sink your teeth into, and it more or less sits there on the screen. It's not bad, but it's not good. With the cast and crew it had, you would expect a lot more from it. Just not this time.

Photos: Yahoo Movies

A Couple of Good Ones

Chuck Asay


Randy Bish

Cloverfield - Review

Director: Matt Reeves
Writer: Drew Goddard
Starring: Lizzy Caplan/T.J. Miller
Runtime: 1 hr 24 minutes

Cloverfield begins with a bunch of friends throwing a party for a young guy heading off to work as a Vice President of Something-Or-Other in Japan. It's told from the point of view of a friend's videocamera.

The camera marches its way through the party-goers, asking them to say a fond farewell to their buddy, and allowing us to meet all of the important characters in short order. Then, boom.

Manhattan shakes from the impact of...something. And then something else. And then the Statue of Liberty's head goes rolling down the street, a building collapses, and the characters are saying what the hell is this?

Before seeing Cloverfield, I was asked if I had heard anything about it. I was told that the less you knew, the better the movie would be. I'm not sure it made any difference, but if you're not willing to hear at least a little bit about the film, you should stop reading now.

Cloverfield is a monster movie. The writers' pitch probably went like this: "It's Godzilla crossed with Blair Witch Project." To which the big shot producers said, "A monster movie shot on cheap video and starring nobodies? Won't cost us a nickle. Green light, baby!"

Godzilla crossed with Blair Witch is about as much as you need to know about the film, though I looked at it as The Blair Monster Project, which will soon be followed by Blair Urban Killer Project. That's The Poughkeepsie Tapes, a movie due out next month. It uses the "lost" homemade tapes of a serial killer to tell the whole story. ("Blair Witch in the city, starring nobodies and shot on cheap video? Green light, baby!")

Because Cloverfield is told from the point-of-view of one camera, it has a hard time doing what it is meant to do: be real. The drunk kid that holds the camera during the going-away party is also the film's cinematographer. He doubles as comic relief, because he is a moron. But he can't be that stupid, because his camerawork is incredibly good.

The camera focuses on just the right things at the right times, and the guy's arm never seems to get tired. Not only that, but he must have brought spare batteries with him, because he rolls tape for over an hour, and uses the camera's light when confronted by dark spaces. Whatever camera he's using, I want one.

Maybe this is quibbling on my part, but I'm not so sure. Yes, monster movies are by their very nature unbelievable, but only in regards to the monster. Human beings should still be human beings unless you're going for a whacked-out sci-fi.

Cloverfield bends a lot of rules and even steals a couple. If you know anything about horror films, then you know that being bitten by something means you're a goner. Nevermind having you're arm chewed off. George Romero's zombie rules now apply all over the place: if something creepy bites you, it means you're going to die from a weird infection, or you'll turn into something unpleasant.

The film had me pondering something else, though talking about it bores my friends: I am utterly convinced that for Hollywood, September 11th, 2001, never happened. It was simply removed from the calendar, or was never there in the first place. Blame it on the time zones or whatever you want, but people in LA didn't tune in to CNN on that morning 7 years ago. Al Queda aren't mentioned in more than two or three anti-war films a year, and 9/11 almost never.

To my mind, 9/11 was a pretty seminal event in American history, right up there with Pearl Harbor and the first issue of Playboy. But not to Hollywood.

Let me put it this way: let's say you're at a party in Manhattan. New York is your home town, and you're having a great night. Then there's a loud explosion. Then another. You run to roof, just in time to see a massive fireball roll into the sky, coming from the harbor. You avoid the falling debris by running out into the street. The Statue of Liberty gets decapitated. A skyscraper falls down and a massive gush of ash and dust rolls down the street like a wave, forcing you to run and hide in a drug store. Then all the lights go out. Do you not think that one person out of the dozens around you might mention the last time something like this happened in their hometown. Like, say, 9/11? Al Queda? Terrorist attack, so forth?

In the world of Cloverfield, none of these New Yorkers would have the foggiest clue what you're talking about. They never once make mention of that fairly memorable day in their city's history. It's so conspicuous by its absence that it's obtuse. And yes, this is before the characters know that it's a monster screwing up the skyline.

I remember watching the director's commentary for Bourne Supremacy. In it, the producers said that when filming the movie, they had to cut out an exploding building. 9/11, the producer said, had put the kibosh on buildings falling down in movies. "You will never see another building fall down in a movie.”

Maybe he only meant "never in New York City." If so, never lasted 7 years.

I don't have a problem with showing buildings falling down in films. But when "those tragic events" can't even be mentioned during scenes that could have been taken from NBC's stock footage of 9/11, filmmakers' views and ignorance become obscene.

With that rant out of the way, let me say that Cloverfield is derivative and hokey, but it will entertain you for an hour-and-a-half if you need to kill time.

Photos: Yahoo Movies

Fade to Black - Heath Ledger

Heath Ledger was found dead in a NY apartment this afternoon. He was 28. Reports indicate that he was found by a housekeeper who was trying to inform him that a massage therapist had arrived for an appointment.

Instead, the housekeeper found Ledger in bed, naked and unresponsive. Prescription and non-prescription pills were on a night table beside him.

USmagazine.com filed this report:

"This is terrible and I'm in shock," a close friend of Ledger's tells Usmagazine.com. "But to tell you the truth... we saw it coming."

"Heath has gone though a rough road of trying to get sober," the source tells Us.

"Things were very dark," the source says. "His one joy was Matilda." Matilda is his 2-year-old daughter with ex-wife Michelle Williams. They split in September.

"Everything else was misery for him," adds the source. "Unfortunately he was too late in getting help."

What a horrible thing to die a celebrity. If a nobody swallows pills and ends it all, he gets three lines in some hometown obit. If a celebrity dies, everyone hears how a maid found him drugged out and bare-assed.

It will take a while for the cops to come out and say whether it was a suicide or not. Either way, it's a terrible waste, first for his family, second for film. We tend to forget that these larger than life individuals have families. Right now, there's a French teacher named Mrs. Ledger crying for the loss of her little boy, and a two-year-old Matilda Ledger that doesn't know she will never see her father again.

Ledger was a very good actor. I saw him in his first Hollywood role, the loverboy in 10 Things I Hate About You. The movie was crap, but Ledger was good. He skyrocketed to fame in big pictures like The Patriot and Brokeback Mountain, and his place as a Hollywood superstar was affirmed with a turn as The Joker in this summer's The Dark Knight, which finished shooting last year.

Ledger as The Joker

The Dark Knight just got a whole lot darker, perhaps as dark as the mood of the producers that made the film. They must be wondering about the future of their project. It will be interesting to see how fans react to it. If Ledger did kill himself, then every crazy, eye-rolling, twisted gag of the Joker's will seem very dark indeed. Too dark? We'll see.

I wasn't a fan of Brokeback Mountain. It was a story about two gay shepherds that was much over-hyped and is now nearly forgotten. Ledger did a good job with it, and got an Oscar nomination for his role, but I will remember him more for his part in Monster's Ball. In that film, he showed a vulnerability that may have been more than merely acting.

Photos: Yahoo Movies

NY Redemption Song

If Tom Coughlin's face has thawed out by now, he must be feeling pretty damned good about himself and his NY Giants football club. They went into Lambeau Field and won against a Packers team that isn't supposed to lose in sub-zero temperatures.

That isn't why Coughlin should be smiling. He should be smiling because over the past couple of years, Coughlin has been described as a mean guy, a stubborn coach, a man that can't motivate his players to win the big one. Tiki Barber said Coughlin robbed him of the joy of playing football. Nobody had much praise for the guy.

Like Coughlin cares. Now he's put his team in the Super Bowl, winning ten road games in the process. It's an Arizona date with the New England Patriots, a team that the Giants almost knocked off in their last game of the regular season.

I wanted the Packers to win the game, if only to give Favre another (last?) chance at a Super Bowl. He lost yesterday's game in Favre fashion, ripping a pass into the great wide open, only to have in picked off. Seconds later, NY kicker Lawrence Tynes redeemed himself for blowing two previous kicks, and nailed a 47-yarder to give the Giants the victory.

I'm okay with that. Now I can watch the sycophant sportscasters do a complete 180 and sing Coughlin's praises. They've been telling fans and ownership to call for his head the past few years, and now these same hacks will be busy kissing his butt, without a trace of irony. It will be fun to watch.

Photo: Jonathan Daniel/Getty

Mighty Mouse the Devil Worshipper

"Listen well, dirty madman, WE'LL STAY HERE, hahahahahahhahah, DROP DEAD. I am a dutch moslem, and I shall stay one until my death. I feel pity with your kind, you must live with hatred, really sad. My father and mother have worked hard to help building this country, and I have nothing to do with what others think or say. You are a miserable devil worshipper!!!"

That's an email that Dutch councilor, Bouchra Ismaili, sent to one of her constituents. You can read the rest here. Something tells me if she'd been a born-again Christian, she'd be out of office in 3.5 seconds.

Her rant is probably not the kind of email you'd expect from a politician that wants your vote, but then again, Ismaili doesn't think voters are all that bright in the first place. She goes on to say, "You want to be seen and heard, but you're simply ORDINARY, a grey mouse and a pathetic little person, one of those billions walking around on this globe."

Yup, we're all just ordinary, average, pathetic mice. But if I was a Dutch Muslim politician in bad-ass Holland, then I'd really be somebody.

Get bent, lady.

Talking Heads - Katie's Outtakes

The website mydamnchannel.com releases videos of every category, some of them inflammatory, some of silly, some of them boring. Recently they posted some outtakes of CBS News anchor Katie Couric. Matt Drudge has linked to the piece, calling the clip "Wild Couric Raw."

The clip shows a behind-the-scenes Couric as she covers the New Hampshire primaries. There's scenes of her adjusting make-up, asking her staff where she put her cue cards, wondering why she doesn't look good on a particular monitor, and other assorted outtakes.

If they're meant to show Couric in a bad light, I'm here to tell you that they don't. I'm not a Katie Couric fan, but I've shot hundreds of talking heads in my time, and she's a friendly, affable pussy cat. For the camera guys, the on-camera personality is called "talent." As in, "The talent royally screwed up and blamed it on us again," or, "The talent must be nuts," or "The talent is a major pain in the ass."

Couric isn't. If these outtakes are evidence of Couric at her worst, then she is a dream talent to work with. She's amusing, self-deprecating, and doesn't wear her ego on her sleeve as most talent do. Her foul language isn't of a "screw you, cameraman," variety. It's, "Oh, shit, I almost screwed up."

Here's a look at her clip of outtakes. If someone released them to do a hatchet job on her, then they don't know what a horrible talent really acts like. If they did it to make her look warm and cozy, I'm not buying that, either. She just looks like a pro that would be cool to work with.



That, to a cameraman, is a dream talent. She doesn't demand, she asks. She doesn't curse, she swears. And there's no point in looking for liberal bias in anything she says. Katie might be as liberal as they come, but you'd be giving her far too much credit for sewing it into the news. Anchors read a lot more than they write, and their paramount concerns are not what they're reading, but how they look while they're doing it.

Here's another favorite of mine. This is the RV salesman, Jack Rebney, who looks like he was a laugh to work with. According to Wikipedia.com:

In 1988, Winnebago hired a production crew to shoot a promotional video for their 1989 product line. However, the project was taken over by Rebney, who brought his own cameraman and a production assistant named Tony (often referred to in the video).

Rebney had thought the video would be shot in sequence (and memorized his self-penned script accordingly), but his cameraman thought it made no sense for Rebney to walk in and out of the vehicle repeatedly (as scripted) and that it would be more practical for Rebney to shoot all the outdoor scenes, then go back into the vehicle to shoot those scenes. Because Rebney was not prepared for this sudden change, he repeatedly forgot his lines, leading to profanity-laden outbursts.

Afterwards, the production crew originally hired to shoot the video was sub-contracted by Rebney to edit it; they responded by circulating the outtakes as revenge against Rebney for stealing their gig.

Sure, he swears like a lumberjack, but he isn't taking it out on the cameraman so much as he is taking it out on himself. He invented one of the best sayings I've ever heard: "I don't want anymore bullshit anytime during the day, from anyone...that incudes me."

The cameraman that saved this footage, and the editor that put it together, deserve a medal. Every time I watch this video, tears of laughter flood the keyboard. I'd pay good money to have been on the set. Enjoy, but if you've got a five-year-old in the room, you might want to switch to headphones.

United Kingdom: Organ Grinder

Here's a piece from today's Telegraph:

Gordon Brown has thrown his weight behind a move to allow hospitals to take organs from dead patients without explicit consent. Writing in the Sunday Telegraph the Prime Minister says that such a facility would save thousands of lives and that he hopes such a system can start this year.

The proposals would mean consent for organ donation after death would be automatically presumed, unless individuals had opted out of the national register or family members objected.

But patients' groups said that they were "totally opposed" to Mr Brown's plan, saying that it would take away patients' rights over their own bodies.

There are more than 8,000 patients waiting for an organ donation and more than 1,000 a year die without receiving the organ that could save their lives.

The Government will launch an overhaul of the system next week, which will put pressure on doctors and nurses to identify more "potential organ donors" from dying patients. Hospitals will be rated for the number of deceased patients they "convert" into donors and doctors will be expected to identify potential donors earlier and alert donor co-ordinators as patients approach death.

But Mr Brown, who carries a donor card, has made it clear he backs an even more radical revamp of the system, which would lead to donation by "presumed consent". The approach is modelled on that of Spain, which has the highest proportion of organ donors in the world.

Interesting. Hospitals receiving a gold star from the government if they convert you into an organ donor. So on your next visit to a UK doctor, you might hear the words, "Everything appears to be normal. However, if you do kick the bucket, how about donating your kidneys and liver?"

Gordon Brown is playing tidy game, suggesting that people still have the right to decline being an organ donor. Notice that he wants you to explicitly opt out of the program. If you forgot to sign on the dotted line, then your organs are up for grabs. As for the "family members objecting," that sounds fine in theory. But organs must be harvested immediately after death. What happens if mom or dad don't pick up the phone in time?

Gordon Brown: Grinder Monkey
"Presumed consent" is a pretty abysmal term, but it matches squarely with the socialist/communist philosophy that there is no god beyond the state. The state represents all. The state has the right to take over your body once you are done moving around in it. Your body was never your own: you were merely borrowing it while on the temporal plane, and now your pieces belong to the government.

It makes a certain amount of Orwellian sense. The UK government could argue that the National Health Service has been taking care of you since the day you were born. You never had to pay a dime of your own cash, except in the form of taxation, and therefore it was the government that nurtured you and got you to a ripe old age. Now that you've expired, why should the government not take possession of the body that it cultivated?

Something to ponder the next time you get a free check-up.

Photo: REUTERS/Kirsty Wigglesworth/Pool

Golden Globes - Crap Brown Movies

Tonight's Golden Globes snoozer of a press conference was apt. In one hour, they wrapped up one of the more boring years in cinema. If the writers' strike continues and the Academy Awards suffer the same fate, I will not be disappointed.

The fact that Atonement won the Golden Globe for best picture should say something. It should say that Hollywood has completely lost the plot, pun intended. Atonement was the biggest pile of garbage I have seen in a movie theater since, well, since Gone, Baby, Gone, another of this year's "must see movies."

Haven't seen Atonement? Fine, skip this paragraph. But here's my take on the "best movie of the year" (I didn't write a review on it because I wanted to immediately cleanse it from my mind): a guy gets falsely accused of molesting a teenage girl. He goes to prison, but then goes to war in France. He misses his sweetheart (who presumably dumped him when he got charged with touching a teenager). He wanders around with three buddies in war-torn France for a while, but he doesn't carry a rifle, and doesn't know where he's going. It doesn't matter, because there's no enemy soldiers around, anyway. He's evacuated at Dunkirk. He meets his sweetheart again and boffs her brains out. They shack up in a crummy apartment, and life is pretty good.

Ooops. It was all a dream! The guy actually died during the war, his chickie was killed in the Blitz, and the last two hours of what you've just seen never happened. It's the non-molested girl's book. She's 70, and she felt bad for accusing the guy of being a molester. So sixty years after defaming him, she wrote a cute book about what his life with sweetheart would have been like. That's the "atonement" of the title. She feels bad, she writes a book, she feels better.

Yes, that is what passes for a great movie in Hollywood these days. A Dallas episode.

Michael Clayton was on the crummy list of this year's best pictures, and it should have won hands down. It was a very good movie, far better than the rest of the drek that rolled into theaters near you.

Or did they? There Will Be Blood was also on the list, but it isn't even in wide release yet. Thank goodness the Globes didn't have a real show this year, or else half the TV audience would have been saying, "There Will Be Blood? Huh, I need to see that. Guess it's pretty good."

Ezra Levant in the Star Chamber

Ezra Levant has released some You Tube videos of his time in the Star Chamber. It gives us a chance to see exactly what goes on during these "investigations" conducted by the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

A small room, a can of soda (presumably given free of charge), and a bureaucrat asking his political reasons for exercising free speech. Disgusting. But Levant sticks it to them. In one of his video clips he states, "I do not seek to convince you, because to do so would mean that I grant you some moral authority." Perfect.

Here's a look at what happened when the bureaucrat asked him what his intent was for publishing something in his magazine. Try to remember that this is a tape made in Canada, 2008, and not East Germany, 1979.



I found the woman's opening question very interesting. "I always ask people..." That should frighten you to the bone. She "always" asks "people." So how many people have been placed in that little room to answer for their views on politics, religion, free speech, so forth?

This next video clip is a beauty. After dragging Levant down to answer for the audacity of printing cartoons in a magazine, the woman closes the meeting with, "You're entitled to your opinions." Say what?



It's very doubtful you'll see these clips on the CBC. The Canadian media would never allow this to go to air in full. I just searched CBC news' website. Nothing there. I punched in Ezra Levant's name. The last news piece they ran on him was in June, 2007. So no, don't depend on the biggest Canadian news outlet to report on this inside scoop.

Catch the rest of the videos here. Levant will be uploading more later in the week.

The Slow Death of Freedom in Canada

Well, it looks like I screwed up the other day by saying that Mark Steyn was going to be tossed in front of "the three - yes, three - human rights commissions in Canada." What I should have said was, "Three of Canada's innumerable human rights commissions."

I'm a Canadian citizen, and I don't even know how many human rights commissions there are in the country. Steyn and Maclean's are apparently being star chambered by BC, Ontario, and the Feds. Now it's Ezra Levant's turn.

Ezra Levant
Levant is the former publisher of the out-of-print Western Standard. In February, 2006, the Standard re-printed the Danish Mohammed cartoons that sent Muslims into a tizzy. The Standard was attempting to show that free speech trumped everything else. For papers and magazines around the world to not re-print the newsmaking images would only show that violence and death threats could control the media.

Unfortunately, Levant was wrong. Not for re-printing the images, but in thinking that freedom of speech mattered a whit in Canada. Because two days ago, Levant found himself in front of the Alberta Human Rights Commission. The Calgary Herald (which didn't re-print the cartoons even though they're the crux of the complain against Levant; must have been an oversight) reports that Syed Soharwardy, the President of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, filed the complaint.

Alberta has a human rights commission? News to me. I didn't even know Ontario had one until Steyn got himself in trouble with the Canadian Islamic Congress. And lucky for him that he did. The Congress sounds like a bunch of nice guys compared to the "Supreme Council."

The Herald reports, "Levant, the magazine's former publisher, will be on the hot seat [Thursday] in Calgary during a commission investigation - a process he calls an "interrogation" - in which he'll be questioned extensively about the publication of the cartoons."

What Levant did is not a crime. Yet. But he still must hire a lawyer and go before these Orwellian magistrates and defend himself. You might be interested to know that Soharwardy does not have to appear during Levant's "questioning," and so Levant is not entitled to face his accuser.

Now, if you've read this far, think about what I've just told you. A magazine publisher is being accused of printing cartoons. He has to take a day away from his family. He has to shell out for a lawyer. He must appear before a commission that will question him "extensively" about the cartoons' publication. And that sound you hear from the Globe and Mail, the CBC, CTV, and the Toronto Star is...crickets.

The journalists in Canada are a joke. They're the first ones to scream about the (now shown to be fictitious) freedom of the press, yet when one of their own is tossed before a Kangaroo Court, you hear nary a whisper.

I'd love to see the Q&A between Levant and the Alberta Human Rights Commission:

HRC: Why did you print the cartoons?

Levant: Because every news outlet in the world was reporting riots. We thought readers should see what caused it all, and no one else in Canada was printing them.

HRC: But if no one else was printing them, why did you think you could?

Levant: Because they're cartoons.

HRC: No, they're offensive.

Levant: But they're cartoons.

HRC: No, Daffy Duck is a cartoon. You could have printed the Daffy Duck ones.

Levant: But Daffy didn't start any riots.

HRC: Exactly.

Levant: What?

Canada is playing a very dangerous game with this human rights business. We have now exposed ourselves for what we are: a de facto totalitarian state.

When a writer (Steyn) can be brought before a commission for what he writes, and when a publisher (Levant) can be brought before another commission for printing cartoons, you realize that the American framers were on to something: to have freedom of speech and freedom of the press, you need to write it down in plain, simple language. Canada's convoluted "constitution" is worth about as much as toilet paper when it comes to the freedoms that most Canadians think they have.

Here's what Jefferson and the boys put their names to:

Amendment I: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Freedom of speech. Comma. Freedom of the press. And that's that. No need for long preamble or clarification. Print the thing, and let debate and discourse sort it out.

Notice that the framers put this amendment as numero uno. In Canada, these freedoms come dead last.

Levant Photo: National Post

Mark Steyn - Not Alone for Long

I thought this whole deal between Mark Steyn and the Canadian Human Rights Commission would eventually just go away. Like a fool, I thought the Canadian Islamic Congress would rattle some sabers, get their names in the papers, and that would be that.

The short story of this sordid affair is that Maclean's ran an excerpt of Steyn's book, America Alone. In it, Steyn says that the demographics of the world are swinging the jihadists' way. He goes on to quote a European imam, who says that Muslims are breeding like "mosquitos."

So who gets nailed for hate speech? No, not the man who made the mosquito remark, but Mark Steyn. Quotation marks are apparently no defense, and students should bear this in mind the next time they do a history essay on Hitler.

The CIC apparently told Maclean's that they wanted to run a rebuttal of Steyn's piece. However, they wanted to control the art that went with it and they told Maclean's that it had to be a cover story.

As any neophyte writer knows, you're not going to get very far telling an editor that your piece must appear on their cover. Even submitting an essay with a title on it shows you to be an amateur. It's editors that make the headlines. So telling an editor, "You will run my piece, you will not edit it, it will be on the cover, and we will give you the art," is a quick way to be told to go screw yourself.

Which is the way it should be. You want to be a writer and play the game? Then get on the field and play it. But don't try to strongarm any publication with accusations of racism and "human rights" violations.

Yes, that's right. Maclean's is included in the -- insult? indictment? charge? -- and they are going to be trussed up and tossed before the three - yes, three - human rights commissions in Canada (BC, Ontario, and the big dog Canadian Human Rights Commission, which is apparently around in case the provincial ones fumble).

But what about freedom of speech? Phah! Here's Terry Downey, a former "human rights" investigator:

"We need to make sure that folks are treated with dignity and respect, regardless of who it is , whether it's Maclean's or anybody...People have a right to freedom of expression but that has some restrictions on it. You just can't offend people based on their religion or color or things like that." -- Reuters.

The most terrifying part of that statement is "...things like that."

Well, what things exactly?

If you're a Canadian and you don't think this impacts your life, you're wrong. The next time you write anything - a blog, a letter, an email - you could be committing a human rights violation. Get in line behind Steyn and find out just how far your freedoms take you before the thought police give you a lesson in Canadian liberties.

Bama-Bama-Bama-Bama-Bama Chameleon

He comes and goes, from state to state, but Barack Obama still hasn't told us what change he is going to change when he changes from a junior Senator into a President.

No matter. It's doubtful the media will ask him about his change revolution. Maybe he's talking about boxer shorts or socks. Maybe he's going to change his hairdo. Maybe he needs change for a twenty.

Spare Some Change?
If you thought the news guys are hot to crack the case of change, you'd be wrong. Here's NBC anchor Brian Williams on reporters covering Obama. You may remember Williams as the guy from a couple of months back who said that Mother Earth is the person of the year because she is an abused woman.

"Journo Love for Obama
NBC's Brian Williams took to MSNBC today at noon and had this to say:

WILLIAMS: I interviewed Lee Cowan, our reporter who covers Obama, while we were out yesterday and posted the interview on the web. Lee says it's hard to stay objective covering this guy. Courageous for Lee to say, to be honest. The e-mail flood started out we caught you guys, we never did trust you. That kind of thing. I think it is a very interesting dynamic. I saw middle-aged women just throw their arms around Barack Obama, kiss him hard on the cheek and say, you know, I'm with you, good luck. And i think he feels it, too." --Mediabistro.com

Courageous? Not quite. A professional news anchor should not find bias "an interesting dynamic."

Here's what I had to say about change a while back.

Clemens - Round 2

Round 1 came on 60 Minutes, where Clemens looked uncomfortable and shifty. Round 2 came at yesterday's news conference.

I don't know what Roger Clemens was trying to prove with the news conference, but I don't think it came out his way. Even the sports pundits are having a hard time getting behind him. The Globe and Mail's Stephen Brunt tries to kiss a player's ass no matter what, but on this one even he is stammering.

During the news conference, Clemens released a taped phone call that he had with former trainer Brian McNamee. It was meant to help exonerate Clemens from allegations of steroid use, but all it did was raise more questions. For his part, McNamee didn't know that the conversation was being taped, though he did mention during the call that he was on a cell phone and playing things close to the vest.

The phone call does nothing to persuade me that Clemens didn't get injected with steroids, as McNamee contends. During the almost twenty minute phone call, McNamee repeats over and over, "What do you want me to do?" Close to the end of the call, McNamee sounds close to tears. He tells Clemens that he tried to keep the Rocket's name out of things as long as he could. He goes on to say that he's lost his wife and kids, and that the cameras are all over him. And, again, he asks: "What do you want me to do?"

To which Clemens responds with a very long pause, and then says that he just needs someone to tell the truth.

The tape does not leave one feeling that Clemens is on the level. If someone defamed me and asked me repeatedly, "What do you want me to do?" I would reply, "Tell them you didn't shoot me up with 'roids. In fact, tell me right now: did you ever shoot me up with 'roids?"

After all, Clemens knew the call was being taped. He had every chance to trap McNamee into a confession, but he didn't do it. Instead, he keeps rambling about how upset his family is, and how he wants "truth." But what truth?

My hypothesis is this: McNamee is a man who adores Clemens, and the lifestyle that Clemens provided him. The money. The elbow-rubbing with All Stars. The chance to get on TV. But now it's all down the drain, and as McNamee said in the phone call, "I just didn't want to go to jail." So he gave up Clemens' name to prosecutors. And now he's truly sorry about it. But not sorry enough to say that he lied, because chances are, he didn't. He's simply sorry that he had to rat out a friend.

I'm not sure what Clemens' game is with the 'go on the offensive' routine. The media isn't buying any of his explanations thus far. The taped phone call was too vague, and in some way, shows Clemens to be an underhanded sneak. The phone call was taped without McNamee's knowledge, and aired on live TV 48 hours later. That would be fine, if the phone call provided evidence that McNamee lied.

It didn't, and so nothing is solved. The next round comes before Congress, where Clemens is due to testify next week. I hope he does a better job there than he has on the news programs, or the Hall of Fame and his legacy are down the drain.

Photo: 1010wins.com

Enough Cheer -- Gimme the Bad News

Here's an interesting way of looking at the Christmas season, compliments of the media:

Divorce Diary: How Christmas Made Three Women Realise They HAD to Leave Their Husbands

Simmering tensions, a fling at the office party and families thrown together for weeks on end ...no wonder yesterday has become the busiest - and most lucrative - day of the year for divorce lawyers.

Now that's a quick way to kill the post-Christmas hangover.

More of the story here.

The Border

I got a kick out of CBC's The Border tonight. I hemmed and hawed about tuning in, because I knew what I would see. But I did it anyway, just for a laugh.

For those not living in Canada, the CBC is the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It is given federal tax dollars to stay afloat, but that doesn't mean that it is a reflection of Canada as a whole. For those not interested in bad TV shows, anti-Americanism, crummy comedy specials, poor television journalism, and environmental propaganda compliments of David Suzuki, then you're out of luck. But if any of those criteria sound like your idea of a good time, then channel 6 is right up your alley.

The CBC is the mouthpiece for the Canadian Left, and The Border is its next installment. I flicked back and forth to it between commercials during the LSU/Ohio State game. I knew what I would find there, and the CBC obliged me.

The Border is a show about a special Canadian spy service. They're trying to locate terrorists, but alas, there aren't any. During tonight's show, every Muslim male accused of being a terrorist turned out to be Mr. Nice Guy. One of the Mr. Nice Guys was tortured for months in a Middle Eastern prison, to which one of the Canadian characters says, "I smell the Americans in this."

In another scene, when an angry Canadian official asks one of the Canadian super spies, "Are you trying to bring down your country?" the super spy responds, "No, just CSIS." That's the Canadian spy agency, which the super spy thinks is inept and racist.

Inept, I agree with. There's ample evidence of that. Racist? I'm not so sure. Besides, which race is he referring to? I didn't know that you had to be any particular race to follow Christianity, Judaism, Islam, so forth.

The show mentions the word "torture" upwards of a dozen times, and only in the context of Western spies torturing Muslim people, sometimes at home, sometimes overseas. Indeed, if an alien were to come down from Mars and watch the program, he could be forgiven for thinking that Canada and the US are made up of racist, violent hatemongers, while everyone in a hijab ("The hijab makes some women feel protected," a whitebread super spy broad says) or of the Muslim faith is an innocent victim of Canadian aggression.

Which is, of course, hogwash. Let's get the "of courses" out of the way as I say, "Of course, not all Muslims are bad people," but let's be frank: many Muslim people around the world are blowing things up these days. For the CBC to produce a program that ignores this fact is simply silly.

Still, it's nothing new for the CBC. Their version of Canada's number one enemy has been, and always will be, the United States. Nevermind that several Muslim men were caught plotting to behead the Canadian Prime Minister a little over a year ago. The CBC gets around that small problem by keeping their focus on "the border," i.e. the United States. After all, why bother bringing up the men that were plotting to kill the Prime Minister? They were born and raised in Canada, so the only border they had to worry about was the Ottawa city limits.

I Am Legend - Review

Starring: Will Smith
Written by: Akiva Goldsman, based on
too many writers' work to mention
Directed by: Francis Lawrence
Runtime: 1 hr 40 minutes

I Am Legend is a retread of The Omega Man (Charlton Heston), which was a retread of The Last Man on Earth (Vincent Price), which was itself based on a book by Richard Matheson called I Am Legend. Talk about coming full circle.

I have grown too weary to complain about Hollywood remaking old classics. It has become such a common thing to remake movies that there is no point wondering if Hollywood has run out of ideas. It has. These days, a movie doesn't even have to be that old for Hollywood to remake it (The Fog, Halloweeen, Dawn of the Dead, so forth). Essentially, if you are over the age of thirty, your movie-going experience is only going to get worse and worse, as all of the flicks you saw as a teenager will be remade in the next ten years. And they will probably suck.

I Am Legend does not. It's a fun film that moves along at a very good clip. There are inconsistencies in the story, but the film doesn't slow down long enough to let you dwell on them. Yet it's old: we know what's going to happen. So even if I were to rate this movie a 10 (which I wouldn't), I would have to instantly knock it down to a 7 because I already know what's around the bend. In effect, I'm not an audience member, but a copy editor.

The story is an old one, and smacks of The Twilight Zone. Humanity thinks it has developed a cure for cancer. Instead of being a cure, the drug wipes out the Earth's population by turning them into nocturnal zombies.

Robert Neville (Will Smith) is the last normal man on Earth. He lives out his days by trying to keep occupied: hunting wild deer in Times Square, driving golf balls off the deck of a deserted ship, jogging with his dog on a treadmill. He keeps a close eye on his watch, lest he stays out after dark and is killed by the zombies.

If you've seen The Omega Man, starring Charlton Heston, then I Am Legend won't surprise you. It follows the Heston story very closely. Will Smith's character in the revamped version is much more the scientist, attempting to find a cure for the zombie disease. Beyond that, their characters are the same.

Which isn't a bad thing. I don't know why, but I don't get tired of lonely stories. They're the ultimate story for asking the question, "What would I do?"

You've got New York City to yourself. Every car is yours to steal, every window yours to smash. But how many fast car rides and broken windows does it take before you slowly start to lose your mind?

I've pointed out before that lonely movies need to give their characters something to talk to. In Cast Away, it was a volleyball. In 1408, it was a tape recorder. In I Am Legend, it is a dog. The dog as character is not very important, because we know he is placed there as a device. Again, for whatever reason, a character appears more sane for talking to a brick than for talking to himself, and it is a handy way of telling us what the character is thinking and feeling.

I have no problem with that, as long as the character does it convincingly, which Will Smith does. He is a very good actor, if somewhat prone to overacting the scenes in which he feels emotional pain. As an action star he probably can't be topped, and as a drama star he is quite good. The scenes where he cries make me wince every time.

But what about the movie? I can't really tell you. It's a lonely movie, so anything I say will be a spoiler. I can say that the special effects involving the zombies are fair, but the special effects involving a loose lioness and her cub are terrible. I read recently that CGI was considered cheating by the Academy when Tron hit the scene. It wasn't until later that computers were an accepted special effects device.

I wish they would go back to that philosophy of CGI-as-cheating. Filmmakers have begun relying on CGI so much that even cheap computer generated junk is making it into big budget pictures. It's as if the producers are saying, "Well, everyone knows it's computer generated anyway, so why bother spending more money to cover it up?" To which I respond, "Couldn't you hire a lion tamer for a couple of days?" The effects in The Mist were a laugh, and the lions in I Am Legend are (and this is critical) distractingly fake.

I Am Legend is a good escapist movie, and it's clear that's what the producers intended. As usual, the film "could have been more," but because they didn't reach for more, I won't knock them for not getting there.

Fie, Foh, and Fom! I Smell the .96 Blood of a British Man

I found this photo on The Sun's website, one of England's tabloids. Apparently this girl got tanked in Newcastle's Bigg Market, and needed a helping hand. The Sun's editors weren't ones to waste irony.

According to the rags, New Year's in England was yet another night of drunken debauchery, as binge drinkers threw up into rivers, passed out on street corners, and wore next to nothing in the early chill of 2008.

To which I say, where's the problem? England's always been like that. Any country that closes its pubs at 11pm is asking for trouble, as people try to get blotto before the call of "Time, please." Turning around and asking those same louts to take it easy on New Year's Eve is like asking a Bengal tiger to take it easy on the veal.