The new album will apparently drop during the film festival. Yeah, that won't distract me writing reviews at all...
Mitt Romney, Socialist
So Think Progress (and Wonkette, and Balloon Juice...) saw a clip of a Romney speech in which he says Americans should "get as much education as they can afford" and worked themselves into a tizzy over it, tossing out all the usual out of touch, Millionaire Mittens jokes.
What they missed was the rest of the clip, which heralded a sudden, drastic shift to the left by Romney which is assuredly going to allow him to win all the independents and Reagan Democrats and maybe even real Democrats and thump the Kenyan usurper right good and send him packing:
They "ought" to be able to provide for their families? Everybody knows wages for non-job creators have been stagnant for decades (see chart below from the EPI) and that it doesn't really matter how hard you work or how right your values are, you probably can't provide for your family these days on a single person's salary, and maybe not even with two people's salaries.
Romney is pointing to nothing less than a massive re-distribution of wealth from the top to the bottom with his talk of "ought" and "dreams". That's boilerplate class warfare rhetoric, folks.
I mean, it's just a small step from saying "if you work hard and have the right values you ought to be able to provide for your family" to "hey, why can't you provide for your family even though you work hard and have the right values?" And that way lies revolution and pitchforks and Stalinism.
So you go, Mitt! Keep talking that commie talk, and the working-class electorate will be putty in your soft, manicured hands.
What they missed was the rest of the clip, which heralded a sudden, drastic shift to the left by Romney which is assuredly going to allow him to win all the independents and Reagan Democrats and maybe even real Democrats and thump the Kenyan usurper right good and send him packing:
I think this is a land of opportunity for every single person, every single citizen of this great nation. And I want to make sure that we keep America a place of opportunity, where everyone has a fair shot. They get as much education as they can afford and with their time they’re able to get and if they have a willingness to work hard and the right values, they ought to be able to provide for their family and have a shot of realizing their dreams.
They "ought" to be able to provide for their families? Everybody knows wages for non-job creators have been stagnant for decades (see chart below from the EPI) and that it doesn't really matter how hard you work or how right your values are, you probably can't provide for your family these days on a single person's salary, and maybe not even with two people's salaries.
Romney is pointing to nothing less than a massive re-distribution of wealth from the top to the bottom with his talk of "ought" and "dreams". That's boilerplate class warfare rhetoric, folks.
I mean, it's just a small step from saying "if you work hard and have the right values you ought to be able to provide for your family" to "hey, why can't you provide for your family even though you work hard and have the right values?" And that way lies revolution and pitchforks and Stalinism.
So you go, Mitt! Keep talking that commie talk, and the working-class electorate will be putty in your soft, manicured hands.
Review: Beasts of the Southern Wild
Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012, directed by Benh Zeitlin)
A little girl, Hushpuppy, and her father Wink try to make their way in an environment both fertile and inhospitable. Rules are few: home, family and community have to be defended. Never forget there's something out there that sees you as meat. And above all, no crying. Be strong. Be the man, no matter how big a storm is brewing on the horizon.
Beasts of the Southern Wild could only be a debut film. Much like Hushpuppy and Wink, Zeitlin himself seemed to have had few rules when constructing the world around them. The sense of invention and discovery, the rawness of the film, echo similarly energetic debuts centered on children like Laughton's Night of the Hunter and David Gordon Green's George Washington, but Beasts is very much its own beastie. Boundaries aren't so much blurred as ignored. You could call Beasts a fantasy, I suppose, but that description doesn't really do it justice. 'Fantasy film' implies a distinction between fantasy and reality, a threshold that needs to be crossed to bring a character into the magical realm or a seal that needs to be broken to let the magic spill out into our otherwise mundane existence. Instead in Beasts, 'fantasy' and 'reality' co-exist side by side, if not exactly peacefully, and both are equally natural to Hushpuppy. She makes no distinction between them. Her world is simply a big ball of glorious chaos where just about anything can happen - whether it's the glaciers melting and freeing giant Ice Age boars from their slumber, or a dynamite-filled alligator carcass blowing up a levee. Similarly, the film itself doesn't so much blur the distinction between genres as ignore the very concept of 'genre' entirely. You could just as easily call it a disaster film as a fantasy, a road comedy or a coming-of-age drama, but Beasts is too drunk on its own freedom to let itself get tucked away in a convenient box like that. It simply is itself, and you can accept it on its own terms and get swept up in its current or get out of the way.
Really, if Beasts put me in mind of anything, it's Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are. There's the same lack of wide-eyed wonder from the kids at the heart of the film no matter what gets thrown at them, and the same externalization of emotional turmoil, but where WTWTA's Max is dealing with the aftermath of a divorce that looms over him like a thundercloud Beasts is fueled by what Hurricane Katrina left in its wake, physically, geographically and spiritually. Katrina is almost an unnamed main character in Beasts, so thoroughly does its memory infuse the movie. Hushpuppy's world is a fragile one, pieced together from things washed up on her shore and left behind by the wind, and it sometimes seems like the only thing holding it together is her desire for any kind of stability. Even her friends and family are flotsam.
What Beasts wasn't for me, and seems like it should have been, is emotionally engaging. Here I am throwing around comparisons to a classic like Night of the Hunter or to Where the Wild Things Are (which almost felt autobiographical the first time I saw it), movies which I consider part of my own personal canon, and yet when Beasts was done I just thought it was... good. Cool and trippy, but nothing more. The look and feel of it, the subject matter, make me think Beasts should have hit home for me a lot harder than it did, and I can't quite put my finger on where the distance is coming from. Beasts looks great, it's certainly unique, and it's easy to see why it's been such a critical and festival darling... but it didn't have me leaving the theater thinking I'd seen the next great film about childhood.
What the movie done well though, it does very well indeed. Despite its ramshackle aesthetic it never comes across as artificial or forced, and Zeitlin has certainly marked himself as a director to watch out for down the line. Beasts is, like Hushpuppy herself, fierce and immature, proud of who it is and where it came from. And I'll take a jury-rigged raft like this over a summer sea full of Battleships any day of the week and twice on Sundays.
A little girl, Hushpuppy, and her father Wink try to make their way in an environment both fertile and inhospitable. Rules are few: home, family and community have to be defended. Never forget there's something out there that sees you as meat. And above all, no crying. Be strong. Be the man, no matter how big a storm is brewing on the horizon.
Beasts of the Southern Wild could only be a debut film. Much like Hushpuppy and Wink, Zeitlin himself seemed to have had few rules when constructing the world around them. The sense of invention and discovery, the rawness of the film, echo similarly energetic debuts centered on children like Laughton's Night of the Hunter and David Gordon Green's George Washington, but Beasts is very much its own beastie. Boundaries aren't so much blurred as ignored. You could call Beasts a fantasy, I suppose, but that description doesn't really do it justice. 'Fantasy film' implies a distinction between fantasy and reality, a threshold that needs to be crossed to bring a character into the magical realm or a seal that needs to be broken to let the magic spill out into our otherwise mundane existence. Instead in Beasts, 'fantasy' and 'reality' co-exist side by side, if not exactly peacefully, and both are equally natural to Hushpuppy. She makes no distinction between them. Her world is simply a big ball of glorious chaos where just about anything can happen - whether it's the glaciers melting and freeing giant Ice Age boars from their slumber, or a dynamite-filled alligator carcass blowing up a levee. Similarly, the film itself doesn't so much blur the distinction between genres as ignore the very concept of 'genre' entirely. You could just as easily call it a disaster film as a fantasy, a road comedy or a coming-of-age drama, but Beasts is too drunk on its own freedom to let itself get tucked away in a convenient box like that. It simply is itself, and you can accept it on its own terms and get swept up in its current or get out of the way.
Really, if Beasts put me in mind of anything, it's Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are. There's the same lack of wide-eyed wonder from the kids at the heart of the film no matter what gets thrown at them, and the same externalization of emotional turmoil, but where WTWTA's Max is dealing with the aftermath of a divorce that looms over him like a thundercloud Beasts is fueled by what Hurricane Katrina left in its wake, physically, geographically and spiritually. Katrina is almost an unnamed main character in Beasts, so thoroughly does its memory infuse the movie. Hushpuppy's world is a fragile one, pieced together from things washed up on her shore and left behind by the wind, and it sometimes seems like the only thing holding it together is her desire for any kind of stability. Even her friends and family are flotsam.
What Beasts wasn't for me, and seems like it should have been, is emotionally engaging. Here I am throwing around comparisons to a classic like Night of the Hunter or to Where the Wild Things Are (which almost felt autobiographical the first time I saw it), movies which I consider part of my own personal canon, and yet when Beasts was done I just thought it was... good. Cool and trippy, but nothing more. The look and feel of it, the subject matter, make me think Beasts should have hit home for me a lot harder than it did, and I can't quite put my finger on where the distance is coming from. Beasts looks great, it's certainly unique, and it's easy to see why it's been such a critical and festival darling... but it didn't have me leaving the theater thinking I'd seen the next great film about childhood.
What the movie done well though, it does very well indeed. Despite its ramshackle aesthetic it never comes across as artificial or forced, and Zeitlin has certainly marked himself as a director to watch out for down the line. Beasts is, like Hushpuppy herself, fierce and immature, proud of who it is and where it came from. And I'll take a jury-rigged raft like this over a summer sea full of Battleships any day of the week and twice on Sundays.
Easily Debunked Romney Talking Points, Part 1
I'm finding the artlessness and incompetence of the Romney campaign really amusing. Take, for instance, the core talking point in this segment (in which Anderson Cooper can't help but point out a couple of other blatant lies being told by Romney's surrogate):
Gitcho's main point is that Romney's job creation record is better than Obama's, because the unemployment rate under Obama is still above 8% while Romney got the unemployment rate in Massachusetts under 5%. And, as she says, "We're happy to compare those records!"
So let's compare them:
Hmm. Obama improved his rate by about 1.1% (with the final 2012 number not yet in) while Romney improved his by 0.7%. I guess we could call that a wash (it should be easier to drop a bigger number, all else being equal)... except that there's one more bit of context:
In short, the MA unemployment rate under Romney failed to keep pace with the national average, improving only 0.7% when the whole country improved by 0.9%
Are you sure you're happy to compare these records, Ms. Gitcho?
The amazing thing to me is that Obama's job creation record is actually hard to defend in a typical pundit-sized sound bite. The defense becomes a debate over the stimulus and whether it was successful, and who's to blame for it being less effective than it could have been. But by making a comparison to Romney's own weak MA numbers, instead of attacking Obama's numbers in isolation, the Romney campaign shoots itself in the foot. The talking point all but rebuts itself.
Morons. Absolute morons.
Gitcho's main point is that Romney's job creation record is better than Obama's, because the unemployment rate under Obama is still above 8% while Romney got the unemployment rate in Massachusetts under 5%. And, as she says, "We're happy to compare those records!"
So let's compare them:
- Under Obama, the US unemployment rate went from 9.3% in 2009 to 8.2% in May 2012
- Under Romney, the MA unemployment rate went from 5.2% in 2003 to 4.5% in 2007
Hmm. Obama improved his rate by about 1.1% (with the final 2012 number not yet in) while Romney improved his by 0.7%. I guess we could call that a wash (it should be easier to drop a bigger number, all else being equal)... except that there's one more bit of context:
- Under Romney, the MA unemployment rate went from 5.2% (against a national average of 5.5%) in 2003 to 4.5% (against a national average of 4.6%) in 2007
In short, the MA unemployment rate under Romney failed to keep pace with the national average, improving only 0.7% when the whole country improved by 0.9%
Are you sure you're happy to compare these records, Ms. Gitcho?
The amazing thing to me is that Obama's job creation record is actually hard to defend in a typical pundit-sized sound bite. The defense becomes a debate over the stimulus and whether it was successful, and who's to blame for it being less effective than it could have been. But by making a comparison to Romney's own weak MA numbers, instead of attacking Obama's numbers in isolation, the Romney campaign shoots itself in the foot. The talking point all but rebuts itself.
Morons. Absolute morons.
May Travesties
17 this month (or 18 if you count We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions as two):
Angie - Rolling Stones
Fool In the Rain - Led Zeppelin
Go With the Flow - Queens of the Stone Age
God Only Knows - Beach Boys
I've Just Seen a Face - Beatles
Jersey Girl - Bruce Springsteen
Let's Go Crazy - Prince
Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm - Crash Test Dummies
My Old School - Steely Dan
My Sacrifice - Creed
Owner of a Lonely Heart - Yes
Run-around - Blues Traveler
She Talks To Angels - Black Crowes
Summertime - DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince
Sunglasses At Night - Corey Hart
There Goes the Fear - Doves
We Will Rock You / We Are the Champions - Queen
Angie - Rolling Stones
Fool In the Rain - Led Zeppelin
Go With the Flow - Queens of the Stone Age
God Only Knows - Beach Boys
I've Just Seen a Face - Beatles
Jersey Girl - Bruce Springsteen
Let's Go Crazy - Prince
Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm - Crash Test Dummies
My Old School - Steely Dan
My Sacrifice - Creed
Owner of a Lonely Heart - Yes
Run-around - Blues Traveler
She Talks To Angels - Black Crowes
Summertime - DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince
Sunglasses At Night - Corey Hart
There Goes the Fear - Doves
We Will Rock You / We Are the Champions - Queen
This Is Why Nate Makes the Big Bucks
Nate Silver provides us with an entirely new paradigm for thinking about "swing states". His new "elastic state" model looks like it'll require a fair bit of fine tuning before it becomes a really useful tool, but as a metaphor it's really quite elegant.
And if you want to get meta on it, consider that with the inevitable exception of wacky ol' New Hampshire the most "elastic" states fall into the 'liberal/Democratic bastion' camp, while the least "elastic" states are all hard-core conservative... plus DC.
A Letter To the Minister of Canadian Heritage
Subject: Biology is a Science
Dear Minister:
Dear Minister:
As you asked that members of the public express their concerns regarding the recent "Sex: A Tell-All" exhibit at the Canada Science and Technology Museum, I have chosen to respond to you directly.
Biology, and human reproductive biology specifically, is in fact a science. I'm not sure whether you are aware of that or not. "Science" does not just refer to engines and electronics. If it did, the name of the museum would be redundant as "science" and "technology" would be synonyms. An exhibit carefully designed to educate teenagers on the subject of human reproduction would not only be within the museum's mandate but would be something it should be applauded for, as by every indication the exhibit appears to be a very sensitive and informative handling of what can be a difficult subject for some parents to discuss with their children.
Perhaps you should consider whether your own mandate involves fanning the flames of ignorance and trying to stir up mobs to attack museum exhibits, rather than incorrectly judging the museum's mandate. Not only do such actions violate the very meaning of "Canadian Heritage", they are unbecoming of your office and your portfolio as a minister.
I expect to hear soon that you will be issuing a public apology to the museum and commending its commitment to furthering scientific education.
Why Avengers Is The Second-Most Important Superhero Movie Ever
Every single piece of Avengers hyperbole you've heard is entirely accurate.
It's a ridiculously great spectacle, which if your name is not Chris Nolan is all you should be aiming to make when you helm a superhero movie. It draws from the best of Marvel traditions, with worlds colliding and massive battles and classic inter-squad squabbles. It benefits hugely from not having to be any kind of origin film: the only new element we hadn't seen in the previous installments of the Marvel filmiverse is the Chitauri, and you don't really need to explain their motivations or where they came from. They're just Loki's ugly evil invading force.
It also did something else though: it made me understand why people went apeshit over Superman in 1978.
Superman's never really connected with me for a couple of reasons, but the main one was that I didn't grow up reading DC comics. Sure, I knew who Supes and Bats and the rest were, but they weren't my scene as a kid. I made mine Marvel. And so, while so many other people were all "Oh wow, I never thought I'd ever see this on the big screen" with the Donner Superman, I was just kinda "Yeah, that's cool, I guess."
Avengers, far moreso than any other Marvel filmiverse entry to date, made me go "Oh wow, I never thought I'd ever see this on the big screen."
I'm not just talking about finally getting a version of the Hulk everyone can get behind. I'm talking about the real Marvel fanboy elements. We get to see the SHIELD Helicarrier!!! We get to see Hulk vs Thor and Thor vs Iron Man slugfests!!!! The obligatory Marvel post-film teaser contains fucking [spoiler redacted]!!!!!! Is it a perfect film? Of course not. Neither was Superman. But in every crucial way it's the big superhero team-up film I've always carried around in my head, and it's now escaped from my head.
And that's what makes it the second-most important superhero film ever after Superman. Just as Superman laid the groundwork for thirty years of superhero movies, suddenly Avengers has given us a template for the next thirty. Suddenly, there's hope for a Justice League movie. Suddenly, I'm actually glad that X-Men 3 fucked up the Phoenix Saga, because solid as Singer's set-up for it was in X2 there's now a way that it can be done properly in the inevitable next iteration of the team. Hell, suddenly really crazy stuff like the Secret Wars and [redacted; see redacted spoiler above] and a Teen Titans Trigon movie and, I dunno, a Valiant universe is on the table. Suddenly, the idea of a sprawling cosmic superhero epic isn't just a pipe dream. (And incidentally, the lack of ambition in that pathetic excuse for a Green Lantern movie looks even worse in comparison.)
In short, as they did in 1978, the rules just changed on what can be accomplished with superhero movies. Full credit to Marvel Studios and Joss Whedon for pulling off something that once upon a time I thought could never be done.
Now let's see who picks up that gauntlet...
It's a ridiculously great spectacle, which if your name is not Chris Nolan is all you should be aiming to make when you helm a superhero movie. It draws from the best of Marvel traditions, with worlds colliding and massive battles and classic inter-squad squabbles. It benefits hugely from not having to be any kind of origin film: the only new element we hadn't seen in the previous installments of the Marvel filmiverse is the Chitauri, and you don't really need to explain their motivations or where they came from. They're just Loki's ugly evil invading force.
It also did something else though: it made me understand why people went apeshit over Superman in 1978.
Superman's never really connected with me for a couple of reasons, but the main one was that I didn't grow up reading DC comics. Sure, I knew who Supes and Bats and the rest were, but they weren't my scene as a kid. I made mine Marvel. And so, while so many other people were all "Oh wow, I never thought I'd ever see this on the big screen" with the Donner Superman, I was just kinda "Yeah, that's cool, I guess."
Avengers, far moreso than any other Marvel filmiverse entry to date, made me go "Oh wow, I never thought I'd ever see this on the big screen."
I'm not just talking about finally getting a version of the Hulk everyone can get behind. I'm talking about the real Marvel fanboy elements. We get to see the SHIELD Helicarrier!!! We get to see Hulk vs Thor and Thor vs Iron Man slugfests!!!! The obligatory Marvel post-film teaser contains fucking [spoiler redacted]!!!!!! Is it a perfect film? Of course not. Neither was Superman. But in every crucial way it's the big superhero team-up film I've always carried around in my head, and it's now escaped from my head.
And that's what makes it the second-most important superhero film ever after Superman. Just as Superman laid the groundwork for thirty years of superhero movies, suddenly Avengers has given us a template for the next thirty. Suddenly, there's hope for a Justice League movie. Suddenly, I'm actually glad that X-Men 3 fucked up the Phoenix Saga, because solid as Singer's set-up for it was in X2 there's now a way that it can be done properly in the inevitable next iteration of the team. Hell, suddenly really crazy stuff like the Secret Wars and [redacted; see redacted spoiler above] and a Teen Titans Trigon movie and, I dunno, a Valiant universe is on the table. Suddenly, the idea of a sprawling cosmic superhero epic isn't just a pipe dream. (And incidentally, the lack of ambition in that pathetic excuse for a Green Lantern movie looks even worse in comparison.)
In short, as they did in 1978, the rules just changed on what can be accomplished with superhero movies. Full credit to Marvel Studios and Joss Whedon for pulling off something that once upon a time I thought could never be done.
Now let's see who picks up that gauntlet...
April Travesties
Between having a job I actually take semi-seriously and my fragile innards, looks like the teens are the new standard... just 14 songs belted out in April.
All Right Now - Free
Black - Pearl Jam
Boys Are Back In Town - Thin Lizzy
Dream Weaver - Gary Wright
Goodbye Stranger - Supertramp
Inner City Blues - Marvin Gaye
Jackson - Johnny Cash & June Carter (duet w/Laura)
Night They Drove Old Dixie Down - The Band
Sweet Home Alabama - Lynyrd Skynyrd
Tom Sawyer - Rush
Valerie - Zutons
Wild Horses - Rolling Stones
You've Got To Hide Your Love Away - Beatles
Young Americans - David Bowie
Scratch Rubio Off Your Romney Veep Lists
Fallows reports that Rubio committed a cardinal conservative sin... admitting that the Obama administration might have gotten something right:
In this new century, more than ever before, America should work with our capable allies in finding solutions to global problems. Not because America has gotten weaker, but because our partners have grown stronger. It's worth pointing out, that is not a new idea for us. Our greatest successes have always occurred in partnership with other like-minded nations. America has acted unilaterally in the past - and I believe it should continue to do so in the future -- when necessity requires. But our preferred option since the U.S. became a global leader has been to work with others to achieve our goals. So yes, global problems do require international coalitions. On that point this administration is correct.
Romney's going to have enough trouble keeping the peons rabble GOP rank and file in line without having a running mate prone to saying non-inflammatory things about the Kenyan-in-Chief. Of course Rubio might be just smart enough to realize that, and decided to sabotage his chances of being asked rather than having to officially turn down the opportunity to wear Romney's doomed run like an albatross around his neck for the rest of his career.
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