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Thursday, 11 December 2003 |
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Of course, this is a Christmas movie, actually an anti-Christmas movie, so theres has to be some sort of salvation for Willie. In director Terry Zwigoffs idea of good cheer, Stokes meets a chubby kid who lives with his senile grandmother (Cloris Leachman). Something moves him, and he begins developing feelings. But he also has feelings for the kinky female barkeeper who has a thing for having sex with men in Santa Claus outfits. On occasion, thanks to Thorntons deadpan delivery, the raunchy movie is laugh-out-loud funny. But, it slides out of gear in the final third as the salvation exercise overwhelms the movies flagrant toxicity. Screenwriters John Requa and Glenn Ficarra cop-out. Bad Santa gets sentimental. Zwigoff, who made Crumb and Ghost World, should have kept the edge, but as the movie diminishes into sap city, youve got fond memories of Thorntons performance to keep you alert.
A more typical Hollywood Christmas card is Dr. Seuss The Cat In The Hat, but everything Ive read and heard about the books author tells me that he would rather have died than see his beloved childrens classics turned into hokey, big budget movies. Well, the poor guy did die, and his widow cranked up the money machine. Shame on her. She sold the rights to Dr. Seuss books and essentially sold her soul. We had Jim Carrey in the messy How The Grinch Stole Christmas, and now weve got Torontos favorite son Mike Myers as The Cat. The book runs about 60 pages and the movie is padded beyond endurance to fill 80 minutes. Truth be told, there is no movie here. Its just a one-note parade of excess and one of the worst films Ive ever seen. The running gag is that two annoying kids encounter The Cat in their house and he makes a mess that has to be cleaned up. Nothing else happens. The sets are colorful, but serve no purpose other than to frame the computerized digital effects that run as rampant as the overreaching cat. As for the title character, Myers is appalling. There isnt a shred of warmth or genuine humor in his performance. Hes a brat of a cat and that is that.
For children ages, oh, I dont know, 10 through whatever, there is a movie that deserves their attention. Timeline is an old-fashioned action adventure thriller, the kind that once were the bulwark of Saturday matinees. Michael Crichtons dense novel has had most of the mathematics and science removed, and what we get is a straightforward story about time travel. This isnt intellectually challenging filmmaking, but it is popcorn fun. An American corporation has devised a machine that can movie objects. Meanwhile, some student archeologists are spending time in the French countryside exploring a major dig. When the teleportation machine intersects with a wormhole, the groups professor ends up in 14th-century France. Some of the students end up going back in time to rescue him. The movie doesnt really rely on stars to energize its premise, but rather on the hunt, the chase, and the battles for an ancient castle. When youve got flaming arrows by the thousands and loads of action, who needs heavy psychological analysis? As in all movies about a group of friends in danger, theres a hint of romance, a touch of anger, and an entertaining sense of camaraderie. Paul Walker gets star billing, but he doesnt have much to do and lacks screen presence. The guy who leads the audience through the film is Gerard Butler as one of the archeologists. Hes got a 1930s style sense of fun and adventure thats refreshing. Richard Donner directs with a sure hand.
I wrote about The Human Stain in my Toronto Film Festival wrap-up and praised its style and substance. The movie is now playing in town. Based on Philip Roths novel about sexual politics and racism, the very smart film deserves to be seen. It stars a very good Anthony Hopkins as a revered university professor who resigns in a rage after being accused of being a racist. Noting that two of his students have never attended his class, he asks What are they, spooks? Because they are African-Americans, his wisecrack is interpreted as a racist remark. Its important to note that he has not seen the students, so he does not know if they are black or white. Rather than defend himself when hes called before a faculty tribunal, he leaves his job. He has a secret of his own. He is a very light-skinned African-American himself. In fact, he has passed for white. The movie is about his recovery from the death of his wife and understanding his past, as well as trying to avoid a sense of isolation. He meets a blue-collar woman played by Nicole Kidman with too many false notes. Does gum chewing and smoking really define lower-class life? They begin a relationship. The Human Stain glides back and forth between the old professor and his younger self, superbly played by Wentworth Miller. Also on tap are Gary Sinise as the man to whom Hopkins opens up. Ed Harris is Kidmans abusive husband and Jacinda Barrett is Millers girl friend, who does not realize he is black. Anna Deavere Smith and Phyllis Newman round out the cast. Directed by Robert Benton, this is a movie that keeps you alert and makes demands on you in a good way.
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Thursday, 11 December 2003 |
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The Spaghetti Jimbrone is a ton of food. Awesome. We come here twice a week. You should save room for the bread pudding. Owners Bob and Dan Syracuse do a great job.
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Wednesday, 10 December 2003 |
What the MTBE ban means to all New York and Connecticut residents is an end to new contamination of our groundwater resources by this cancer-causing chemical!
Gasoline retailers have already made the necessary changes in delivery systems, and have also contracted for their supplies of the oxygenate substitute that will replace MTBE. The transition is almost complete and many people in both states have already been filling their tanks with MTBE- free gas. This has happened with no increase in the price of a gallon of gasoline.
The actual price of a gallon of gasoline in New York and Connecticut should go down based on the new formula. MTBE has been consistently more expensive than gas and the replacement additive.
More important than the cost of a gallon of gas is the positive impacts on our families health. Ridding our gasoline supply of this poison has been a huge battle over many years, but the people have been victorious, said Brian Smith, Program Coordinator for Citizens Campaign for the Environment. This is a victory where everyone wins, except the polluters, concluded Smith.
With the MTBE ban a certainty in New York and Connecticut, all eyes will turn to Washington to see if our federal elected officials will give the MTBE industry complete liability relief for the terrific damage they have done to our drinking water supplies, leaving New York and Connecticut residents to pay for the entire clean-up. CCE will continue to actively oppose this give away to the MTBE industry.
Citizens Campaign for the Environment is New York and Connecticut's largest member based environmental organization dedicated to the protection of human health and the natural environment.
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Monday, 01 December 2003 |
The assumption in this thinking was, of course, that millions of British people would need to see an ornate backdrop to make that connection. Without the hint, G.W. could barely leave his temporary residence of Buckingham Palace without being assailed by angry Brits anxious to let the U.S. president know just how unwelcome he was in their country.
It is estimated that 200,000 protestors demonstrated against Bushs visit to the U.K. On Nov. 20., a march that wound through the streets of central London ended in Trafalgar Square where an 18 foot papier mache statue of George W. was toppled, mocking the fall of Saddam Husseins effigy in Baghdad. Suffice to say, the presence of 200,000 demonstrators at a mid-week protest is historic. But even these numbers pale in comparison to those of Feb. 15 which saw about 1.5 million take to the streets of London to oppose the military invasion of Iraq. On that same day, millions more in cities and towns around the world took part in similar protests.
Fueling these massive outpourings of ordinary people has been a very real anger for the United States by millions internationally. Obviously, if England is our closest ally and our president cant even move around its capital without having the city practically shut down for security concerns, the question must be asked: why the hell are people around the world so pissed off at the United States?
In the popular press, you will generally find two explanations for this upward trend in American persecution. They are that 1.) people internationally are simply anti-American full of hatred and jealousy because our country is free, powerful, and preeminent; and that 2.) people are angry because the U.S. initiated a war without the backing of the United Nations. This stems from a misunderstanding that in a post 9/11 world the U.S. needs to do what it must in order to protect the security of its citizens.
The first answer that outside our borders there lurks a deep and dark anti-American sentiment has even been used by Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary for Tony Blairs government, in his justifications for the Prime Ministers support for Bushs policies ad nauseam. It is also completely fallacious, being pathetically analogous to something Rush Limbaugh would say about how jealousy drives the commoners to hate the wealthy.
There is a grave misunderstanding amongst most Americans (and apparently non-Americans when it suits their interests) about how the people of the world feel about them. Anyone who travels abroad should be able to say with confidence that the citizens of the world, including the French, do not hate Americans. They do hate, however, the ignorance of cultural chauvinism something that Americans have turned into an art form. Of course, there are extremists out there who view all citizens of the United States as the enemy, but the number of these unfortunate individuals is so infinitesimally small that to diagnose a good deal of the outside world with a Napoleon Complex is simply foolish. If more than ten percent of the U.S. population owned a passport and the U.S. government actually did something to promote cultural exchange other than starting wars, this reality might be better grasped.
The second answer that the world doesnt understand the tragedy of 9/11 and that America has the right to act preemptively to protect its citizens is equally nonsense. Other than the war on terror being the B-Teams attempt to secure an ideological substitute for the red menace, this explanation for the strong international opposition to Washington fails in many regards. Firstly, for many people in the world, the fear and insecurity that Americans experienced on 9/11 is a daily occurrence (see Liberia, Congo, Colombia, Palestine, Israel). Secondly, the case that Iraq had anything to due with 9/11 or represented an imminent threat to United States citizens was not made before the war and has not been made to date. Thirdly, the unilateralism of Iraq is only the latest and most visible example of American policymakers unwillingness to participate in international accords and agreements. Aside from Bushs foray into Babylon, there is an entire litany of charges that can be made against United States arrogance over the past ten years including its refusal to adopt the Kyoto Protocol or take part in the International Criminal Courts; its callousness and insensitivity in dealing with the most important question in the Arab world the Palestinian/Israeli conflict; and its hypocritical policies on nuclear non-proliferation and international trade.
The Bush administrations feigned attempt to involve the U.N. in the invasion of Iraq has presented itself only as American policymakers most recent and flagrant violation of international diplomacy. For this reason, it has engendered the most disgust and has given the international community a giant stage on which to display its growing discontent with American unilateralism.
Neither smug appeals to international envy and hatred nor pompous proclamations of uniqueness can account for the wave of hostility that Mr. Bush has encountered in his journeys to foreign lands. The true reasons why much of the world is angry with the United States is not because they are anti-American nor because they dont understand 9/11. Its precisely because they see our countrys policies for what they are and theyre not afraid to say it.
Here at home, things are different. Polemics are taboo, strong beliefs are discouraged, and the fear that has been whipped up around the new evil-doers of the world has created such a strong atmosphere of self-censorship that the majority of Americans are simply too afraid to express a viewpoint that might contradict the torrent of insecurity flashing across their television screens nightly from Fox News to 24. How else could an administration convince the American people to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on a war abroad while some 43 million Americans dont have health care at home?
Americans revel in over-abundant, easily-digestible, trite news sources. News sources too conservative or too pusillanimous to call our esteemed-at-home president, George W. Bush for what he is a mendacious imperialist. This is a claim that even so-called liberal Americans are afraid to make fearing the connotations of Marxist extremism that get dredged up every time someone forgets to put the middle in front of class when speaking about politics. But its a claim that the rest of the world has been making for some time because of its validity.
Certainly, many residents here wouldnt agree with this assessment, opting for the popular and commercial patriotism of denial. I will not argue the point theres a good deal of Americans that still dont believe in evolution. But if invading a sovereign nation militarily, toppling its government, occupying it, and then attempting to rebuild that nation based on your own social institutions with no other believable pretext but to serve the economic and political interests of your countrys wealthiest citizens; if that aint imperialism, then the murder of millions of Native Americans during U.S. westward expansion wasnt genocide. And the Holocaust never happened. And slavery wasnt that bad. And Jesus was a white man.
The American people should be less concerned with the rhetorical liberation of the Middle East and more concerned with liberating themselves from this intellectual prison of denial. In other words, we should take a page out of the book of our European brethren and the international community when they question the intentions of global power brokers.
While studying in the U.K. this past year, I was exposed to a climate of debate and discourse unlike anything we have here in the United States. On any day in London, at least six different newspapers expressing a wide spectrum of political perspectives were available. Evening television journalists actually had the nerve to ask challenging questions to those whom they interviewed. Members of Parliament routinely disagreed with their Prime Minister while appearing at public demonstrations. Students werent afraid to protest the war by walking out of class or occupying administration buildings. The city buses were plentiful and on time. People read books.
Upon returning to the United States, two things became immediately obvious. The first was how overweight Americans really are. The second was the media circus that envelops everything here from a shitty little hurricane to Monday Night Football. In this kind of surreal atmosphere, its little wonder how politics can be reduced to the Simpsonesque farce of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jimmy Griffin.
Americans need to wake up and come to terms with the responsibility that they have as global citizens. This means standing up to the corporate Thought Police of fear and shedding our culturally insular complacency. It means paying attention to what the world is saying instead of playing the role of the persecuted. Like the Londoners that took to the streets a few weeks back, and the millions more that have been demonstrating worldwide, we Americans need to get our act together and begin to question the direction in which we are heading as a country and a planet. If we do not, choosing instead to continue along the path currently being blazed by Washington, then only ignorance and war will be our collective future.
What was glaringly ironic about this affair was that our commander-in-chief, being the stoic crusader for freedom and justice that he is, chose to deliver a speech about democracy, not at the institution that actually represents this ideal in the U.K., i.e., The House of Commons, but rather from the pulpit of a palace that surely rivals anything Saddam Hussein may have occupied during his brutally lavish presidency. The elitism of the event, however, did not go unnoticed by some White House officials who decided to change the backdrop of the speech from the ornate and grandiose design of the Banqueting Hall to one that simply had United Kingdom written over and over on it. In this way, any parallels that might have been drawn by television viewers between Mr. Bushs current foreign policy and Britains Victorian Imperialist past could be conveniently avoided.
The assumption in this thinking was, of course, that millions of British people would need to see an ornate backdrop to make that connection. Without the hint, G.W. could barely leave his temporary residence of Buckingham Palace without being assailed by angry Brits anxious to let the U.S. president know just how unwelcome he was in their country.
It is estimated that 200,000 protestors demonstrated against Bushs visit to the U.K. On Nov. 20., a march that wound through the streets of central London ended in Trafalgar Square where an 18 foot papier mache statue of George W. was toppled, mocking the fall of Saddam Husseins effigy in Baghdad. Suffice to say, the presence of 200,000 demonstrators at a mid-week protest is historic. But even these numbers pale in comparison to those of Feb. 15 which saw about 1.5 million take to the streets of London to oppose the military invasion of Iraq. On that same day, millions more in cities and towns around the world took part in similar protests.
Fueling these massive outpourings of ordinary people has been a very real anger for the United States by millions internationally. Obviously, if England is our closest ally and our president cant even move around its capital without having the city practically shut down for security concerns, the question must be asked: why the hell are people around the world so pissed off at the United States?
In the popular press, you will generally find two explanations for this upward trend in American persecution. They are that 1.) people internationally are simply anti-American full of hatred and jealousy because our country is free, powerful, and preeminent; and that 2.) people are angry because the U.S. initiated a war without the backing of the United Nations. This stems from a misunderstanding that in a post 9/11 world the U.S. needs to do what it must in order to protect the security of its citizens.
The first answer that outside our borders there lurks a deep and dark anti-American sentiment has even been used by Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary for Tony Blairs government, in his justifications for the Prime Ministers support for Bushs policies ad nauseam. It is also completely fallacious, being pathetically analogous to something Rush Limbaugh would say about how jealousy drives the commoners to hate the wealthy.
There is a grave misunderstanding amongst most Americans (and apparently non-Americans when it suits their interests) about how the people of the world feel about them. Anyone who travels abroad should be able to say with confidence that the citizens of the world, including the French, do not hate Americans. They do hate, however, the ignorance of cultural chauvinism something that Americans have turned into an art form. Of course, there are extremists out there who view all citizens of the United States as the enemy, but the number of these unfortunate individuals is so infinitesimally small that to diagnose a good deal of the outside world with a Napoleon Complex is simply foolish. If more than ten percent of the U.S. population owned a passport and the U.S. government actually did something to promote cultural exchange other than starting wars, this reality might be better grasped.
The second answer that the world doesnt understand the tragedy of 9/11 and that America has the right to act preemptively to protect its citizens is equally nonsense. Other than the war on terror being the B-Teams attempt to secure an ideological substitute for the red menace, this explanation for the strong international opposition to Washington fails in many regards. Firstly, for many people in the world, the fear and insecurity that Americans experienced on 9/11 is a daily occurrence (see Liberia, Congo, Colombia, Palestine, Israel). Secondly, the case that Iraq had anything to due with 9/11 or represented an imminent threat to United States citizens was not made before the war and has not been made to date. Thirdly, the unilateralism of Iraq is only the latest and most visible example of American policymakers unwillingness to participate in international accords and agreements. Aside from Bushs foray into Babylon, there is an entire litany of charges that can be made against United States arrogance over the past ten years including its refusal to adopt the Kyoto Protocol or take part in the International Criminal Courts; its callousness and insensitivity in dealing with the most important question in the Arab world the Palestinian/Israeli conflict; and its hypocritical policies on nuclear non-proliferation and international trade.
The Bush administrations feigned attempt to involve the U.N. in the invasion of Iraq has presented itself only as American policymakers most recent and flagrant violation of international diplomacy. For this reason, it has engendered the most disgust and has given the international community a giant stage on which to display its growing discontent with American unilateralism.
Neither smug appeals to international envy and hatred nor pompous proclamations of uniqueness can account for the wave of hostility that Mr. Bush has encountered in his journeys to foreign lands. The true reasons why much of the world is angry with the United States is not because they are anti-American nor because they dont understand 9/11. Its precisely because they see our countrys policies for what they are and theyre not afraid to say it.
Here at home, things are different. Polemics are taboo, strong beliefs are discouraged, and the fear that has been whipped up around the new evil-doers of the world has created such a strong atmosphere of self-censorship that the majority of Americans are simply too afraid to express a viewpoint that might contradict the torrent of insecurity flashing across their television screens nightly from Fox News to 24. How else could an administration convince the American people to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on a war abroad while some 43 million Americans dont have health care at home?
Americans revel in over-abundant, easily-digestible, trite news sources. News sources too conservative or too pusillanimous to call our esteemed-at-home president, George W. Bush for what he is a mendacious imperialist. This is a claim that even so-called liberal Americans are afraid to make fearing the connotations of Marxist extremism that get dredged up every time someone forgets to put the middle in front of class when speaking about politics. But its a claim that the rest of the world has been making for some time because of its validity.
Certainly, many residents here wouldnt agree with this assessment, opting for the popular and commercial patriotism of denial. I will not argue the point theres a good deal of Americans that still dont believe in evolution. But if invading a sovereign nation militarily, toppling its government, occupying it, and then attempting to rebuild that nation based on your own social institutions with no other believable pretext but to serve the economic and political interests of your countrys wealthiest citizens; if that aint imperialism, then the murder of millions of Native Americans during U.S. westward expansion wasnt genocide. And the Holocaust never happened. And slavery wasnt that bad. And Jesus was a white man.
The American people should be less concerned with the rhetorical liberation of the Middle East and more concerned with liberating themselves from this intellectual prison of denial. In other words, we should take a page out of the book of our European brethren and the international community when they question the intentions of global power brokers.
While studying in the U.K. this past year, I was exposed to a climate of debate and discourse unlike anything we have here in the United States. On any day in London, at least six different newspapers expressing a wide spectrum of political perspectives were available. Evening television journalists actually had the nerve to ask challenging questions to those whom they interviewed. Members of Parliament routinely disagreed with their Prime Minister while appearing at public demonstrations. Students werent afraid to protest the war by walking out of class or occupying administration buildings. The city buses were plentiful and on time. People read books.
Upon returning to the United States, two things became immediately obvious. The first was how overweight Americans really are. The second was the media circus that envelops everything here from a shitty little hurricane to Monday Night Football. In this kind of surreal atmosphere, its little wonder how politics can be reduced to the Simpsonesque farce of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jimmy Griffin.
Americans need to wake up and come to terms with the responsibility that they have as global citizens. This means standing up to the corporate Thought Police of fear and shedding our culturally insular complacency. It means paying attention to what the world is saying instead of playing the role of the persecuted. Like the Londoners that took to the streets a few weeks back, and the millions more that have been demonstrating worldwide, we Americans need to get our act together and begin to question the direction in which we are heading as a country and a planet. If we do not, choosing instead to continue along the path currently being blazed by Washington, then only ignorance and war will be our collective future.
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