Also...

...he's the best, check it out:

http://www.theloveguru.com/

Bachman-Hussein Overdrive

So, in an email the other night, my dad referred to a politician: BHO. I think that might have been the first time I've seen Barack's initials in writing like this. Can anyone find any info on when people started referring to TR, FDR, JFK or LBJ? BHO doesnt quite have the same ring to it; HRC kind of sounds catchy.

Heading up to Pico this afternoon to get my ride on.

Has anyone been more prolific in covering this election than Adam Nagourney? He writes, "Should Mr. Obama win the nomination, his candidacy could well be a test of whether [Republican] tactics still work or whether, used against a candidate who is trying to cultivate an appeal that transcends policy specifics, would fall flat this time."

Also, if you haven't seen it yet, check this out from last weekend's weekend update. Tina Fey, what do you really think?

NAFTA SHMAFTA

Ok, Democrats. Reality check time. Ohio is pissed, fine. You both want to win, we get it. But undoubtedly, the democrats have sunk to a new low.

As Brian Williams, George Stephanapolous, the NYT, and Michael Cooper have all pointed out, the democrats have been trying their darndest to out-pander one another by twisting economic reality in order to convince Ohio voters that things will get better if one of them is elected president. It is without a doubt the ugliest part of this entire 08 campaign (well, now that rudy is out).

Indeed, it is hard to argue with the fact that exploiting economic fears in this manner is in any way fundamentally different than the exploitation of national security fears that propelled both the 02 and 04 election cycles, to detrimental effects (or the ones that are propelling McCain's candidacy).

If 08 really turns into this, into a campaign in which the main question is which candidate can scare more people about these respective issues, then we will get a government with a mandate to take extreme, counter-productive measures; it will reignite the partisanship of the 20-aughts, and it will become just another chapter in the long history of the downfall of the American empire. So wake up Barack, and get back to work.

Caution, and the Cautionary Whale

Okay. I get it, Juno. You are sassy. Geeze.



well, now that the 2007 movie season is officially over, I have two more cents to add. A few posts ago, I outlined my take on some of the better (read: bloodier) films of the year. conspicuously absent from that list was one of everyone's favorite pics, a movie I found to be bland beyond description.

Now, i'm certainly not saying that there is no room for lighter fare. I enjoy a good laugh. I know movies should present a fairy tale world every once in a while. And i definitely do not begrudge Diablo Cody her Oscar. She is a talented filmmaker in an industry that too often eschews female voices, and I very much look forward to her later work.

But Juno. What was Juno? Was it just a feminized version of the funnier Knocked up? Was it a Lost in Translation for Ameicans for whom being bored hanging out with movie stars in tokyo is not an overriding concern? Or was it, as many critics have wondered, a thinly veiled pro-life propaganda vehicle?

I think, more so than anything, Juno was the story of impossibility, about a girl who navigates her world in about the same way that a paper boat would navigate the Colorado, laughing and singing (a sad tune, but a song nonetheless) her way towards, well, I'm not sure what. In fact, the problem with Juno--a problem rooted in the screenplay, in the production, in the marketing--was the inability of any of the characters to make a single decision.

By my count, there were exactly two decisions made by all the characters in Juno. The first was fore-ordained: Juno's decision to keep the seamonkey growing inside her because, well, it had fingernails...and because how could she get herself into more shenanigans if she did otherwise? the second decision was when Jason Bateman's character backed out of his life, abandoned his wife and his unborn, surrogate child, and made off for the city. Now there's a movie! But, no, we go back to Juno and the Moldy Peaches.

Which is to say, I just didn't get it. Ebert, in calling Juno the best of 2007 , had this to say: "Strange, how during Juno's hip dialogue and cocky bravado, we begin to understand the young woman inside, and we want to hug her." But i guess my problem was exactly that: that I didn't understand Juno. I didn't understand where she got her strength from, I didn't understand why she found her situation funny and not painful, I didn't understand why she wasn't angry, how she toyed with Bleeker or why he let her get away with it. I thought all the emotions were sophmoric, not hidden behind the dialogue, but substituted out for it. There was no ticking clock, no wires that needed to be cut. Without genuine alternatives, how can we sympathize with the characters as they live their lives--their lives, and not others? how can we regard what they say as anything more than fortune cookie wisdom when they don't have a conflict from which to extricate themselves, or internal contradictions that need to be negotiated? Frankly, I was bored.

Now, Juno is certainly not another Napolean Dynomite, a movie with an indie spirit that caught on but was nonetheless genuinely bad. Indeed, fine, I'll say Juno was good, great even. But banal, indifferent, and, in some ways, lazy. I'd recommend Juno. I'll probably rent it on DVD. But the years best? Ebert, I think that stroke went to your head.

making a stand

"For many of us, their silent demonstration — one part human rights, one part black power — is an enduring symbol of resistance and righteous indignation. For others, the demonstration was disrespectful and even treasonous. This much is certain: no one has forgotten the image."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/22/sports/othersports/22rhoden.html

coen bro's, oscars thread

"While it clearly ranks alongside “Fargo” and “The Big Lebowski” as the brothers’ best work, “No Country” has an unusual place among their movies, in some ways perfectly typical of their style and in others an unexpected reinvention of it."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23240709/


"While “Pictures at a Revolution” is must reading for anyone who cares about Hollywood films and their place in the cultural context, it also raises an obvious question during this Oscar season: How do this year’s best picture nominees reflect what’s happening in the world — and in the world of show business — today?"

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23263333/

Italian researchers waste state funding; eat pizza

"Ultrasound was used to measure the size and shape of the tissue beyond the "front" wall of the vagina, often suggested as the location of the G spot."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7254523.stm

He knows the things you want to be...

...He's the smiling face on your TV.

"If you've never been to an Obama rally before, a word of advice: go early. Think Springsteen concert … but the tickets are free, first come, first served."

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/Vote2008/story?id=4313643&page=1


also, here's a cool pic:



Hey! I've been there!

Let's Rol

Well, it's officially started.

This is gonna be some season, but its also gonna be some pre-season. Phillies have to get Howard happy, they need to work in a new right fielder, third baseman, and closer. But most importantly, they have to prove that, indeed, the reigning NL-East champs are still the team to beat. Not that expectations really matter in baseball, but it will be nice to know that we started off the pre-season power rankings atop the mets--where we'll stay for 162 games.

All the way to the World Series, baby! Stay tuned as I dissect the starting rotation, the line-up, the bench, and even the new road uni's.

It's called Drainage!

2007 was, as they say, a bloody years in movies. Indeed, the three best of the year were drenched in blood, squirting and oozing and rotting. One even had the word “blood” in the title; another had it drenched across the billing on the promotional prints. And everyone has been quick to point out that, perhaps, the bloody outlook into which Hollywood tapped this year reflects the bleak worldview settling into a country beset by war and hardships. Whatever the case, these were some bad-ass movies.

The third best of the year was “Sweeny Todd.” After the whole idea of this movie settles in, which I think happens about the time Helena Bonham Carter belts out ‘The Worse Pies in London,” this movie flies along. With a wink and a nudge, Depp slices open throats with a merciless intensity, and we squirm, then let out a sound something like “ooouuughr,” then crack up. But we also begin to feel this feeling down in our guts, watching as the characters lose control and let their primal lusts—for revenge, for sex, for, I guess, happiness—overtake them. Is there a greater metaphor for the excess of violence than the unknowing cannibalism of nineteenth century Londoners singing in harmony? I can’t wait to get this on DVD.

The second best picture of the year used music to a devastating effect as well, although in a much different way. As Daniel Day-Lewis digs and grimaces in the great 21st century epic, the score slides through chromaticisms in a way that is, at the very least, unnerving. There Will Be Blood’s greatest achievements were the scenes in which, under the music, the action and movement took over: the incredible opening, for example, or the explosion at the oil rig. The third act here was challenging and, possibly, ineffective, but perhaps that is what we needed to understand the logical outcome of these character’s motivations: that there is simply no room for both a preacher and a capitalist in an American bowling ally. Or maybe it was just so that Daniel could belt out one of the many great lines in Anderson’s script. “I drink your milkshake!” Ok, a little much, but, frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.

And then, well, what can I say about the soon-to-be Best Picture of the year, this wonderful addition to perhaps the most impressive oeuvre in American filmmaking? What can be said about a movie that, for all intents and purposes, was perfect? Well, I guess just that.

If Sweeney and Blood were about the surfeit of violence in our culture, about the decadence and the accompanying decay, then I think No Country for Old Men was about the emptiness of it all, the barren landscape of our new morality, of the desperate but futile search for justice, about the inevitability of death and bad haircuts. I think Tommy Lee Jones’ Sheriff Ed Tom Bell—invented last year for his masterful directorial debut, Three Burials for Melquiades Estrada, though resurrected perfectly here—was one of the most fully realized characters in cinematic history. Try as he might, Ed Tom, sheriff since he was 23, could never quite catch up with those Mexican dope-runners, the unhinged assassins, or even the two-bit hick corners-cutter who, with every bullet, make a mockery of his life and values.

Roger Deakons shot this desolate Texas landscape with such grace it doesn’t seem fair; Cormac McCarthy’s hilarious and troubling dialogue makes a smooth transition, to say the least; and Joel and Ethan stage so many heart-stopping chase scenes from start to finish. But the movie’s ending was where we got our nuts grabbed and our heads exploded, when all the best hopes for an easy life and a happy ending lay laced with bullets, deserving not even to be recounted. As much as we hoped he wouldn’t, there was no doubt that Llewellyn Moss would lose, something the filmmakers don’t let us forget or refute.

I believe that No Country is the kind of film that comes along once in a lifetime, a movie that, in fifty, a hundred years, will rank amongst the best ever made, perhaps the single best movie made in my lifetime. But even more so, I believe with this film, and with those that are sure to come, the Coen brothers have cemented their place not only as master auters, but also as great Americans. They will be remembered along with Franklin and Hawthorne, Hemingway and Edison, as names that represent monumental achievements, but even more importantly, as names that represent the very idea of America, that represent the potential for accomplishment itself. In other words, I drink their milkshake. I drink it all up.


Now, I recognize that no discussion of 2007 movies will suffice without a mention of Juno. So stay tuned...

Mitt out of luck

As i said in my last post, ive been trying to get on geezey for a while because, among other reasons, i wanted to weigh in and give my presidential endorsements before super tuesday. What a difference it could have made.

Had you asked me then who i support for the republican nomination for president, I would've said this:

Mitt Romney. Why, you might ask? Is it because you think he would be a weaker general election candidate than john mccain and make it that much easier for hilary clinton to turn the USA into the soviet union? Nooooooooooo.

In all honesty, I do believe that Mitt Romeny would have been better for this country. First of all, i think the idea that mitt is a panderer is bogus. isn't that the whole point of electoral politics? Who cares what mitt really thinks. isn't the question of interest what he would do once in office? and if the republican establishment wants someone who won't raise taxes or appoint baby-killing judges or let larry and jim buy monogramed bath towels, isnt that what they should get. and isn't mccain, mr. oh no its irresponsible to give rich people tax cuts when poor people are dying for freedom in a poorly planned and unjustified war, just as much of a panderer, now that he wants to make the bush tax cuts permanent. why the flip-flop, grandpa munster?

which brings us to out next issue, something obviously less important than whether people in the top 1% have to forfeit 37% or 41% of their annual income to the federal government: war and peace. Now, McCain is trying to position himself as a latter day winston churchill in this election, as the only man with enough clairvoyance to recognize the imminent threat of islamic fundamentalism, and the only man with enough guts and know-how to silence the appeasers and promote a policy of aggresive containment. now, to me, the implied argument seems to be that, just like the only way to stop hitler was total war, so too is it the only way to stop a bunch of poor, undersexed teenagers in the middle east from unhinging the political foundations of the modern world. I genuinely fear the way a president mccain would react to some incendiary news coming out of iran--like the successful enrichment of uranium (for energy purposes, of course)--or, god forbid, a catastrophic terrorist attack. Obama isn't doing his party justice when he says that mccain represent a continuation of the bush doctrine. mccain would be worse.

Now i have the utmost admiration for mccain. I really do. 1999 was about the time that i began to understand all that stuff in the newspaper, and john mccain was instantly attractive to me. it was his record, his independance, things that still attract voters to him. but most of all it was in the ways in which he was not like his rival, that swaggering, proud-to-be-ignorant governor from texas. That hug in 2004 just about did it for my relationship with mccain. And if every war hero were automatically better than every draft-dodger, then we'd have a president kerry right now, bob dole and george bush sr both wouldve beat clinton, and martin van beuran would never have had the opportunity to become some name that alot of people have heard of before.

so why mitt? well, i think the country could do alot worse than to be run effectively. i mean, politics is so drenched in ideologies and, well, politics, that sometimes we forget to look for that all important quality in our politicians: competence. Now, i'm obviously not one to blindly favor experience over change, but at the very least i could see mitt finding good, cost effective solutions to our recession and energy crisis. militarily, he strikes me alot as an eisenhower, eager to put american resources to work in making for more freedom and less danger around the world, but recognizing the extent to which military commanders don't have the vantage point from which to make reasonable assessments about things like troop levels, budget forecasts, or whether or not england would be pissed if america doesn't protect its sovereign rights over egyptian canals (well, you know what i mean).

But, all this for naught. mitt is out, and goiter-face is in. It will be fun watching him for the next 8 months trying to get republicans to vote for him. And, of course, his last day in the race, mitt couldn't help but make a fool of himself one last time, smiling that "i'm your boss, i'm on your side" smile and declaring that the reason he is getting out of the race is so that he won't help the democrats and thus contribute to a "surrender to terrorism." Ah, republicans. As hard as i try to be not partisan (and i do try hard), they always seem to remind me why i'm a democrat.

stay tuned for my democratic endorsement...that is, when voters (and/or superdelegates) have already decided.

yeeeeea!

ive been trying to think of my password for blogger for like two months now, and then, like a prostitute i pay extra to get rough with, it hit me out of nowhere! the merth beaten worker is back! stay tuned for insightful yet irreverent commentary on this extraordinary voting cycle, in which our deepest desires and most strongly felt ideals are literally at stake, where history will be made, hearts broken, and the future of civilization determined: the oscars.

Also, that whole thing with that black teenager everyone's been talking about.