August 2005 Archives
"It is not comforting to realize that, in the wake of Katrina, bloated bodies are floating on those streets today. But to speak of New Orleans's resilience is simply to cite its history -- a demographic and cultural melting pot of German industry and French and Spanish elitism, of Irish gregariousness and Sicilian emotionalism, of African exuberance and American frontier cussedness that embraces death, too, as a part of life." By way of Mystery of the Vampire, an eloquent paean to the Crescent City by long-time resident Ken Ringle.
"In 2001, FEMA warned that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S. But the Bush administration cut New Orleans flood control funding by 44 percent to pay for the Iraq war." Citing domestic budget cuts and Dubya's disastrous wetlands policies, among other things, Sidney Blumenthal makes a compelling case that the tremendous devastation wrought by Katrina "may not entirely be the result of an act of nature."
As the Gulf drowns in Katrina's wake, Dubya gets his groove on. I may be mistaken, but somehow I can't imagine Clinton stopping to play the saxophone the day after the Oklahoma City bombing. (Then again, this is fully in keeping with Bush's horrifyingly tone-deaf scampering atop the ruins of the Trade Center just after 9/11.) Well, perhaps Dubya presumes he's still on vacation. (Guitar via Medley, 404 via Ed Rants, who's currently offering much quality info and links on Katrina.)
"Broccoli liked 'Layer Cake' star Daniel Craig, 37, but Wilson didn't. Broccoli also thought Australian star Hugh Jackman, 36, who in addition to playing Wolverine in 'X-Men' has appeared in Broadway musicals, wasn't masculine enough. Colin Farrell, 29, was judged too much of a bad boy. Eric Bana, 37, star of 'Troy' and the upcoming 'Munich,' wasn't good-looking enough. Ewan McGregor, 34, was too short." The Hollywood Reporter examines in depth the current state of the new Bond search.
Bush's poll numbers, low since early summer, just keep on plummeting and might soon reach Carter-like proportions. Somehow, I don't think calling the Iraq War the moral equivalent of WWII is going to stem the tide. Nor, I'll hazard, will his making it easier for his corporate cronies to pollute at will. But hey, keep trying, guys. Update: Slate's Fred Kaplan blows further holes in the WWII analogy.
SNL alums Cheri Oteri and Amy Pohler fill out the cast for Richard Kelly's Southland Tales, his followup to Donnie Darko (notwithstanding a writing cred on Domino.) Besides boasting a strange, Darko-ish website, Tales also features a cast that's multiplying faster than transdimensional zombie bunnies, including the Rock, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Seann William Scott, Miranda Richardson, John Larroquette, Jon Lovitz, Jill Ritchie, Will Sasso, Wood Harris, Bai Ling, and Wallace Shawn.
Soon after posting the last entry, I found a new cache of trailers for films around the corner over at Coming Soon: First off, Edward Murrow takes a journalistic stand against McCarthyism (with much explicit contemporary relevance) in the trailer for George Clooney's Good Night and Good Luck, starring David Straitharn, Clooney, Patricia Clarkson, Robert Downey, Jr., Jeff Daniels, and Frank Langella. Then, Charlize Theron braves borderline winds, the mining life, and sexual harassment in the preview for North Country, also with Frances McDormand, Sissy Spacek, Woody Harrelson, Sean Bean, and Richard Jenkins. Meanwhile, law partners John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton look for the big score in Harold Ramis' The Ice Harvest, with Randy Quaid, Connie Nielsen, and Oliver Platt. And, finally, journalist Alison Lohman looks into the racy reasons behind the demise of comedy team Bacon & Firth in Atom Egoyan's Where the Truth Lies (recently saddled with a NC-17), and video gamer Allen Covert pays respect to his elders in the trailer for the Adam-Sandler produced Grandma's Boy. (To be honest, I'm only blogging this last one for the "don't judge me" monkey bit and the too-brief glimpse of the lovely Linda "Lindsey Weir" Cardellini.) Update: Ok, one more: Tilda Swinton, Vincent D'Onofrio, Vince Vaughn, Benjamin Bratt and Keanu Reeves try to help newcomer Lou Pucci stop a nasty habit in the trailer for Thumbsucker, due out in just over two weeks.
In the trailer bin, Philip Seymour Hoffman channels In Cold Blood-era Truman Capote -- I presume that's how he actually sounded -- in the preview for Capote, also with Catherine Keener and Chris Cooper. Elsewhere, 1880s Aussie Guy Pearce gets an offer he probably should refuse in The Proposition, written by Nick Cave and also starring Ray Winstone, John Hurt, Danny Houston, David Wenham, and Emily Watson. Finally, I should've posted this before, but only now found it: the trailer for Martin Scorsese's Dylan-doc No Direction Home, appearing on PBS Sept. 26th and 27th.
"We've gotta crack open your head and scoop out those DVDs." So, I picked up the Simpsons Season Six set today (along with Farscape Starburst 5, Sin City, and Layer Cake), and while normally I'm obliged to speak ill of Fox, I must admit they've done an admirable job in keeping the Simpsons fanboys (such as myself) happy with their Alternative Packaging Program. For only $2.95, they'll mail you a standard Season Six box to replace the plastic Homer Head it currently comes in.
"'I don't believe piracy can be easily beaten; fighting fire with fire by releasing movies on DVD at the same time as cinemas is probably where the industry is heading in the next few years,' said Mr. Jackson." The NY Times discusses King Kong and the current industry effort against movie piracy.
Will Al Swearingen meet his match in Hannibal Lecter? Proving once again that quality character actors love them some Sioux country, Brian Cox joins Deadwood Season Three as "Jack Langrishe, an eccentric producer and theater owner who strives to introduce a modicum of culture to the mean streets of the South Dakota town." (He's likely the earlier rumored openly gay character in love with a male ingenue -- Garrett Dillahunt, perhaps?) (Also posted at Quiddity.) In other HBO news, memo to myself: The Wire Season 3 hits On Demand on Sept. 12, meaning I should probably pick up the service sometime before then.
Obviously, the big story right now is the tremendous and nightmarish devastation wrought by Katrina upon the Gulf, particularly in Louisiana and Mississippi. The first reports suggested that the Big Easy had dodged the bullet when Katrina zigged to the right at the last moment, but the broken levees and rising floodwaters have obliterated that silver lining (which was likely little consolation anyway to the people of Biloxi and Gulfport, who felt Katrina's full wrath.) Now, the news out of N'Orleans, one of America's most unique and historic cities, sounds worse with each passing hour. My thoughts are with the people of New Orleans and the region (and their most esteemed bloggers) as they try to pick up the pieces after this continuing catastrophe.
Hey y'all. After a good deal of traveling (and side-stepping around Katrina), I'm back in Chesapeake, VA, and have broken Berkeley out of the canine correctional facility he was residing at during our Maui sojourn. Later in the week (and just like Tom Thumb's Blues), I'll be heading back up to NYC to begin Year 5 at Hogwarts, or Columbia, as it were.(I'll post Hawaii pics at Flickr once I return to Gotham.)
A number of new Chronicles of Narnia images materialize online, including several of Tilda Swinton's White Witch, James McAvoy's Mr. Tumnus, and Jim Broadbent's Professor.
"It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war ... and I don't think any oil shipments will stop." 700 Club guru and former GOP presidential candidate Pat Robertson calls for the head of Venuezela's Hugo Chavez. (Venezuela is obviously livid, and the Dubya administration, for their part, quickly disavowed the idea.)My, isn't he just the model of Christian forbearance? Some words of wisdom, Pat: Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. (Matthew 26:52)
The Leaky Cauldron procures the international trailer for HP and the Goblet of Fire (Scroll down.) With the exception of that truly terrible falling sequence near the end there, this looks like it could be as entertaining as Azkhaban.
In a bid to spend a few hours out of the unrelenting Maui sunshine this past weekend, we exchanged Aloha for Antarctica and caught the well-received March of the Penguins. Brimming with impressive footage of the Emperor Penguins' arduous yearly breeding cycle in the world's most inhospitable place, and presided over by an avuncular Morgan Freeman, March definitely makes for a pleasant and diverting moviegoing experience, and seemed a great movie to take the kids to. Yet, as appealing as it is, March seems somewhat misplaced on the big screen, given that -- ultimately -- it's not all that different from what you can catch on the Discovery Channel most times of the day...but given the particularly lousy crop of late-summer movie fare at the moment, perhaps there's something to be said for quality nature docs writ large. Regardless, big-screen or small-screen, March of the Penguins is worth viewing, if only to appreciate anew how strange, delicate, unforgiving, and surprising our world can be (and to discover that there's much more to penguins than Opus and Oswald Cobblepot.)
As big-time progressive donors get to institution-building, the Dems try to work out a coherent strategy on the Roberts confirmation hearings and the war in Iraq. Right now I think Russ Feingold's strategy -- taking the heat off Roberts to focus on matters in Baghdad -- is probably the right one, although the party should also try to keep the public eye trained on the misdeeds of Mssrs DeLay, Rove, etc. There should be no wriggling off the hook this time for these well-placed GOP criminals.
"What is needed now is a framework for an international crime of terrorism...Coming up with such a framework would perhaps seem impossible, except that one already exists...The ongoing war against pirates is the only known example of state vs. nonstate conflict until the advent of the war on terror, and its history is long and notable. More important, there are enormous potential benefits of applying this legal definition to contemporary terrorism." Via Breaching the Web, author Douglas Burgess makes an intriguing case in Legal Affairs for using long-standing anti-piracy laws to fight terrorism. Definitely worth a read, and not only because I have pirates-on-the-brain after finishing the literary (and highly-condensable) exploits of Jack Shaftoe, King of the Vagabonds earlier this week.)
"There's too much caffeine in your bloodstream, and a lack of real spice in your life..." Death by Caffeine, by way of DYFL. As a daily consumer of Red Bull, I'm comforted to discover that I'd have to consume 128 cans of said energy drink to drop dead on the spot.
"We...know that Bush 'won' Ohio by 51-48%, but statewide results were not matched by the court-supervised hand count of the 147,400 absentee and provisional ballots in which Kerry received 54.46% of the vote. In Cuyahoga County, Ohio the number of recorded votes was more than 93,000 greater than the number of registered voters. More importantly national exit polls showed Kerry winning in 2004. However, It was only in precincts where there were no paper trails on the voting machines that the exit polls ended up being different from the final count." None dare call it stolen? A new report by Pomona professor Dennis Loo offers considerable evidence that election 2004 witnessed more GOP monkey business than has been previously reported in the mainstream press.
"The film was to be a manifesto for Abramoff; a Rambo-like morality tale and a grand indictment of communism -- his Reagan Doctrine parable in action-packed Technicolor. And in the process of conceiving of and making it, Abramoff helped groom an African despot, rose to high levels in the K Street food chain, and got to play international spy." Salon's James Verini discloses the sordid tale of Red Scorpion and GOP bagman Jack Abramoff's brief flirtation with the movie biz.
"And that's why John Roberts doesn't alarm me much. The same conservatism that leads him to decry judicial overreaching in the privacy and civil rights contexts is part and parcel of a larger conservatism that distrusts reckless grandiosity...Roberts cares a lot about looking temperate, and that isn't a bad thing in a judge." As Senators Ted Kennedy and Patrick Leahy turn up the heat on the Roberts nod, Slate's Dahlia Lithwick argues that, at the very least, he seems temperamentally unsuited to be a judicial bomb-thrower. That's good, 'cause even with today's news of a missing civil rights folder and a possible conflict-of-interest in a terrorism case, there doesn't yet seem to be a silver bullet that could derail this nomination. Update: Dahlia Lithwick reconsiders after pondering Roberts' "Woman Problem."
Some trailers from afar: Psychiatrist Ewan MacGregor goes slightly mad (with Naomi Watts and Ryan Gosling) in the trailer for Stay, and Harry fends off Triwizard contestants and schoolboy crushes alike in this teaser for the trailer for Goblet of Fire.
From White Witch to Gallic chanteuse, Tilda Swinton gets set to play Nico in a forthcoming biopic scripted by Blade Runner scribes David and Janet Peoples.
The X3 cast fills out with Michael "Tanner" Murphy, Bill "Predator" Duke, and Olivia Williams as Angel's Dad, a White House politico, and Moira McTaggart respectively, as well as House of Sand and Fog's Shohreh Aghdashloo as Dr. Kavita Rao. Hmmm. I really like the Olivia Williams casting (even if she isn't Scottish), but, in general, X3 is starting to sound more and more like an overstuffed rush job.
Edgar Ray Killen, the 80-year-old Klansman convicted two months ago of masterminding the infamous 1964 murders of Cheney, Schwerner, and Goodman, is out on $600,000 bond pending his appeal. Hmmm. Precedent is precedent, I suppose. Still, kinda defeats the purpose, doesn't it?
Well, so much for the "Allan Houston Rule." Word is Houston will not be waived by the Knicks (although he will likely be retiring.) A semantic distinction, perhaps, but one that looks to save the New York organization quite a bit of money.
"What they're looking for is how many names can they give -- and by names I mean members of Congress or other prominent people -- and what kind of message do they want to send." Republican lobbyist and Boss DeLay flunky "Casino Jack" Abramoff is indicted for conspiracy and wire fraud, paving the way for further inquiries into congressional criminality. Let's hope the prosecutors are able to sidestep the GOP powers-that-be and ascertain just how deep this rabbit hole goes...
More trailers for your perusal: Jake Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard, Chris Cooper and Jamie Foxx brave Operation Desert Storm in the trailer for Sam Mendes' Jarhead, Charlize Theron channels Liquid Television for Frances McDormand in MTV's live-action version of Aeon Flux, and Robert Downey Jr., Michelle Monaghan, and Val Kilmer attempt to solve a Hollywood murder mystery in this look at Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang.
Aloha and mahalo from lovely, splendiferous Maui, where -- textbook work complete -- I'll be spending the next few weeks swimming, snorkeling, hiking, recharging, and reading the occasional tome on New Era progressivism. What with the sun, sand, and sea, I expect the lax updating schedule of the past few weeks will continue for the duration...Sorry about that. I'll make it up come September.
Space Adventures, the firm behind Dennis Tito's 2001 trip to the ISS, is looking for two takers for a $100 million moonshot. Well, that's a pretty penny and no mistake. But if they're forced to switch to a lottery system to procure the necessary funds, I'd buy a ticket or three.
The official Bob Dylan site retools for No Direction Home, a 2-hour documentary on Bob circa 1961-1966 and directed by none other than Martin Scorsese. It'll premiere on PBS on 9/26 and 9/27 (and on DVD 9/20), and will be accompanied by a seventh volume in the Bootleg series.
"Black inhabitants of the 'neat little settlement,' the [1856] article said, 'present a pleasing contrast in their habits and the appearance of their dwellings to the Celtic occupants, in common with hogs and goats, of the shanties in the lower part of the Park...The policemen find it difficult to persuade them out of the idea which has possessed their simple minds, that the sole object of the authorities in making the Park is to procure their expulsion from the homes which they occupy. It is to be hoped that their removal will be effected with as much gentleness as possible.'" A team of archaeologists from Barnard and City College use ground-penetrating radar to probe under Central Park for remains of Seneca Village, a 19th century settlement displaced to make way for Olmstead & Vaux's grand refuge and left forgotten for over a century.
Keira Knightley explains her bounty hunter backstory in the new extended trailer for Domino. This still seems like a Tony Scott schlockfest -- In fact, it looks like outtakes from Man on Fire. But, as I said last time, I'm curious to see what screenwriter Richard Kelly has brought to the table.
Lots of casting news today on the horror remake front...first, Leelee Sobieski and Ellen Burstyn have joined Neil La Bute's Wicker Man, in what sounds like the Britt Ekland and Christopher Lee roles respectively. And, likely appearing as Gregory Peck and Lee Remick in a new version of The Omen are Liev Schrieber and Julia Stiles. (For their part, the AICN guys think they've found the new Damien.)
"The self-described 'prince of darkness' appears blinded by the light. He cannot see himself as everyone else does. He has called so much attention to himself that he casts no shadow at all. He is completely exposed." Sidney Blumenthal puts the skewers to Bob Novak.
As seen on Slate, Iraqi insurgents are apparently using dogs as unwitting suicide bombers. Perhaps it reveals a fundamental inability on my part to confront the grotesque human costs of this conflict, but this...this disgusts me.
I didn't post here on the official anniversaries, but nevertheless: a moment of silence for the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, sixty years ago this week.
Welcome to the layer cake, son. The new trailer for Roman Polanski's Oliver Twist is out, with our first looks at Fagin (Ben Kingsley) and Bill Sykes (Jamie Foreman).
"I think probably the first two films were a little too saccharine and glib, even for Harry Potter fans." As word breaks that Goblet of Fire might well be PG-13, Lord Voldemort emerges from hiding to parselmouth the Chris Columbus films. Ok, so You-Know-Who might not be all bad.
Also in fantasy film news, His Dark Materials gets a new director in Anand Tucker, he of Hilary and Jackie and the upcoming Shopgirl. I haven't seen either of these films, but at least it sounds like he's already put some thought into it.
"I see ourselves alongside U2 and R.E.M. more than any of the bands we came up with, although really we don't fit in and we never have, and I've come to embrace that." Dave Gahan and Depeche Mode start up the publicity for Playing the Angel, their new album due out in October. The first single -- "Precious" -- has leaked, and after a couple of listens I already like it better than anything on the last album, with the possible exception of "When the Body Speaks." It's good to hear Dave, Andy, and Marty kicking the old-school synth flavors again.
Wanna see something really scary? GOP freakshow Rick Santorum invokes the Founders to rail against the pursuit of happiness. Yes, Rick, the Founders did care about public responsibility, republican citizenship, and the common good, and they went out of their way to explain that these revolutionary American ideals were most assuredly not the province of narrow-minded theocratic nutjobs such as yourself.
In the trailer bin, Elijah Wood pulls double duty delving into strange and exotic Old World cultures in the trailers for Green Street (nee Hooligans) and the Liev Schrieber-directed version of Jonathan Foer's Everything is Illuminated. Of these two, I think I'd rather see the former.
Hey...still busy over on this end with the textbook project. At this point, I'm about ready to up and pull a Novak, but, fortunately, the end is in sight.
"'He's a friend,' the president said...'He's testified in public, and I believe him.'" In a roundtable with Texas journalists, Dubya backs Karl Rove and Rafael Palmeiro, as well as (somewhat half-heartedly) the teaching of "intelligent design." A bit of a gullible sort, ain't he?
The Leaky Cauldron procures several shots from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, including new looks at the Triwizard contestants, Cho Chang, and Mad-Eye Moody here at right.
Well, that's that, then. As expected (and although he may be late to the party), Dubya has appointed Bolton to the UN ambassadorship by fiat. Well, the Dems pushed as hard as they could on this one, and only George Voinovich ended up seeing the light. Shame on supposed moderates Lincoln Chafee and Chuck Hagel for letting this freakshow get out of committee in the first place.
Trailers: Nick Cage, Ethan Hawke, Jared Leto, and Bridget Moynahan exercise their Second Amendment rights in The Lord of War, and Jennifer Aniston gives up Mark Ruffalo for Kevin Costner in Rumor Has It, Rob Reiner's riff on The Graduate, also starring Shirley MacLaine, Kathy Bates, and Mena Suvari.
I'm deluged with a freelance project right now (for a history textbook), and expect to be so for the remainder of the week. So it'll likely be quiet around here...sorry.
