January 2006 Archives

"'Clearly, Blunt has demonstrated great leadership; Cantor has, too,' Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) said. 'Are we saying we don't trust anyone in our leadership? That makes the case that everybody in Washington is on the take, that we're all corrupt.'" Yeah, that sounds about right...Sensing electoral doom in the growing public perception that the GOP is rife with corruption, Boehner and Shadegg contemplate joining forces to knock off Boss DeLay's heir apparent, Roy Blunt, in the House leadership race.

"Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated." Coretta Scott King, 1927-2006. Said Rep. John Lewis today, ""She was the glue that held the civil rights movement together."

In related news, a site is chosen for the National Museum of African American History and Culture (at 14th and Constitution NW, near the Washington Monument.) As I argued before, some museum along such lines on our nation's Mall is long overdue.

Well, That's that, then. Justices Stevens, Ginsburg, Souter, Breyer, and Kennedy: Please take your vitamins.

The 2006 Oscar nominations are announced, with, to noone's surprise, Brokeback Mountain leading the pack. Most of the major categories seem to be already locked up -- Picture (Brokeback), Director (Ang Lee), Actor (Hoffman for Capote), Actress (Witherspoon for Walk the Line, barring a Huffman upsurge), Supporting Actress (Weisz, The Constant Gardener.) Of the Best Picture candidates (Brokeback, Capote, Munich, Good Night, and Good Luck), the only one I haven't seen is Crash, but given its very mixed reviews, I'd be extremely surprised if it's a better movie than Syriana or The New World.

Biggest snub? Jeff Daniels should be in Best Supporting Actor for The Squid and the Whale (William Hurt took his slot for A History of Violence.) Speaking of Supporting Actor, that category's a two-man race between Clooney for Syriana and Paul Giamatti for Sideways. Giamatti's been nominated for Cinderella Man, but many of his votes will be for the prior, passed-over film, just as Jim Broadbent won for Iris (over Ian McKellen as Gandalf) because of his performance in Moulin Rouge. Also, say what you will about Episode III, but it should be nominated in the visual effects category, even if Kong should win.

The most competitive of the major awards looks to be in the original screenplay division (Adapted will go to Team Brokeback, McMurtry & Ossana). If Clooney doesn't win director or supporting actor, he could very well win here for GN & GL. Or, the academy might decide to reward a movie they otherwise overlooked: Syriana, Squid & the Whale, or Match Point. Hard to say -- I guess I'll go with GN & GL for now.

I already mentioned this in the Feingold post below, but it merits its own space: The brief Alito filibuster is already over, with nineteen Dems voting for cloture. There are a lot of blogs calling for the heads of the "Vichy Dems" right now, and, true, they're not looking too good right now. But, frankly, neither is anyone else. The whole thing reeks of mismanagement and rank opportunism across the party.

I'm with Walter Shapiro: "In hindsight, the battle was effectively over after the first day of the Senate hearings when the criminally verbose Judiciary Committee Democrats failed to sustain a clear and consistent anti-Alito argument with all those cable networks broadcasting live. When politicians and interest-group leaders know that they are going to lose, they automatically retreat to a can-I-get-anything-out-of-the-wreckage calculus. So moderate senators from red states like South Dakota's Tim Johnson decide that they can buttress their independent credentials with home-state conservatives by supporting Alito, since the outcome would be the same no matter how he voted. Groups like People for the American Way realize that shrill calls for a filibuster might preserve their fundraising base even if their years of urgent appeals to prevent a right-wing Supreme Court takeover failed to change a single Senate vote. And Kerry -- whose late entry into the anti-Alito fray can be partly excused by his not serving on the Judiciary Committee -- is also aware that such dramatic gestures help him maintain an up-to-date, ready-for-'08 e-mail list of Democratic activists."

At any rate, the silver lining of this judicial nightmare (other than Judge Kennedy's potential unpredictability) is that tomorrow, after Alito is voted through and Dubya gives his State of the Union, the GOP are officially out of good news. From tomorrow on, all the stories on tap, the continuing Iraq quagmire notwithstanding, are hearings and investigations -- into the NSA wiretaps, into Abramoff, into Plamegate, into Katrina. So let's pick ourselves up off the floor and get it together -- We've got serious questions to ask of this administration, and, more importantly, we've got ourselves an election in nine months.

With a tip-off from the Progressive Patriots Fund, I had the opportunity yesterday to catch Sen. Russ Feingold speak on the Patriot Act and the NSA wiretapping scandal over at Cardozo Law School. (Their pics are a lot better than mine -- I forgot to charge my batteries, and thus only got in 2 or 3 shots before my camera died on me.) And how was he? Well, all-in-all, he came off as a convincing candidate for the election ahead, as well as an impressive, informed, and personable fellow. To be honest, I found his remarks a bit lawyerly (then again, he's a lawyer speaking before a law school, so that's not really a fair criticism), but, taken in full, he seemed a committeed progressive and a refreshingly candid leader, the type of dynamic, independent thinker the Senate should be teeming with, if the system came anywhere close to working these days.



The gist of Sen. Feingold's remarks was thus: Al Qaeda is the central threat facing America and has been since 9/11. Yet, instead of bringing the nation together to eliminate this terrorist organization, the Dubya White House has chosen time and time again to endanger our national security and compromise our most fundamental American values for their own ideological or power-hoarding purposes. (Iraq, Guantanamo, extraordinary rendition, secret gulags, you name it.) Along those lines and as we now all know, the Patriot Act, which only Feingold voted against in 2001, contains some terrible provisions therein, the most notorious example affecting Middle America being Section 215 (which gives law enforcement, among other things, the right to see what you've been reading.)

Yet, as per the norm, Dubya has refused to admit that it's even possible that something might be wrong with the Patriot Act now that it's up for renewal -- only that it's necessary to defeat the evildoers and that any microscopic change in the statute could rend the fabric of freedom irreparably. (Despite this now-somewhat hoary ploy, Feingold and others have succeeded in blocking a permanent blanket extension for now, as y'all know if you've been visiting here lately.) And, of course, Dubya has taken this same tack of obfuscation and fear-mongering to cover up his brazen wiretapping power-grab -- which, according to Congress's own research arm, broke at least two laws and counting.

Again, this story is not news to many Dems out there, but Feingold laid it out in clear, comprehensible, and systematic fashion. (The only "breaking news" made was the Senator announcing this letter to Gonzales, asking him why he, in effect, lied to the Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearings about the NSA wiretaps.) And he had some good lines throughout -- In reply to Rove's ridiculous claim that Dems were "pre-9/11", Feingold quipped that the GOP suffered from a "pre-1776" mentality these days. (He also retold the recent Patrick Henry exchange.) To be honest, I'd liked to have heard more in this vein -- In terms of breaking down the legislative legerdemain and legal issues at hand, Feingold was superb. But I thought the speech needed more narrative sweep and rhetorical grandeur, more explanation of why this battle matters so much to the workings of the republic. He doesn't have to turn into Robert Byrd overnight. Still, I thought the remarks could have benefited from more dramatic heft and historical resonance: Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Lincoln, Wilson...they're all relevant here. (Then again, as I said above, I was an historian sitting in a room full of lawyers, so I was a tougher sell than most.)

Along those lines, if there was a problem with this presentation, it's that the Senator, while clearly outraged, at times seemed much less livid about all this than many in the audience, who occasionally sounded ready to hoist the black flag. (In fact, many will no doubt be happy to hear that Feingold was asked twice "why Democrats are so lame." As he noted (and as the blogosphere can attest this week), if a crowd in New York City is this irate with the party, the Dems might be in serious trouble nationwide in November. Still, he also emphasized that the Democrats could be more effective fighters if they actually controlled a house of Congress -- You can't hold hearings if you're in the minority.

In terms of other questions, Feingold said he supports and will take part in the very late-developing (and now already defunct) Alito filbuster (Roll Call.) In fact, he thought the Dems made a crucial mistake in capitulating to the original "Gang of 14" compromise, arguing cogently that Dems have seen nothing for it and may well have had the votes to win Catkiller's game of nuclear chicken. Since Casino Jack and lobbying reform seemed too big a subject to address competently in the time allotted, I asked him a question about his thoughts on the NYT decision to spike the NSA story for a year, his general view of the mass media's performance in serving as a check on these types of executive abuses, and ('cause it seemed apropos) his thoughts on the burgeoning blogosphere's role in all this. He didn't really go after the Times decision, and said that, in terms of the recent Patriot Act debate, he thought the press had actually done an ok job. Regarding blogs, he called the Internet "a miracle for populist politics," which was a good enough soundbite that everyone in my row dutifully wrote it down at the same time.

And, of course, Sen. Feingold was asked -- a couple of times -- whether or not he was running for President in 2008. Naturally, he played it coy -- After all, we still have just under two years before the Iowa caucus. But, for what it's worth, I was impressed by him -- He's not a first-class emoter like Edwards or Clinton, of course. Instead, he comes across as a highly intelligent, capable, and nuanced thinker, a la Bradley, Kerry, or Gore on his better days. But unlike those three, he also seemed much more comfortable in his own skin, more naturally himself at the podium, and -- most importantly -- more content to play the maverick if his lefty principles dictate thus. (Although, as I said, I'd like to see him tone down the lawyer-ese and rev up more Wellstone-ish fire if he does make a White House run.) I suppose there's a small, bordering-on-infinitesimal chance that Rodham Clinton, Biden, Warner, or someone else might drop all the "New Democrat" protective camouflage this time around and begin loudly and undefensively proclaiming progressive principles to the Heavens. But, until that unlikely event, my candidate in the 2008 Democratic primary is Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. (Update: 1776 link via Medley.)

Joining Imelda Staunton for Year 5 at Hogwarts, veteran actor George Harris will play Kingsley Shacklebolt in the forthcoming Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (set to begin filming next month.) You may recognize him as Capt. Katanga in Raiders of the Lost Ark, or, more recently, as Morty in Layer Cake.

A hearty congrats to good friends (and recent hosts) Dave and Jessica, on the birth of their first son, Oliver Ellis Demian, over the weekend. May he be twice the baller (and half the Kobe fan) his old man is.

I've never read Laurence Sterne's The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (and was surprised to discover that this pre-mo fellow Sterne apparently beat out overhyped authors like David Foster Wallace and Dave Eggers to the sprawling po-mo novel by, oh, two hundred years.) So, to be honest, I've no clue as to whether Michael Winterbottom's Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story succeeds as an adaptation (or Adaptation) of Sterne's tome or not. I do know that this Shandy, while not as engaging as Winterbottom and Coogan's 24 Hour Party People, is a breezy, detour-ridden romp through the life (well, birth) of Tristram Shandy, the business of filmmaking, and the public persona of the inimitable Steve Coogan.

After some discussion of the evocative shade of actor Rob Brydon (Rob Brydon)'s teeth, Tristam Shandy (Steve Coogan), a la 24HPP, emerges from his manor to introduce himself to us, the audience. He then proceeds to tell his life story -- but wait, first we need to talk about his father, Walter Shandy (Steve Coogan), and the strange circumstances attending Tristram's conception and birth. But, before we finish that digression, we meet Steve Coogan (Steve Coogan), who, while playing both Walter and Tristram Shandy in a film version of Tristram Shandy, must navigate among his visiting girlfriend Jenny (Kelly MacDonald), his possible new girlfriend Jenny (Naomie Harris), his long-suffering director (Jeremy Northam) and screenwriter (Ian Hart), and his co-star and erstwhile rival, Rob Brydon...who, as it turns out, can do a mean Steve Coogan impression.

Meta enough for ya? (If not, you can throw in Gillian Anderson, Shirley Henderson, and Stephen Fry as Gillian Anderson, Shirley Henderson, and Stephen Fry respectively. And also skulking about the set are Shaun of the Dead's Dylan Moran, Extras' Ashley Jensen, Dirty Pretty Things' Benedict Wong, and even Mr. Weasley (Mark Williams), as the resident historical consultant/martinet.) Well, if it all sounds like two hours of breaking-the-fourth-wall head games and inside baseball, it sorta is. Still, this cock and bull story is also consistently funny, particularly if you find Steve Coogan's dry not-so-self-effacing wit amusing. And, when you get right down to it, there just aren't that many eighteenth-century literary adaptations out there that offer up chance circumcisions, Al Pacino jokes, and the sight of a grown man being lowered upside-down into a styrofoam womb.

"So what does real reform look like? There is no simple answer or silver bullet. If history is any judge, each round of ethics reforms lasts only a few years before lobbyists, lawyers and lawmakers pierce it full of holes. But ethics crusaders still hope to capitalize on this rare political moment, hurled forth on a powerful wave of corruption scandals plaguing the Republican Party." Salon's Michael Scherer outlines five lobbying reforms that'll determine whether Congress is serious about cleaning up the system in the wake of Casino Jack.

In the trailer bin, you can see the seed of Satan swinging in the new teaser for Omen 666 (Yes, another needless remake. But I like the cast: Liev Schreiber, Julia Stiles, Mia Farrow, David Thewlis, Michael Gambon, and Pete Postlethwaite.) Or, take a visit with another original temptress in the trailer for The Notorious Bettie Page, with Gretchen Mol (That's Gretchen Mol?), Lili Taylor, and David Straitharn (as Estes Kefauver.)

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes." That flaming liberal Dwight Eisenhower's somber farewell address to the nation is the historical and thematic anchor for Eugene Jarecki's documentary Why We Fight, a sobering disquisition on American militarism and foreign policy since 9/11. In essence, Why We Fight is the movie Fahrenheit 9/11 should have been. Like F911, this film preaches to the choir, but it also makes a more substantive critique of Dubya diplomacy and the 9/11-Iraq switcheroo, with much less of the grandstanding that marred Moore's earlier documentary (and drove right-wing audiences berzerk.)

Sadly, the basic tale here is all-too-familiar by now. Ensconced in Dubya's administration from the word go, the right-wing think-tank crowd (Wolfowitz, Perle, Kristol, etc.) used the tragedy of 9/11 as a pretext to enact all their neocon fantasies (spelled out in this 2000 Project for a New American Century report), beginning in Iraq. Taken into consideration with Cheney the Military-Contractor-in-Chief doling out fat deals to his Halliburton-KBR cronies from the Vice-President's office, and members of Congress meekly signing off on every military funding bill that comes down the pike (partly because, as the film points out, weapons systems such as the B-1 or F-22 have a part built in every state), it seems uncomfortably clear that President Eisenhower's grim vision has come to pass.

To help him rake this muck, Jarecki shrewdly gives face-time not only to learned critics of recent foreign-policy -- CIA vet Chalmers Johnson, Gore Vidal (looking unwell) -- but also to the neocons themselves. Richard Perle is here, saying (as always) insufferably self-serving things, and Bill Kristol glows like a kid in a candy store when he gets to talk up his role in fostering Dubya diplomacy. (Karen Kwiatkowski, a career military woman who watched the neocon coup unfold within the corridors of the Pentagon, also delivers some keen insights.) And, when discussing the corruption that festers in the heart of our Capitol, Jarecki brings out not only Charles Lewis of the Center for Public Integrity but that flickering mirage of independent-minded Republicanism, John McCain. (In fact, Jarecki encapsulates the frustrating problem with McCain in one small moment: Right after admitting to the camera that Cheney's no-bid KBR deals "look bad", the Senator happens to get a call from the Vice-President. In his speak-of-the-devil grimace of bemused worry, you can see him mentally falling into line behind the administration, as always.)

To be sure, Why We Fight has some problems. There's a central tension in the film between the argument that Team Dubya is a corrupt administration of historical proportions and the notion that every president since Kennedy has been party to an increasingly corrupt system, and it's never really resolved satisfactorily here. Jarecki wants you to think that this documentary is about the rise of the Imperial Presidency across five decades, but, some lip service to Tonkin notwithstanding, the argument here is grounded almost totally in the Age of Dubya. (I don't think it's a bad thing, necessarily, but it is the case.) And, sometimes the critique seems a little scattershot -- Jarecki seems to fault the Pentagon both for KBR's no-bid contracts and, when we see Lockheed and McDonnell-Douglas salesmen going head-to-head, for bidding on contracts. (Still, his larger point is valid -- As Chalmers Johnson puts it, "When war becomes that profitable, you're going to see more of it.")

Also, the film loses focus at times and meanders along tangents -- such as the remembrances of two Stealth Fighter pilots on the First Shot Fired in the Iraq war, or the glum story of an army recruit in Manhattan looking to turn his life around. This latter tale, along with the story of Wilton Sekzer, a retired Vietnam Vet and NYPD sergeant who lost his son on 9/11 and wants somebody to pay, are handled with more grace and less showmanship than similar vignettes in Michael Moore's film, but they're in the same ballpark. (As an aside, I was also somewhat irked by shots of NASA thrown in with the many images of missile tests and ordnance factories. Ok, both involve rockets, research, and billions of dollars, but space exploration and war are different enough goals that such a comparison merits more unpacking.)

Nevertheless, Why We Fight is well worth-seeing, and hopefully, this film will make it out to the multiplexes. If nothing else, it'll do this country good to ponder anew both a president's warning about the "disastrous rise of misplaced power," and a vice-president's assurance that we'll be "greeted as liberators."

Nothing if not textbook and by-the-numbers (Coach Haskell would be proud), Disney's Glory Road -- the story of the 1966 NCAA Champion Texas Western Miners, the first basketball team in tournament history to feature five black starters -- still makes for a decent genre matinee. It's not a movie that'll light the world on fire by any means, but it hits its beats decently, and benefits from amiable performances from Josh Lucas and Emily Deschanel right on down the bench. I wish the movie had stayed more with the historical game plan it marked out in the opening credits -- and that the basketball scenes were more engrossing -- but, all in all, Glory Road is a journeyman sports pic.

A synopsis here is probably overkill, suffice to say that a well-meaning disciplinarian coach (Josh Lucas) rides into El Paso, circa 1965, to try to mold a championship basketball team out of a triracial group of college athletes. Do these youngsters overcome their cultural differences, learn there's a method to Coach's madness, and become a Team? Do they play well enough to get to the Big Dance? Well, I'll leave that for you to discover. The main -- ok, the only -- thing that differentiates Glory Road from its many predecessors is its period flavor. These players don't just have to worry about the usual assortment of college problems: They're also caught up in the middle of the civil rights revolution -- and the white backlash -- across the South, and have to contend with brutal acts of racism off the court as well as the usual opposing teams. George Will recently questioned whether this team was as history-making as it's made out to be here. Well, ok, but, in a way, that's beside the point. By bringing race and the civil rights struggle to the fore here, Glory Road acts as a corrective to the main flaw in what's otherwise a better basketball film, Hoosiers. As Spike Lee points out in Best Seat in the House, it's hard to watch that film, particularly its final game, and not feel at times that its an uncomfortably white basketball flick.

Speaking of Spike Lee's book, it also kinda ruined some of Glory Road for me. Therein, Lee (pre-He Got Game) spends a chapter calling out ridiculous basketball scenes in movies -- watching unathletic actors dunk on 6-foot rims, etc. And, while the rims look the right height in Glory Road, I have to admit, none of the basketball scenes are all that engaging. They're cut too close, there's barely a sense of plays developing, and very few shots seem to leave the actors' hands to go into the basket. (For that matter, you don't really get a sense of what various players' strengths or weaknesses are here, other than that Bobby Joe Hill (Derek Luke) has a nice handle and Nevil Shed (Al Shearer) has a tendency to disappear in the paint. What's more, Coach's advice throughout basically can be summed up as "You can do it!" -- Not a lot of play-calling going on.) Still, for what it is -- an uplifting vignette of sports history -- Glory Road is solid enough. Formulaic, sure, but no harm, no foul.

"Extraordinary! On the page it looked nothing. The beginning simple, almost comic. Just a pulse - bassoons and basset horns - like a rusty squeezebox. Then suddenly - high above it - an oboe, a single note, hanging there unwavering, till a clarinet took over and sweetened it into a phrase of such delight! This was no composition by a performing monkey! This was a music I'd never heard. Filled with such longing, such unfulfillable longing, it had me trembling. It seemed to me that I was hearing a voice of God." A very happy 250th birthday to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. (And, just to be fair to that patron saint of mediocrity, Salieri turns 256 in August.)

"The Nixon Library has a history of extreme politicization -- the library has seldom hosted serious historians, who tend to be at least somewhat critical of Nixon, more typically showcasing assorted Nixon apologists and right-wing pundits -- and so the imminent transfer remains worrisome." Historian David Greenberg explains how, over thirty years after Watergate and on the eve of finally joining the official presidential library system, the Nixon Library is still trying to resuscitate its namesake's image, to the detriment of sound history.

Using the relatively new technique of gravitational microlensing, astronomers discover their "most Earth-like planet yet", orbiting a star in Sagittarius 20,000 light-years away. While this planet -- currently named OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb -- is likely too cold for habitation, "'we may predict with reasonable probability that microlensing will discover planets with masses like that of Earth at a similar distance from their stars and with comparable surface temperature,' said study co-author Bohdan Paczynski from Princeton University."

"This extremity of Bush's position emerges most clearly in a 42-page document issued by the Department of Justice last week. As Andrew Cohen, a CBS legal analyst, wrote in an online commentary, 'The first time you read the "White Paper," you feel like it is describing a foreign country guided by an unfamiliar constitution.' To develop this observation a bit further, the nation implied by the document would be an elective dictatorship, governed not by three counterpoised branches of government but by a secretive, possibly benign, awesomely powerful king." As Dubya embarks on another weeklong campaign of fear and distortion (as per standard Rovian operating procedure), Slate's Jacob Weisberg gapes at the audacity of Bush's brazenly unconstitutional ploy for power. "[I]n his white paper, Bush as much as declares: 'I determine what my words mean and I alone determine what yours mean, too.'...Bush's message to the courts, like his message to Congress, is: Make way, subjects."

In related news, Senate opposition to the Patriot Act -- All the Dems and only four measly Republicans -- seems to be holding firm for now, meaning that the old, unrevised version will remain in effect for the time being. Of course, if King George actually possessed the powers he's arrogantly allocated to himself of late, there would be no need for a Senate vote on the Patriot Act at all. Hopefully, Arlen Specter understands the danger in these breathtaking assertions of unconstitutional power by Dubya, and will make his forthcoming Senate Judiciary hearings count for something. After all, given this administration's blatant power grab, it's no longer hyperbole to say that our republic is at stake.

In movie news, the first few pics of Benicio del Toro in costume as Stephen Soderbergh's Che are now online.

"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." Really, Dubya? As Looka and the WP point out, two different government reports suggested the damage Katrina would cause to New Orleans in the days before it hit. "The NISAC paper warned that a storm of Katrina's size would 'likely lead to severe flooding and/or levee breaching' and specifically noted the potential for levee failures along Lake Pontchartrain.. So, yet again, the president has lied to the American people and stonewalled congressional investigations into his actions. They used to call these impeachable offenses -- Now, we call them Wednesday.

Peja for Artest? That's one more nail in the coffin of the Kings team of old, and, to my mind, probably a bad move on Sacramento's part. I always had Latrell Sprewell's back when he came to the Knicks after the Carlesimo episode, but Ron Artest -- unlike Spree -- seems like both a legitimate head case and a locker room cancer. As for Peja, he should have no problem filling the Reggie Miller role in Indiana's offense, but that still probably won't put the Pacers in contention with Detroit. At any rate, hopefully this going through will break the gridlock on trades, and we'll start to see some movement around the league. Update: It begins, with Wally World for Ricky Davis. Advantage: T-Wolves.

"So, Mr. Orange, you're tellin' me this very good friend of mine, who did four years for my father, who in four years never made a deal, no matter what they dangled in front of him, you're telling me that now, that now this man is free, and we're making good on our commitment to him, he's just gonna decide, out of the f**king blue, to rip us off? Why don't you tell me what really happened?" R.I.P. Chris Penn 1965-2006. (Salon reposted an appreciation of Penn by Cintra Wilson here.)

"'In 1994, when the Congress was taken over by Republicans, there were 4,000 earmarks on appropriations bills,' [McCain] told the committee. 'Last year there were 15,000. It's disgraceful, this process.'" A Senate Committee chaired by Susan Collins and Joe Lieberman began discussing the Senate's post-Abramoff cleanup today, with McCain, Feingold and others calling for systematic and comprehensive reform, including the end of "earmarking" (i.e. adding pork to appropriations bills.) "McCain said he was especially bothered that at the end of the last congressional session, various extraneous appropriations were 'larded onto the money that was supposed to be devoted to the men and women in the military and their ability to conduct the war on terror.'"

Entertainment mergers abound of late, with Disney re-acquiring Pixar (a deal which plants Steve Jobs on the throne of the Magic Kingdom), and UPN and the WB combining to form one network, CW.

"Judge Alito's record and his testimony have led me to conclude that his impulse to defer to the executive branch would make him a dangerous addition to the Supreme Court at a time when cases involving executive overreaching in the name of fighting terrorism are likely to be such an important part of the Court's work." Although the Senate Judiciary Dems (including Feingold) lined up against him, Sam Alito made it out of committee on a 10-8 party-line vote. Now, with his nomination before the full Senate, and with Nebraska Dem Ben Nelson joining the GOP majority, it seems, unfortunately, that the "worst nightmare of liberal democrats" will come to pass, and Alito will join the Roberts court. (For what it's worth, Nelson wasn't alone in his apostasy: Santorum challenger Bob Casey also came out for the judge.) Well, let's hope Justice Alito takes a less forgiving look at executive encroachment than has Judge Alito. (Casey link via Medley.) Update: While the NYT says filibuster, Dems Robert Byrd and Tim Johnson back Alito. (Of course, if the NYT hadn't sat on the NSA story for a year, perhaps we could have nipped Alito in the bud back in November 2004.)

"The water expert said he told company officials at the base that they would have to notify the military. 'They told me it was none of my concern and to keep my mouth shut,' he said." Ah, the perks of a no-bid contract. As e-mail records prove, those patriots at Halliburton, Dick Cheney's favorite corporate cronies, have been knowingly exposing some soldiers to contaminated water, despite being warned by their own employees about the danger. "Another former Halliburton employee who worked at the base, Ken May of Louisville, said there were numerous instances of diarrhea and stomach cramps."

Here's a soon-to-be-valuable resource for the morbid moviegoer: the Movie Deaths Database, an "outpost dedicated to documenting death scenes in films," replete with sorting categories such as Blaze of Glory, Contrived Self-Defense, Not Quite Dead, Master/Pupil, and Pointless. Oh, the humanity. (Via Triptych Cryptic.)

"The voting section is always subject to political pressure and tension. But I never thought it would come to this...I was there in the Reagan years, and this is worse." With the help of former career officials who've resigned in disgust, the Post delves deeper into the partisan corruption of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division on Dubya's watch. "The Bush administration has...initiated relatively few cases under Section 2, the main anti-discrimination provision of the Voting Rights Act, filing seven lawsuits over the past five years -- including the department's first reverse-discrimination complaint on behalf of white voters...By comparison, department records show, 14 Section 2 lawsuits were filed during the last two years of Bill Clinton's presidency alone."

And, in related news, Salon's Will Evans uncovers a crooked Dubya-appointed federal judge, James Payne of the 10th Court of Appeals. Apparently Judge Payne "issued more than 100 orders in at least 18 cases that involved corporations in which he owned stock," which, obviously, is illegal. "'There's no wriggle room here,' says professor Stephen Gillers, a scholar of legal ethics at the New York University School of Law. 'It's not just an ethics rule, it's a congressional statute -- a law.'" Little wonder the administration is running scared from pics of Casino Jack -- they've already got the stink of Abramoff-style cronyism and corruption all over them.

I must admit, between the relentless, team-killing ego and that highly suspect night in Colorado, Kobe Bryant is far and away my least favorite player in the league. But, 81 is 81. Even given that Kobe never passes up a single shot and clearly makes his teammates worse, that's a pretty impressive night of work against any NBA team, even the lowly Raptors. (And, oh yes, congrats to the Steelers and Seahawks on lopsided victories...see y'all in Detroit.)

""The curtain got pulled aside, and there's not even a wizard behind it...these people are incompetent." As you probably heard, Karl Rove emerged from hiding to offer his blueprint for Republican resurgence in 2006. Yep, you guessed it: terror, terror, terror, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, garnished with a smattering of tax cuts. But, to their credit, it sounds like Dems are relishing this coming fight, with Intelligence Committee Dem Jane Harman pushing back once more on the illegal wiretaps, and, in keeping with the recent trend of presidential also-rans finding their voice, John Kerry taking off the gloves on the Sunday shows. "Osama bin Laden is going to die of kidney failure before he's killed by Karl Rove and his crowd."

I've been extremely derelict in my space coverage around here lately. So, as a quick catch-up: Welcome back, Stardust, and Godspeed, New Horizons.

"For a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder." - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Well, that's that -- the 2005 round-up is out-of-date. If you've ever seen a Terence Malick flick (Badlands, Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line), you can guess the contours of The New World -- a Fall of Eden motif, a languid, dreamlike pace, resonant images of natural splendor, conflicted characters wrapped up in voiceover self-reflection, all punctuated with the occasional underwater swimming cam and chaotic sortie of Man against Man. (At my sparsely attended afternoon show, the guy to my left fell asleep, and the woman to my right walked out.) That being said, I thought this movie was the perfect match of director and material, and one of the most transporting and beautiful films I've seen in years. Sure, it has some serious historical issues, and sometimes dabbles dangerously with the noble savage schtick, one of Malick's favorite tropes. But as a work of cinema, I think it may just be a masterpiece.

The year is 1607, and -- with Capt. Christopher Newport (Christopher Plummer) at the helm and Capt. John Smith (Colin Farrell) in the brig -- three English ships put to in a sun-dappled marshland, recently named after their late Virgin Queen. Short of food and enthusiasm after their exhausting Atlantic crossing, these new arrivals to the New World convey a tense hello to the "naturals," construct a fort, plant a few token crops, and then begin frantically panning for gold and silver. When it soon becomes clear that the survival of the fledgling settlement will require both the forbearance and the trade of the nearby Powhatans, Smith is sent to visit the tribe in hopes of striking a deal. There, he is saved from a grisly death in the longhouse by the love, compassion, and curiosity of young Pocahontas (a radiant Q'Orianka Kilcher), daughter of the chief. (Lucky for Smith, and as the story goes, he gives her fever.)

Here is where some historical purists might start checking out (if they haven't already), as the much-written-about romance between John Smith and Pocahontas, however enthroned in our overly happy tales of early Native American contact, probably didn't happen. (The tale of his being saved may well be true, but it was probably an elaborate but traditional tribal ritual, one in which Chief Powhatan displayed his magnanimity to a potential rival by having a family member spare his life.) Similarly, the later relationship between Pocahontas and John Rolfe, America's first (white) tobacco entrepreneur (Christian Bale, so that's how Batman made his money) had less to do with the chastened love story shown here than with an attempt to keep the peace -- In Rolfe's own words, he married "for the good of this plantation, for the honour of our countrie, for the glory of God, for my owne salvation, and for the converting to the true knowledge of God and Jesus Christ, an unbeleeving creature, namely Pokahuntas," in that order.

Some other details rankle too. I'm not a colonial historian, but I highly doubt the brief reign of Capt. Wingfield (David Thewlis) ended exactly as it's shown here. (Speaking of Thewlis and a la Thin Red Line, there are a number of recognizable actors skulking about Jamestown, including Ben Chaplin and Noah Taylor, and one film-fan cameo presiding over the Court of King James.)

But, really. To get too hung up on the history here is -- quite literally -- missing the forest for the trees. Like other Malick films, The New World is about impressions and evocations more than plot mechanics, and in that sense it's a revelation. Through both natural sights and wondrous sound editing, the film does a stunning job of conveying the sublime strangeness of the other, and the magic and terror of an unfamiliar environment. In fact, the movie does it twice -- Wes Studi has some powerfully haunting scenes in the third act, when, as an envoy of Powhatan, he is dumbfounded by the starkly manicured gardens of Europe. After the overgrown wilderness of Virginia, he -- and we -- might as well be on Mars. (Along those lines, I can't remember the last time a film altered my perspective so much on the way out. After two and a half hours in this World, the Upper West Side seemed a bizarrely cluttered and unnatural realm for the rest of the evening.)

Terence Malick's The New World is a masterfully crafted tale of discovery and transformation, passion and misunderstanding, intimacy and heartbreak, love and loss, and worlds Old and New. In short, it's the best film of 2005 (and well-worth seeing on a big screen.)

"While it's true that O'Connor has tended to vote with the majority more frequently than Kennedy, and that she has done so in some big 5-4 decisions, it's also true that in other extremely contentious areas, it is Kennedy, not O'Connor, who has swung the court leftward." As Dem begin to announce their no votes for Alito (while downplaying the likelihood of a filibuster), Dahlia Lithwick -- who is concerned about Alito's judgment in the relatively precedent-less world of anti-terror-law -- gives us hope for the Court's future in highlighting Anthony Kennedy as the new swing vote. (Clearly, the psycho-right despises him, which speaks well of his jurisprudence in my book.)

"So, here's the big question: If diplomacy is the only rational solution to this problem yet the Iranians just want nukes -- in other words, if there is no deal (or at least no deal that the United States would realistically offer) that would compel them to give up their dream -- what's the next step?" Slate's Fred Kaplan admits to being stymied on the troubling question of Iranian nukes.

"'I don't get the sense many people are paying attention,' said Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.), who has been hoping party activists would lead demands for a shake-up. 'Corruption is still 90 percent an inside-the-Beltway' issue." According to the WP, the GOP are finding that the Ballad of Casino Jack isn't playing in Peoria just yet, at least among the conservative base. "'The question is, is this a climate where an actual reform candidate could be elected to a leadership position?' [GOP Rep Zach] Wamp asked. An initial pulse-taking of voters suggests that the answer is no, he and others said.'" Well, I'd expect the issue will muster more enthusiasm among Democratic and independent voters, and particularly after the indictments start rolling in.

This just about drives me up the wall. Threatening to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory yet again, Minority Leader Harry Reid loses his nerve and apologizes to Senate Republicans for daring to insinuate they've been on the make. "The release [since edited down], titled, 'Republicans cannot be trusted to end the culture of corruption,' triggered sharp complaints from GOP officials, who said it violated Senate decorum and brought campaign-style mudslinging into the Capitol." Aw, shucks. Really? As the WP pointed out: "As partisan attacks go, the statement was hardly the most scathing seen on Capitol Hill lately."

If anything, the problem with this release is that it used a blunderbuss when it should've used a stiletto -- It's clear somebody on Reid's staff just spent a day cutting-and-pasting old DNC talking points. The George Allen noose anecdote or Inhofe-on-Global-Warming, for example -- both are reprehensible, but both have nothing to do with Abramoff-style corruption. (While I'm at it, the line "I thought I'd seen the last of corruption when I helped clean up Las Vegas thirty years ago" is an unbelievable groaner. I know you faced down car bombs and all, but really, Vegas is hardly a beacon of purity nowadays.)

That being said, these charges, however off-topic, are true and in the public record, so what's the problem? And when was the last time you heard Senate Republicans apologize for anything? Catkiller Frist owes us at least two sorrys by this point, and that's right off the top of my head. For Pete's sake, Sen. Reid, you're supposed to be our leader. Start acting like it. At the very least, don't even bother posting tough-minded press releases if you feel you're going to have to disavow them within 48 hours. If you don't want to get your hands dirty, then pass the reins to someone else.

With The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe still raking it in, the next Narnia movie, Prince Caspian, moves forward. Apparently, all four Pevensies are on board and shooting will begin this autumn. "If we don't make it now we'll never be able to, because [the kids]'ll be too old." (Via WebGoddess.)

The non-partisan Congressional Research Service finds -- again -- that Dubya's warrantless wiretapping was illegal. In this case, the Dubya White House violated the 1947 National Security Act, by neglecting to inform the entire House and Senate intelligence committees of their shenanigans. Put it in the impeachment file, Sen. Specter.

Curiouser and curiouser...The Village's Bryce Dallas Howard joins Spiderman 3 as none other than Gwen Stacy, Peter Parker's doomed childhood sweetheart. I find this somewhat strange, since they'd basically turned Kirsten Dunst's Mary Jane Watson into Gwen Stacy in the first film (#6). (Plus, they've switched hair-colors, but ah well.)

Still trying to get ahead of the Abramoff story, the House GOP unveil their new anti-lobbying bill. The package includeds "the banning of privately sponsored travel" (so long, Scotland boondoggles), as well as "a virtual ban on gifts, except for inconsequential items like baseball caps, and a provision that will affect few people: elimination of congressional pensions for anyone convicted of a felony related to official duties...One important part of the GOP plan would increase -- from one year to two years -- the waiting period before former lawmakers and senior staff members could lobby Congress." Common Cause's response: Sounds like a good start, but let's talk enforcement. As for the Dems, they'll announce their own plan -- with a stricter gift ban -- later this week.

Update: "Today we as Democrats are declaring our commitment to change, change to a government as good and as honest as the people that we serve." The Dems announce their own reform plans, which "go further than the Republicans' proposals. Rather than limiting the value of a gift to $20, as House Republicans are considering, Democrats would prohibit all gifts from lobbyists....Lawmakers would have to publicly disclose negotiations over private-sector jobs...House and Senate negotiators working out final versions of legislation would have to meet in open session, with all members of the conference committee -- not just Republicans -- having the opportunity to vote on amendments. Legislation would have to be posted publicly 24 hours before congressional consideration." And, as bc posted in the comments, James Carville and Paul Begala have offered their own comprehensive campaign finance-ethics plan, which involves public financing of candidates and a total ban on incumbent fundraising. Now that's the type of bold, outside-the-box thinking I'd like to see more of right now. Particularly given that, as the Washington Post pointed out, the GOP ethics bill won't work at all unless it's coupled with serious campaign finance reform.

"> EXAMINE CHAIRS

They are two several chairs arranged around the center of the room, along with two couches. Under one couch you find Clinton's shoes.

> FILL SHOES

You are unable to fill Clinton's shoes."

This may be the funniest political Internet post I've seen since the Cheney poker game: By way of WebGoddess and from the brain of Defective Yeti, it's the George W. Bush text adventure. Beware of lurking grues, special prosecutors, and that goshdarned Constitution.

Byrne. Rose Byrne. Word is that's who been tapped to play the next Bond girl ("Vesper Lynd") opposite Daniel Craig in Casino Royale. (Prior to this gig and Sofia Coppola's upcoming Marie Antoinette, she was in Troy, Wicker Park, and I Capture the Castle.) But who's playing Moneypenny?

(It's a doll revolution.) By way of Quiddity comes this rather creepy trailer for Steven Soderbergh's recent side project, Bubble, a tale of love and murder amid the plastic baby parts.

"If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing." Scientist, inventor, philanthropist, statesman, diplomat, epigrammist, satirist, exemplar, and a bon vivant and ladies' man to boot...If George Washington is the Father of our Country, then he's definitely our Favorite Uncle: Ben Franklin turns 300. Happy birthday!

"The president of the United States has been breaking the law repeatedly and insistently...A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government." I've had my issues with the guy, but, y'know, when he's right, he's right. As the ACLU and Center for Constitutional Liberties plan lawsuits against the NSA wiretaps, a revived Al Gore calls out Dubya on Snoopgate (Transcript.) Interestingly enough, "Gore was supposed to have been introduced, using a video link, by former congressman Robert L. Barr Jr. (R-Ga.) -- a bitter adversary of Gore and President Bill Clinton during the 1990s who now shares Gore's concern over the surveillance program. That strange-bedfellows moment was thwarted by a technological breakdown."

Casino Jack's plea deal claims another Congressional victim: Over the weekend (when I discovered his name sounds like "neigh" and not "knee") and as expected, "Freedom Fries" sponsor and DeLay flunky Bob Ney agreed to step down as House Admin chair. And now, a few Congress-watchers are starting to take a closer look at Speaker Hastert's role in the Abramoff scandals, and in perpetuating the DeLay Ring's rule. "'I suppose that DeLay was simply a much more inviting target for the [Democrats], so Hastert is left alone,' said Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.). 'Maybe people will start focusing on Hastert now.'"

Meanwhile, as DeLay's numbers plummet in his home district, things aren't looking so hot either for former GOP wunderkind Ralph Reed, an old Abramoff college friend with a long and troubling e-mail evidence chain to Casino Jack. "'After reading the e-mail, it became pretty obvious he was putting money before God,' said Phil Dacosta, a Georgia Christian Coalition member who had initially backed Reed. 'We are righteously casting him out.'"

"When we think about the authoritarian world that Orwell painted, the catchphrases are one thing, but when you read the book again, the specifics and relevance for now are stunning." Apparently, Tim Robbins is thinking of bringing 1984 to the screen (again). Hmmm...I dunno. I enjoy Bob Roberts and Dead Man Walking, but thought Embedded was way over the top. And it'd be really hard to make a better or more faithful adaptation than the Michael Radford version with John Hurt and Richard Burton.

As you probably saw, the Golden Globe winners were announced, with Brokeback Mountain (Best Picture, Director, Screenplay) and Walk the Line (Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, all on the Comedy-Musical side) cleaning up. (Other winners included Philip Seymour Hoffman for Capote, Felicity Huffman for Transamerica, George Clooney for Syriana, and Rachel Weisz for The Constant Gardener) With the exception of Weisz, no real surprises. I'd like to have seen Jeff Daniels take something home for The Squid and the Whale, but Joaquim was a fine choice too.

"Foner's field of special expertise is what might be called without exaggeration the crucible of American freedom: the Civil War, the emancipation of the slaves and the ambiguous, myth-shrouded period that followed known as Reconstruction. He never puts it this directly, either in this new, somewhat compressed popular history or in his 1988 magnum opus, 'Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877,' but he sees Reconstruction, with all its contradictions and unrealized possibilities, as the key to all of American history." Salon's Andrew O'Hehir takes a gander at Eric Foner's latest book, Forever Free.

Is there life after Serenity? Well, it depends what you call life...Firefly's Capt. Malcolm Reynolds (Nathan Fillion), now a small-town sheriff, faces down gruesome space slugs in the trailer for James Gunn's horror-comedy Slither, also featuring Elizabeth Banks and the inimitable Michael Rooker. (Slightly bawdier trailer here.)

Even more fanboy prestige for The Prestige: AICN reports that Gollum/Kong creator Andy Serkis has joined the cast of Christopher Nolan's version, as an assistant to Nicola Tesla (David Bowie). He joins Bowie, Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Scarlett Johannson, and Michael Caine.

The second half of last night's double-feature, Michael Haneke's Cache, offered a moral universe in many ways diametrical to that of Match Point -- here, even the long-buried sins of the upper crust are eventually exposed before the Great Eye. As I said in the 2005 round-up, last year was a banner year for politically-minded movies, and Cache, both an unsettling thriller of personal surveillance and a timely rumination on First World comforts and complicity in an age of terror, definitely ranks among them. With its inordinately protracted (and sometimes intentionally confusing) shots and its refusal to answer many of the questions it poses (including the plot device driving the film), Cache isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea, and I'm sure some will write it off as just a pretentious and inscrutable foreign film. Nevertheless, I thought Cache was well worth seeing. It's a film that, both visually and politically, will put you ill at ease.

Cache begins with a long, steady image of a Parisian street, held throughout the very slowly typed-out credits and beyond. Well after the normal amount of time our movie-conditioned eye allots for a basic establishing shot (by now, Tony Scott would have had an embolism), the image is suddenly paused, and then rewound. As it turns out, we've been viewing a tape, one featuring --and sent to -- the home of the Laurents, along with a scrawled picture of a child vomiting blood. (Yes, it starts like Lost Highway, but they're very different movies.) Georges (Daniel Auteuil), the host of his own popular Charlie Rose-ish television show, is nonplussed by this bizarre tape, and his wife Anne (Juliette Binoche), a successful book agent, is driven to distraction, particularly as more cassettes (with more information) arrive, and it becomes increasingly clear that Georges has some sense of why this is happening. Soon, for the sake of his wife and 12-year-old son Pierrot (Lester Makedonsky), Georges is forced to follow the path prescribed by these strange missives, and to confront a dark moment in his past that he, his parents, and arguably his nation have purposefully forgotten.

What that dark moment is is for you to discover, although it's one that (as political analogy -- it doesn't work quite as well in terms of straight narrative) hearkens to the French-Algerian conflict and, more broadly, the war on terror and the hidden costs and benefits of colonialism. Georges rages and fumes throughout the movie, insisting over and over that he and his family are being terrorized. But by whom, and for what? Is Georges really blameless, and, that question aside, are his responses appropriate? Some very brief flashes of didacticism aside (for example, the scene involving CNN), Cache generally posits troubling questions about national memory, the dividends of empire, and the state of the world today without telling us how to feel about them.

Another layer of unease in the film involves the aforementioned camerawork. Cache returns to that exterior view of the Laurents' home several times, and we never know if we're watching "just" an establishing shot or indulging in the stalker's-eye-view. (The likely answer, a la Rear Window, is that we're doing both.) This goes for almost every scene in the film, and the cumulative experience of "stalking" the Laurents for two hours adds to the apprehension and foreboding of Cache. We begin to feel complicit in this crime of surveillance, just as, in time, we come to feel complicit in the Laurents' sins. (Sure, the question of "the gaze" is a hoary staple of any Film 101 class -- still, Haneke manages here to move past arthouse histrionics and create something that feels genuinely creepy.)

Finally, as I said above, Cache is disarmingly open-ended, particularly by the "explain-everything-several-times" standard we're used to. Yes, one character's arc is made clear, I think, by his/her womb-like retreat from the world, and that maddening last shot, if you caught the action (screenshot spoilers here), does suggest a possible answer to the cassette issue. But, ultimately, the bullet-points of the thriller story aren't all that important. The plot mechanics of Cache may remain hidden, but the unsettling impressions of guilt and complicity it leaves linger in plain sight.

"'The Ney situation has changed after the plea agreement,' said a House Republican insider close to the talks. 'There are people that have pled guilty who have conspired to bribe him.'" As part of the post-Abramoff GOP clean-up/cover-up, Speaker Hastert pressures DeLay flunky Bob Ney to resign as chairman of the House Administration Committee. And conservative Arizona Republican John Shadegg joins the House Leadership race, hoping to benefit from his lack of lobbying ties compared to Blunt and Boehner, the two frontrunners.

It's a good time to live in New York: Not only are the Knicks suddenly playing winning basketball again, but Match Point is, as rumored, a return to form for that consummate Manhattanite (and unabashed Knicks fan), Woody Allen. Mining the same misanthropic vein as Crimes and Misdemeanors, the movie nevertheless feels -- aside from a few nods to Allen's usual high-culture influences and the occasional Annie Hall-ish quirk by Emily Mortimer -- unlike anything Woody's done in years. Gone are the Upper East Side setpieces (we're in London this time) and that quintessential Allen stammer. (Heck, Ewen Bremner, a British Allen analogue if there ever was one, is in this movie and even he's not doing it.) Instead, we're left with an increasingly dark amorality play about ambition, adultery, and the considerable, if not terrifying, role of blind luck in organizing the universe.

Unfortunately, Match Point suffered from one of those three-minute summary-type trailers. If you've seen it, you probably already know more than you want about the story. If you haven't, here's the abbreviated version: Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys Meyers, more believable as a tortured soul than a romantic lead), a former tennis pro who gives lessons at the club by day and reads Dostoevsky by night, befriends Tom Hewett (Matthew Goode) one of his more dissolute upper-crust students, and, over opera and cocktails, wins the heart of Tom's sister Chloe (Emily Mortimer). Soon, with his good graces and acquired cultural literacy, Chris has managed to seduce the whole Hewett family, including Tom and Chloe's father (Brian Cox, surprisingly not chewing the scenery) and mother (Penelope Wilton, surprisingly -- to me -- not chewing on flesh.) But, trouble arises in the second set when Chris meets a kindred spirit in Tom's fiancee, the vampish American Nola (Scarlett Johansson, better-than-usual). Soon, Chris finds himself laying his new life on the line in order to get closer to Nola, with potentially disastrous results...

As the paragraph above attests, Match Point is in part a tale of scheming class climbers skulking about London's higher social echelons, a conceit that still paid dividends in Henry James' day but may seem relentlessly dated now, at least as it's presented by Allen. And, indeed, what with the high-culture name-drops (Strindberg, Sophocles) and all the old-money accoutrements favored by the Hewetts, this often seems like London by way of Merchant-Ivory more than any real place on the globe. But, I think this stylization is forgivable, particularly since, ultimately, Woody is hunting bigger quarry than class and its pretensions anyway. Giving away the details of the third act would be a crime, but Allen aficionados won't be surprised to find that Chris eventually finds himself wrangling with an -- or the -- existential dilemma. And it's with this final act that the film itself leaps a notch and joins the upper ranks of Allen's oeuvre. Who knows? Perhaps Woody just got lucky this time. After all, chance favors the prepared mind...or are we all just fortune's fools?

Program the Tardis and the TiVos: The Doctor Who revival will finally come to American shores this March, when the Sci-Fi Channel begins airing Season One. (Via Triptych Cryptic.) I guess this means I'll have to give up the Sci-Fi boycott, but, then again, I guess I gave it up in principle when I bought the first season of the new Battlestar Galactica last weekend.

By way of LMG, an online exhibit on the response in comics to 9/11, featured on an intriguing site in its own right: The Authentic History Center: Primary Sources from American Popular Culture.

Hey, don't look now, but the New York Knickbockers, the worst team in the league in late 2005, are "starting to percolate" as Walt Frazier would put it, and are now undefeated five games into 2006, including impressive wins against Phoenix, Dallas, and Cleveland on the road. And, given that at 12-21 we're only two games out of the eight-spot in the woeful East, we may actually have a season on our hands. Is it too late to get on board the Larry Brown bandwagon? Update: Make it six.

Another director update: Steven Soderbergh, late of The Good German, talks Che and Ocean's 13, and David Fincher, currently completing Zodiac, has picked up, yes, still another serial killer flick, Torso, about the latter days of Elliot Ness as a crimefighter in Cleveland.

And another spate of Batman casting rumors. This time 'round it's Johnny Depp as the Joker and Rachel Weisz as Talia (Liam Neeson/Ras Al Ghul's daughter.) With the Penguin (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Harvey Dent/Two-Face (Liev Schrieber) also purportedly in the mix, it sounds like something's got to give.

In the continuing Abramoff fallout department, a disgraced Boss DeLay has picked up a primary challenger, Tom Campbell, in his home district. "'If we don't clean house in March, we'll lose the House in November,' Campbell said." Meanwhile, as the GOP tries to choose between two K-Street darlings for their new majority leader, the House looks to the McCain-Shays bill of last month as a template for new lobbying restrictions."The McCain bill would beef up lobbying disclosure considerably and cover grass-roots lobbying campaigns, which now go unreported. It would also require lobbyists to report each fundraising event that they host or sponsor for candidates for federal office, including the amount raised. In addition, the McCain bill would require lobbyists to report the donations they give to lawmakers directly and at events that honor lawmakers or entities that they created or control. It would also require lobbyists to disclose quarterly -- which would be twice as often as they file now -- any gift worth more than $20 that they give to lawmakers or their aides, including meals and tickets to events." Sounds like a start...but it'll take more than increased disclosure to transform a Washington culture that's turned rancid in recent years thanks to overwhelming lobbyist influence.

"'As you go back in time, the universe is pushing [outward] less and less,' he said. 'At some point, the pressure of dark energy is zero and is exerting no force on the universe. There is no explanation for it.'" New cosmological research announced yesterday further muddles our understanding of the expansion of the early universe and (once again) casts doubt on Einstein's recently resurrected cosmological constant. "Schaefer based his findings on analysis of ultra-bright cosmic explosions called gamma-ray bursts, detected as far as 12.8 billion light-years away. He found that the most distant explosions appeared brighter than they should have been if the universe were accelerating at a constant rate."

I'm a bit behind on this one: Lisa Halliday, an old friend from college and Let's Go days, recently had her short story, Stump Louie, published in the Paris Review. Congrats!

"More alarming were Richard Nixon's last years at the White House. After a good many evening martinis, he would call Henry Kissinger, and the secretary of state would grin silently as he passed around the telephone so that others could listen to their commander in chief's unbalanced ramblings. Since Nixon was in a position to blow us all up, this suggests a somewhat esoteric sense of humor on Kissinger's part." With the fall of Britain's Charles Kennedy, Slate's Geoffrey Wheatcroft very briefly surveys the sordid history of alcoholism in politics. (He could, I think, have done more with The Alcoholic Republic.)

The (somewhat perfunctory) hearings are over, and -- despite several "quiet bombshells" and troubling evasions, it appears likely that Sam Alito will be confirmed to the court as expected. Well, hopefully the purported liberalizing influence of the Court will work its mojo on Alito, although that's not a very comforting peg on which to hang one's hat. (Another perhaps equally unlikely possibility which I've heard discussed recently is that Roberts, not Alito, will become the new swing vote. One can only hope.)

They hate people, but they love gatherings: The new Internet teaser for Kevin Smith's Clerks II, which has the lovely Rosario Dawson joining Dante, Randall, Jay, Silent Bob, and a smattering of Smith regulars in Fast Food Hell, is now online. My guess is it'll probably be watchable, if nothing else.

Didn't we just do this? Well, regardless, the Senate Confirmation hearings for Sam Alito are now underway. Given his dubious paper trail, his conflict-of-interest on the books, the recent disclosures about Dubya's imperial pretensions and the possibility of a Dem filibuster, Sam "Scalito" Alito looks to have a tougher road ahead than John Roberts. But, who among the GOP, other than possibly Arlen Specter, might vote against him? Barring a Borkish meltdown before the Senate Judiciary, or, unlikelier still, an uprising over the issue of presidential power, I'd be surprised (but not at all dismayed) if Alito isn't nominated to the bench, particularly with the public (slightly) behind him. That being said, having freakshow GOP pro-lifers like Sam Brownback and Tom Coburn froth at the mouth over Roe v. Wade probably isn't doing Alito any favors in the court of public opinion. Update: Alito's opening statement: Aw shucks, I'm just a humble, regular, working-class guy from Jersey, and in no way a scary conservative (although I do really dislike 60's liberals.) Update 2: Slate's Dahlia Lithwick weighs in.

More bad news for Boss DeLay: Once again, a Texas court has refused to dismiss money-laundering charges against him. Meanwhile, Speaker Dennis Hastert taps David Dreier to pen new lobbying rules for the House (ignoring the fact that Dems, with the aid of Republican Chris Shays, composed stricter lobbying legislation months ago.) And GOP insiders (and, basically, DeLay flunkies) Roy Blunt and John Boehner scramble to take DeLay's place as majority leader, despite both being tainted by Abramoff contributions. Two days after the Hammer's fall, and it's already becoming clear: The only real way to cleanse Congress of this current wave of corruption is the ballot box, come November.

Genre director update: As if their Willy Wonka wasn't creepy-serial-killer enough, Tim Burton and Johnny Depp will soon reunite for Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street. Meanwhile, the Spike Jonze-Dave Eggers interpretation of Where the Wild Things Are lands at Warner Bros. Says author Maurice Sendak of the project: "I am in love with it. If Spike and Dave do not do this movie now, I would just as soon not see any version of it ever get made."

"The job of majority leader and the mandate of the Republican majority are too important to be hamstrung, even for a few months, by personal distractions." Whether it be due to Abramoff's encroaching testimony, the uprising of GOP moderates, Duke Cunningham's wire, or all of the above, Boss DeLay has admitted defeat and given up his post for good. While this is excellent news, there's still much work to do: The ringleader may be dethroned, but the DeLay Ring persists. Hopefully prosecutors in Texas and the Justice Department, as well as members of Congress shamed by the rampant corruption characterizing DeLay's reign, won't rest until the Hammer is thrown out of the House and taken to the woodshed. In fact, with any luck, Boss DeLay will be a featured member of the Big House before long.

"It appears unlikely that a court would hold that Congress has expressly or impliedly authorized the NSA electronic surveillance operations here,' the authors of the CRS report wrote. The administration's legal justification 'does not seem to be...well-grounded.'" A 44-page nonpartisan report by the Congressional Research Service finds Dubya's dubious reliance on presidential prerogative to explain away the NSA wiretaps doesn't hold up.

August commencement to George Hearst's time in town: Before Season 3 is even aired (it'll return in June, with The Sopranos), Deadwood looks to get a fourth time 'round. Huzzah.

The teaser for Flight 93, first of the 9/11 movies out of the box, is online. Normally, I wouldn't be interested in this project, but the presence of Paul Greengrass (Bloody Sunday, The Bourne Supremacy, the aborted Watchmen) at the helm is an X-factor. (Expect lots of shakicam.)

Greetings from NYC, where Berk and I returned yesterday evening. I've been spending today running errands and generally cleaning up the apartment environs for 2006, but I expect updates should return to normal around here shortly.

"There's no going back. From that moment on, the series' hero is in a morally untenable situation, and everything he does makes things worse. The only thing Murdock can do is to start lying, and make all of his allies lie for him, too...The second half of the Bendis-Maleev run fills in the gaps of the missing year bit by bit, and suggests what happens when a hero chooses to rule in hell (or its kitchen) rather than serve in heaven." Salon's Douglas Wolk sings the praises of Brian Bendis and Alex Maleev's work on Daredevil.

Stabilize your rear deflectors, watch for enemy fighters...Also in today's movie bin is the trailer for 5-22-77, a low-budget paean to seventies fanboys in which John Francis Daley (a.k.a. Sam Weir of Freaks & Geeks, all grown up) must overcome all manner of obstacles in order to catch a showing of the original Star Wars. Can Haverchuck come? (Official Site.)

With most of their arguments already rendered false or nonsensical, "Big Time" Dick Cheney invokes an old standby to justify the illegal NSA wiretaps (which, it turns out, may have begun before White House authorization): 9/11, 9/11, 9/11. And, also in the King George department, Dubya in effect announces he'll bypass the new torture ban whenever he feels like it. Says one legal expert: "The signing statement is saying 'I will only comply with this law when I want to, and if something arises in the war on terrorism where I think it's important to torture or engage in cruel, inhuman, and degrading conduct, I have the authority to do so and nothing in this law is going to stop me.'" (Media Matters link via Looka.) Update: The FISA court judges want answers, and a possible NSA whistleblower steps up.

"I'm not smart enough to debate you point to point on this, but I have the feeling, I have the feeling about 60 percent of what you say is crap." Along the lines of (2006 Oscars host) Jon Stewart on Crossfire in 2004, a driven-to-anger David Letterman goes after guest Bill O'Reilly on Cindy Sheehan, the war in Iraq, and his "fair and balanced" drivel. "I agree to you, with you that we have to support the troops. They are there, they are the best and the brightest of this country...however, that does not eliminate the legitimate speculation and concern and questioning of 'Why the Hell are we there to begin with?'" (Via Dumbmonkey.)

"He caught our tone exactly, and then added his own Ricky Gervais/David Brent patheticness." By way of Plasticbag, The Office and Extras mastermind Ricky Gervais has written and will star in a forthcoming Simpsons episode, and Matt Groening wants more. "[Gervais] moves into The Simpson household with Marge as the family take part in an episode of Wife Swap, while Homer moves in with his wife."

A very happy 5th blogday to one of Sydney's finest blogs, Kris at Web-Goddess (In case you haven't been reading her, she's compiled a very thorough set of Year 5 stats.) Also, a belated sixth blogday to Boycaught of Caught in Between, who, like this site, also got into the blog-game in late '99. Here's to many more! Update: And, in other excellent blog news, Raza at HighIndustrial is back for the '06...booyah.

For fans of heist flicks and celebrities behaving badly, word is a Soderbergh-directed Ocean's 13 may be in the works for later this year. I preferred 12 to 11, and would be up for another outing if it continues in the goofy, self-referential vein of the last one.

Who do? You do. The eerie new teaser for Guillermo Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth, a sequel of sorts to Cronos and The Devil's Backbone, is now online. (Click through the ad.)

"In the short run, members of Congress will get allergic to lobbyists." As Casino Jack enters a second plea and the fatcats of K St. begin to panic, many top GOP officials burn their Abramoff cash (and for good reason), including Ney, DeLay, Hastert, Blunt, and Dubya. "Abramoff raised at least $100,000 for the Bush-Cheney '04 re-election campaign, earning the honorary title 'pioneer' from the campaign. But the campaign is giving up only $6,000 that came directly from Abramoff, his wife and one of the Indian tribes that he worked to win influence for in Washington." Update: According to the NYT, the Abramoff plea may have put the dagger to Boss DeLay's comeback hopes.

Happy 2006, y'all. Today's a travel day for me (from San Diego back to Norfolk), so updates will be sparse. That being said, amid the grim news in West Virginia, I'd be remiss if I didn't post this glint of light for the new year: As rumored, the Feds have flipped Jack Abramoff, meaning trouble ahead for the DeLay-driven GOP corruption machine. While the inquiry into Boss DeLay, who just picked up a Dem opponent in the 2006 midterms, "could take up to a year and require the cooperation of other witnesses before issues are resolved," it seems prosecutors will move more quickly against DeLay deputy and GOP official Bob Ney, who corresponds to a "Representative #1" referred to in the plea agreement. Let's get this show started!