Month: October 2004

Final Round: Kerry (barely).

Well, to no one’s surprise, I think John Kerry won again. But, while I’d like to say that the Senator knocked this final debate in Tempe, Arizona out of the park, frankly, he didn’t. In the early going, I thought he seemed tired and slightly discombobulated, and, at times when a concise rebuttal could have scored some serious points, Kerry’s answers often seemed more wordy and circuitous than necessary. On the other hand, I thought this was Dubya’s best performance – he was still smirking and guffawing too much, still distorting the facts, still running from his record, and still demonizing his opponent like the best of ’em, but at least he seemed in full possession of his faculties this time around (perhaps the wire was working tonight.) I did think that Kerry warmed up in the middle third, but he lost focus again during the final questions (Native American blessings? Idears?) That being said, given the relative lack of drama tonight and the playoff baseball on FOX, I highly doubt this final debate will end up altering the current campaign dynamic much.

So there you have it, folks. Barring an October Surprise in the next three weeks, it now all comes down to the ground game, and — given what we’ve been hearing regarding voter registration, given the white-hot contempt towards Dubya held by Dems and the ambivalence with which fiscal conservatives and many veterans view this administration, and given the usual tendency of undecideds to break towards the challenger — turnout is a factor which John Kerry should win handily (barring Diebold shenanigans.) It ain’t over yet, to be sure, but right now I’d say that, despite tonight’s missed opportunities, John Kerry and John Edwards have put themselves in a solid position to win with their cumulative debate performance. The election is too close to call, definitely, but at this point I feel pretty confident our nation will make the right decision on Nov 2.

The Atkins Congress.

“Senator Charles E. Grassley needed every possible vote to pass his mammoth corporate tax bill. So he was more than willing to accept Zell Miller’s plea on behalf of imported ceiling fans…[This] provision is just one tiny example of how the need to solve a narrow tax problem in 2002 gave birth to the biggest free-for-all in corporate lobbying that Congress has experienced in nearly 20 years.” The NYT conducts a post-mortem of the pork-bloated corporate tax legislation passed by Congress on Monday.

Zen Master Tells All.

“The meeting with Kobe reinforced an idea I had been contemplating since July, since Colorado, since everything changed. I decided to enlist a therapist to help me cope with what will surely be the most turbulent season of my coaching career. After receiving a few recommendations, I selected a therapist who has dealt with narcissistic behavior in the Los Angeles public school system. He’ll be right at home here.” Sports Illustrated publishes some revealing excerpts from Phil Jackson’s forthcoming book on the 2003-2004 Laker season, and it’s already clear this tome won’t do much for Kobe’s tattered reputation around the league…he comes off here as a hopelessly arrogant prima donna, as well as an out-and-out terrible teammate.

World Gone Wrong.

Well, admittedly writer-director Kerry Conran’s Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow — which I finally caught on Sunday afternoon — doesn’t look much like a film shot in a tiny blue room, but, lordy, it sure as heck feels like it. Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie, Michael Gambon…they’re all fine enough in other situations. But, alas, pretty much everyone here, with the possible exceptions of Giovanni Ribisi, Bai Ling (who doesn’t speak), and the dead Lawrence Olivier, have contracted Portmanitis, and what considerable acting chops they usually possess have been sucked into the CGI machines and spat back out as a deathly dull flatness.

I don’t blame the cast, though. Because, however pretty the movie looks on occasion, the upshot is Sky Captain is as terribly written as Stephen Sommer’s ghastly Van Helsing this past summer. Seriously, this film makes zero sense whatsoever – the scenes of robots, planes, flying carriers, etc. just pile up on each other with no underlying sense of plot or development. Meanwhile, Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow are forced to deliver C-movie boilerplate that would’ve seem dated in Buster Crabbe’s day. I know we’ve reached an age where visual effects technology can spruce up even the lamest of tales, but still…I just don’t understand how a script this bad makes it out of Quality Control.

Perhaps to compensate for the wooden script, Conran packs his film chock-full of genre homages and fanboy cues, and one would think these would help alleviate the boredom. But, to be honest, they came so thick and so hamhandedly that even I, who usually has a high tolerance for this type of in-joke, started to feel beaten down by them. Oh, look, Metropolis, The Iron Giant, Office 1138, the SS Venture, Indy, Dagobah, Shangri-La as Rivendell…no, wait, Naboo…by the end of it, Sky Captain seemed less a full-fledged film than a 120 minute attempt to impress Harry Knowles. (Apparently, it worked. Harry is producing Conran’s next film (sigh), A Princess of Mars.)

As with Van Helsing, arguing that Sky Captain is a nod to the serials of the 1930’s is really no excuse. So was Raiders of the Lost Ark or even a B-movie like Big Trouble in Little China, and they held together a lot better than this overstuffed claptrap. In sum, the view out Sky Captain’s cockpit may be oh-so-pretty and genrefied, but the story here is strictly World of Yesterday.

Fox News One Further.

So apparently the Sinclair Broadcast Group, a right-wing-flunky television conglomerate who previously refused to air a Nightline on fallen soldiers in Iraq, will show an anti-Kerry hatchet-job on its swing state affiliates in the next two weeks. Well, I must say, that’s quite an end-run around the equal time rule, if not a blatant misuse of the public airwaves. Perhaps the FCC can extricate themselves from their shock over Janet Jackson’s breast long enough to look into this.

Bringing Home the Bacon.

Looking to recess in time for some electioneering, the House and Senate both pass a pork-swollen corporate tax measure by comfortable margins. “[C]ritics — including budget watchdogs, liberal activists and Treasury Secretary John W. Snow — decried what they saw as a cornucopia of special-interest tax cuts that would complicate the tax code, favor companies doing business overseas and ultimately worsen the budget deficit. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) pronounced it ‘disgraceful’ and ‘a classic example of the special interests prevailing over the people’s interest.'”

The Movie Elrond doesn’t want you to see.

“On a bright sunny day at the end of the Third Age of Middle Earth, a new unelected king was crowned. His name? Aragorn, son of Arathorn. How did it all happen? Was it all just a dream? I mean, it looked real enough. The guys with the pointed ears were there, the short guys with beards were there, even those weird little hobbit guys were there. Who were these people, this elitist group of carnival freaks who wanted to control the fate of Middle Earth?” I can’t say I much agree with its politics, and the same basic joke was made in this McSweeney’s piece last year. Still, the Michael Moore parody Fellowship 9/11 is for the most part pretty clever, and worth watching…if nothing else than to see a mean Brad Dourif impression and to hear Gandalf the Grey croon “Let the Eagle Soar.”