“President Bush and his national security adviser have answered critics of the Iraq war in recent days with a two-pronged argument: that Congress saw the same intelligence the administration did before the war, and that independent commissions have determined that the administration did not misrepresent the intelligence. Neither assertion is wholly accurate.“ Update: Slate‘s Fred Kaplan parses Dubya’s speech further.
Month: November 2005
Discriminatory Intent.
“At the same time, prosecutions for the kinds of racial and gender discrimination crimes traditionally handled by the division have declined 40 percent over the past five years, according to department statistics. Dozens of lawyers find themselves handling appeals of deportation orders and other immigration matters instead of civil rights cases.” The Post traces the demise and demoralization of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division under Attorneys General Ashcroft and Gonzales.
“Big Time” Obfuscation.
“Why would an experienced lawyer and government official such as Libby leave himself so exposed to prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald?…To critics, the timing suggests an attempt to obscure Cheney’s role, and possibly his legal culpability.” The Post suggests anew that, in the investigation into the Valerie Plame leak, Scooter Libby fell on his sword for Cheney. Meanwhile, National Journal‘s Murray Waas reports that Karl Rove’s fate rests on Libby’s testimony, meaning it may be some time before “Bush’s Brain” is indicted, or in the clear.
I have forgiven Jesus.
I’ve fallen behind on the movie reviews — so this one might be brief. As a nightcap (and highbrow/lowbrow change-up) to Ballets Russes on Friday, I also partook of Jesus is Magic, comedienne Sarah Silverman’s new concert film. And, while it has some decently amusing moments amid the live footage, this doesn’t feel like a movie so much as a glorified HBO special, particularly once you factor in the egregiously unfunny songs and skits included to pad out the material. Silverman is an endearing presence (even given the 9/11, Holocaust, and ethnic jokes) with impeccable comic timing, but she eventually wears out her welcome here in Jesus is Magic.
So, in case you haven’t heard of her (or didn’t see her in The Aristocrats), Silverman’s schtick in a nutshell is “cute, well-mannered, narcissistic girl saying vile and horrifying things,” and most of the humor comes from either the shock of her words or the disconnect between her looks and her material. And Silverman does have some funny lines along the way, if you’re ok with her anything-goes style of humor: She remembers 9/11 as “devastating…especially for me, because it happened to be the exact same day I found out that a soy chai latte was, like, 900 calories.” To motivate her niece, she tells her ” that every time she loses at tag, an angel gets AIDS,” and that “when God gives you AIDS…make LemonAIDS.“
From vanity Holocaust tattoos (her aunt’s was “Bedazzled”) to racist jokes (“I don’t care if you think I’m racist, I just want you to think I’m thin.”), Silverman shows again and again that she’s more than willing to veer over into tastelessness and back again for the sake of a laugh. But, after awhile, one gets the sense that there’s little more to her persona than shock value. When other comics invoke racial stereotypes — Richard Pryor and Chris Rock come to mind — it’s often as much about social commentary as it is about the joke at hand. But Silverman just seems to let social taboos do all the work — her gags don’t go anywhere, and the only thing funny or resonant about them is the “Did she really just say that?” factor. Throw in the lame songs, most of which are even worse than an after-the-musical-guest SNL skit, and Jesus is Magic ends up being rather a unmagical theater experience. Like I said, this might’ve worked as a decent HBO comedy special, but it’s not a movie by any stretch of the imagination, filthy or not.
Kings for a Day.
Say what you will about the Larry Brown era in New York…at least we won’t go 0-82.
Dance Hall Days.
On my sister‘s advice, I went to go see Ballets Russes yesterday evening at the Film Forum, and she was right: It’s a stunning film, one that I’d even recommend to people who have little-to-no interest in ballet. Like the best documentaries — and this is the best I’ve seen in some time — Ballets Russes transcends its immediate topic to capture larger and more ephemeral truths. The movie not only brings to life a bygone era in the arts and helps to explain the current popularity of ballet in the US and around the world — it also powerfully reflects on both the inexorable passing of time and the timelessness of dance, its magical capacity to wash away years and overcome human frailty. Like a perfectly executed ensemble piece, Ballets Russes can take your breath away.
After a brief introduction to the dancers of the Ballets Russes, who reconvene in New Orleans in 2000, the documentary shifts to 1929, with the death of renowned ballet impresario Serge Diaghilev and the formation of the Ballet Russes de Monte Carlo, a successor company to Diaghilev’s famed troupe. Briefly artistic-directed by a young George Balanchine (who’ll show up again in the story, after a stint training elephants at the circus) and headlined by a trio of newly-discovered Russian “baby ballerinas,” the Ballet Russes de Monte Carlo soon splits into rival companies — one headed by dancer-choreographer Leonide Massine, the other manned by financial backer Colonel Wassily de Basil. After wrangling over ballerinas and staffing their respective companies with ringers from other ensembles, the two Ballets Russes duel over London audiences and US contracts, until the exigencies of World War II force both to travel West. There, they attempt to stave off financial collapse by spreading the ballet meme (via steam train and Hollywood song-and-dance) across the New World.
The story of the Ballets Russes is told not only through an impressive amount of archival dance footage (which loses none of its forcefulness despite the occasional grainy stock), but also via interviews with the surviving dancers of the rival troupes, and herein lies the documentary’s considerable dramatic heft. Every single one of the many interviewees — which include Alicia Markova, Maria Tallchief, and Frederic Franklin (who still appears in ABT’s “Swan Lake” well into his nineties) — comes off as a vivacious, multifaceted personality with tales to tell, and it’s extraordinary to watch them shake off the years when speaking of their experiences or dancing. Former ballerina (and coquettish heartbreaker) Nathalie Krassovska — who, like several of the participants, passed away since the film was finished — lights up like a little girl when she shows off her dance studio. Later, she and George Zoritch (in his prime at right, now an eighty-something gym rat in Tuscon, AZ) attempt a pas de deux from Giselle, and, although it’s clearly a physical struggle, it’s endearing to watch them rejoice in their old, shared language.
And the same goes for many other participants in the film, who have spread across the globe in a ballet diaspora since the collapse of the company in 1962. Aged, wizened faces break into impish grins when an old memory surfaces, and, when these former stars show off a dance flourish to their students, it’s exhilarating to see their enthusiasm, and the flashes of grace that accompany it. In all honesty, I’d like to have heard more about the original Ballet Russes here (Diaghilev’s outfit), and the film loses focus somewhat in the fifties and sixties. (More of a general sense of history would’ve been nice, too — The Depression isn’t mentioned, Hitler and WWII seem to show up out of the blue, and, other than a fascinating aside involving black dancer Raven Wilkinson’s travails with the KKK during one of the Ballet Russes’ southern swings, there’s very little outside context here.) Nevertheless, Ballets Russes is an amazing documentary and an impressive testament to the idea that, while dancers come and go, the dance is forever, and to embrace it as a calling is a life well lived.
Land of Hope and Dreams.
“‘Wherever there’s somebody fightin’ for a place to stand, or a decent job or a helpin’ hand, Wherever somebody’s strugglin’ to be free, look in their eyes Mom you’ll see me.'” By way of Medley, Jon Corzine gets some unsolicited advice on picking the next Senator from New Jersey. After all, the GOP may have the Governator…but we’ve got the Boss.
Development Arrested.
Bad news for the Bluths: Despite its critical acclaim and multiple Emmy wins, Fox has cut Season 3 of Arrested Development from 22 to 13 episodes. I caught up with the show recently on DVD, and it’s definitely the funniest thing on TV this side of Curb Your Enthusiasm. That being said, it doesn’t exactly reward casual viewing, so I can see why it’s having trouble at its current slot. Well, maybe it’ll find a more suitable home on one of the cable networks.
Out of sight, out of mind.
“Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist says he is more concerned about the leak of information regarding secret CIA detention centers than activity in the prisons themselves…’I am not concerned about what goes on [in the prisons] and I’m not going to comment about the nature of that,’ Frist replied.” Unbelievable. The same guy who blew a gasket over a closed-door Senate session last week couldn’t care less what goes on behind closed doors in secret, illegal CIA gulags. (I guess he figures it couldn’t be much worse than your average day at the Frist family animal shelter.)
Adding Insult to Intelligence Failures.
As McCain calls for changes in Dubya’s Iraq strategy, White House National Security advisor Stephen Hadley inaugurates Dubya’s comeback plan, which will get more run in a presidential speech today. Step One: Call the Dems out on their pro-war votes. “‘Some of the critics today,’ Hadley added, ‘believed themselves in 2002 that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, they stated that belief, and they voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq because they believed Saddam Hussein posed a dangerous threat to the American people.‘” Well, yes, but if Dems were relying on faulty and doctored intelligence to come to that supposition in 2002, that only brings us back to the $64,000 question: What exactly happened to our prewar intelligence once it reached the White House?