Month: May 2006

Oh, those records.

“Everybody knew that Judicial Watch had gotten the shaft. It just wasn’t clear how. Well, here’s how: the Secret Service doesn’t have the records – the White House does. That’s because the Secret Service transfers their more comprehensive visitor logs, called WAVES (Workers Appointments and Visitors Entry System) records, to the White House every 60 days.” TPM‘s Paul Kiel explains why the Secret Service records of Abramoff came up basically blank. (Via Now This.)

Senate Fencing.

“What we have here has become a symbol for the right wing in American politics, a fence between America and Mexico.” Following up on Dubya’s speech Monday night (which, to be honest, I totally missed — late night at the library), the Senate wrangles over immigration reform, voting, as per conservatives’ wish list, “to build 370 miles of triple-layered fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border and to block access to a new guest-worker program by lawbreaking illegal immigrants, even those guilty of misdemeanors or ignoring a deportation order.”

Mission Compromised.

Perhaps it wasn’t the best nightcap to Poseidon — four and a half hours of crashes and explosions tend to run together after awhile — Still, J.J. Abrams’ loud, garish Mission: Impossible III, while assuredly better than John Woo’s miserable M:I:2, doesn’t to my mind improve on Brian De Palma’s slinky, Eurotrashy original. (And I’m by no means a De Palma fan, particular after megastinkers like Mission to Mars and Femme Fatale.) I guess if you’re a huge fan of Alias, this might be your cup of tea — the film definitely plays like every episode of that show I’ve ever seen, what with the in-media-res opener, the artfully named McGuffin, double-double-agents, kick-ass femmes, and the weird, off-putting emphasis on torture. (Ok, there may be dollops of Splinter Cell and The Vanishing somewhere in there too.) Still, I found M:I:3 basically a sleek, well-designed non-starter and, in a word, missable.

It probably didn’t help that the central conceit of M:I:3 involves superspy-turned-desk-jockey Ethan Hunt’s new paramour (Michelle Monaghan), since Tom Cruise’s real love life has become both so creepy and inescapable over the past year. But, here we are (after the flash-forward opener), attending the Hunts’ resolutely normal wedding shower somewhere in suburban Virginia, and once again watching Cruise do his “This woman drives me cRaZy!” schtick. (No couch-jumping, alas.) But, domestic bliss is soon interrupted by an urgent (if oblique) call from Hunt’s new boss (Billy Crudup), and, quicker than you can say “silent birth,” Ethan has gotten the band (Ving Rhames, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Maggie Q) back together again, who then venture off to deepest, darkest Berlin to save a compromised agent (Keri Russell) from, you guessed it, torture. There, he crosses swords with criminal mastermind Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman) — or at least his underlings — and the battle is joined, one that will eventually rage from the Vatican to Shanghai to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge (which in this universe seems to be about a 10-15 minute drive from DC.)

If this all sounds a bit campy, well, it is…or, at least, it is at times (such as when Cruise dons priestly vestments to infiltrate the Vatican), and probably should have been for its entire run. But Abrams, in keeping with his usual Marathon Man-ish predilections, has decided to give this film his own brutal gloss, and I for one found all the wallowing in harsh interrogation scenarios a bit much. (Well, at least for this franchise…frankly, Bond could probably use more of it, at least if the Daniel Craig run will verge closer to the books. But I digress.) When you get right down to it, torture scenes not only aren’t very entertaining (by design, I guess), they’re also very close to cheating — Of course we’re going to feel for Cruise and his new ladyfriend when they’ve been put in such a situation. In short, Abrams is substituting visceral reaction for good writing — as someone on Slate noted with 21 Grams back in the day, he might as well have the bad guy kick a puppy while he’s at it.

That being said, the bad guy here, scene-stealing support by Lawrence Fishburne and Shaun of the Dead‘s Simon Pegg notwithstanding, is the highlight of the film. A million years away from his recent turn as Capote (or his prior Cruise pairing in Magnolia…ok, he’s a bit like his character in The Talented Mr. Ripley), Hoffman underplays his soulless and sadistic arms dealer as a man thoroughly bored with his ubervillain station in life, and seems all the more plausible for being nondescript and banal.

The Softer Name of Revenue.

“‘If you want to look at why the Republican Party is down in the dumps and why the president’s numbers are down in the dumps,’ Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said this afternoon, ‘it’s that the American people are beginning to understand that when they talk about tax cuts, they’re not talking about helping middle-class people. They’re talking about helping the wealthiest corporations and individuals among us.’” True, that. And, since Dubya signed the dividend tax giveaway extension into law this afternoon, the Dems now have another potent issue in their arsenal through November. “‘Today’s really a good day to be a millionaire, but it’s a bad day if you want to be a millionaire,’ Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) said at a news conference minutes after Bush signed the bill.”

Pyongyang Redux?

“It’s ironic that President Bush is now endorsing a diplomatic stance toward Iran so similar to the stance that President Clinton took toward North Korea. When he first took office, Bush so feverishly opposed the Agreed Framework with North Korea in large part because Clinton had produced it.” Slate‘s Fred Kaplan wonders whether President Clinton’s Agreed Framework with North Korea might help to contain Iran. The verdict? Possibly maybe, particularly given that we have no real alternatives.

Liner Notes.

Admittedly, a summer B-picture like Poseidon isn’t going to turn the world upside down in any case. And it’s got nothing on the original Poseidon Adventure of 1972 (which itself isn’t all that great a film): Josh Lucas is almost always a likable presence, but he’s no Gene Hackman…nor, for that matter, is Kurt Russell Ernest Borgnine or Richard Dreyfuss Red Buttons (or is he Shelley Winters?) — but that may speak in this version’s favor. Still, by this point director Wolfgang Petersen is a master of both the underwater nightmare (Das Boot, The Perfect Storm) and the tube movie (Boot, Air Force One), and as a big, dumb disaster flick, Poseidon is competent enough. I can’t really recommend that you rush out and see it by any means, but it may be worth watching the back half on TNT some day.

So, you probably know the set-up. It’s New Year’s Eve somewhere in the middle of the ocean, and, aboard a massive behemoth of a cruise ship that makes the Titanic look like the S.S. Venture, passengers party the night away to the Black Eyed Peas’ Fergie, oblivious to the ginormous “rogue wave” bearing down on them. Soon, the wave hits, the ship capsizes, and our gaggle of disheveled celebrities — a professional gambler (Lucas), a recently-dumped gay architect (Dreyfuss), a former fireman and mayor of New York(!) (Russell), his daughter (Emmy Rossum), etc. etc. — band together to get to the bottom of things (which, of course, is now the top.) Along the way, they must brave fearsome flash fires, watery death traps, and clunky exposition-riddled dialogue in order to get out alive, if they can. (I won’t say who makes it and who doesn’t, other than to say that [Spoilers] actors from the HBO stable don’t seem to fare too well on this vessel.)

So, is the movie any good? Well, yeah, it’s ok, in a turn-your-brain-off kinda way. True, the dialogue and characterizations are pretty much terrible — even the wisps of backstory and perfunctory conflicts given these folks turn out to be barely credible. But the movie still works, since you just end up rooting for the long-suffering actors instead, many of whom seem like they must be hating the water tank by now. (Speaking of which, Kurt Russell, no stranger to B-flicks, seems particularly at home here.) And, to its credit, there are a few legitimately clever and suspenseful setpieces herein, the best of which makes a solid, if not incontrovertible, case for never getting trapped in a water-logged air shaft behind a claustrophobe and Richard Dreyfuss. And, like the similar crests in Petersen’s Perfect Storm, the Big Wave itself has a wrath-of-God grandeur to it, particularly in its first appearance, as it looms in the distance like inexorable Fate. In short, Poseidon is nowhere near to being a great film, but it does make for a mildly diverting carnage-filled cruise.

Angst Amidst the Isles.

Ewan MacGregor, Colin Farrell, and Tom Wilkinson sign aboard Woody Allen’s next project, set to begin filming next month in London. MacGregor and Farrell “will play two brothers with serious financial problems that lead them to become enemies when a third party suggests they turn to crime.“

Hard Time for Tobin.

As a follow-up to a story last month, three GOP political operatives are found guilty of violating communications law for clogging NH phone banks in 2002. (Among them is James Tobin, the guy who called the White House 22 times during the misdeed, and who will now serve 10 months for his role in the scheme.) “[T]he case has drawn complaints even from Republicans. By covering Tobin’s legal fees, ‘the GOP appears to sanction and institutionalize corruption within the party,’ Craig Shirley, of Shirley & Banister Public Affairs, recently wrote in a commentary.”