Author: KcM

A Costume, A Kent, and a Carrie?


Another update for DC’s Big Three: Adrianne Palicki is now filming in the full Wonder Woman garb for David E. Kelly’s new TV reboot. (The costume looks better than their first attempt.) Kevin Costner now appears to be officially in Zack Snyder’s Superman as Pa Kent. (One presumes he didn’t see Sucker Punch before closing the deal.) And, while confirming Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Alberto Falcone, Variety says Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises is looking to cast Juno Temple as “a street-smart Gotham girl.” Is that code for Robin?

Same as It Ever Was.


“Treasury’s mismanagement of TARP and its disregard for TARP’s Main Street goals — whether born of incompetence, timidity in the face of a crisis or a mindset too closely aligned with the banks it was supposed to rein in — may have so damaged the credibility of the government as a whole that future policy makers may be politically unable to take the necessary steps to save the system the next time a crisis arises. This avoidable political reality might just be TARP’s most lasting, and unfortunate, legacy.” On his last day on the job, outgoing special inspector general for TARP Neil Barofsky laments the failures of the program he oversaw.

In very related news, see also NYT columnist William Cohan on the same subject yesterday: “Not only did the government’s theory fail in practice — unemployment remains relentlessly and historically high and American businesses seem intent on hoarding, rather than spending, the $2 trillion in cash on their collective balance sheets — but it also lost a once-in-a-century opportunity to change the mores of a momentarily chastened Wall Street, which remains badly in need of substantive reform. This is more than a shame; it is prima facie evidence of how deep Wall Street’s hooks have been — and continue to be — into the powers that be in Washington (and vice versa).“

A Doctor in the (White) House.


“Young lady, there are no monsters in the Oval Office.” Via AICN, Stephen Moffatt and Matt Smith’s incarnation of Doctor Who gets ready for its second season, i.e. the sixth since the Russell Davies reboot and 32nd since the very beginning. (See also Moffatt’s adaptation of the missing 18-minutes of the Nixon era.) The show premieres April 23rd stateside, and between this, HBO’s Game of Thrones (April 17), and AMC’s The Killing (this Sunday), I suddenly have a lot more TV to watch.

To the Shores of Tripoli.


“Gaddafi is crazy and evil; obviously, he wasn’t going to listen to our advice about democracy. The world would be fortunate to be rid of him. But war in Libya is justifiable only if we are going to hold compliant dictators to the same standard we set for defiant ones. If not, then please spare us all the homilies about universal rights and freedoms. We’ll know this isn’t about justice, it’s about power.” With an eye toward the crackdowns in Yemen and Bahrain, the WP’s Eugene Robinson wonders, why, exactly, we’re getting involved in Libya. (Pic via Boston’s Big Picture.)

For a counterpoint, Juan Cole argues why the Left should back the current military action: “If we just don’t care if the people of Benghazi are subjected to murder and repression on a vast scale, we aren’t people of the Left. We should avoid making ‘foreign intervention’ an absolute taboo the way the Right makes abortion an absolute taboo if doing so makes us heartless (inflexible a priori positions often lead to heartlessness).“

And, to complete the trifecta, here’s the president explaining his reasoning for intervention: “Left unchecked, we have every reason to believe that Qaddafi would commit atrocities against his people. Many thousands could die. A humanitarian crisis would ensue. The entire region could be destabilized, endangering many of our allies and partners. The calls of the Libyan people for help would go unanswered. The democratic values that we stand for would be overrun. Moreover, the words of the international community would be rendered hollow.“

I get the arguments in favor of military action (and, in terms of diplomacy, I get that we also seem to be following the lead of France and England this time — After all, they’ve backed our sketchy plays in the past.) But, since we’re already well-engaged at this point, I’ll just say that (1) my own view of this Libya action leans toward Robinson’s, (2) the Congress-skipping precedent here is yet another extremely dubious call by our purported constitutional-scholar-in-chief, (3) I’m not seeing how getting involved in yet another war in the Middle East/North Africa, while rather obviously ignoring other festering situations in the region, wins Arab hearts and minds, and (4) it’s funny how 99.44% of the Deficit Peacocks in this town completely clam up when it’s time to rain down some million-dollar-a-head Freedom Bombs.

But the die is cast now, so let’s hope we get in and out of this as quickly as the president intimated we would. Oh, hey, look…mission creep. Now, who could’ve expected that?

Back Down in the Hole.


“Warner Bros. has officially announced the beginning of production on The Hobbit, Peter Jackson’s two film epic adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s timeless classic. The Hobbit is set in Middle-earth 60 years before Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, which Jackson and his filmmaking team brought to the big screen in the blockbuster trilogy that culminated with the Oscar-winning The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.“

Oh, wait, it’s a prequel?!? Never mind, then. (I kid, I kid.) In any case, many years and pounds later, PJ’s The Hobbit finally begins its Greatest Adventure. And the best news yet? The Return of the Figwit! Bret, you’ve got it going on…

Agent With Shield.


Among the trailers I’ve missed in recent weeks is this — arguably the most promising-looking comic book film in the summer of Thor, Green Lantern, and X-Men: First Class — the teaser trailer for Joe Johnston’s Captain America: The First Avenger, with Chris Evans, Hayley Atwell, Tommy Lee Jones, Stanley Tucci, Sebastian Stans, Toby Jones, and, above, Hugo Weaving looking pitch-perfect as the Red Skull. Granted, Johnston’s The Wolfman was terribad, but I’m holding out hope for this one (and to be fair, Johnston was basically a hired gun on Wolfman, coming in four weeks before shooting to replace Mark Romanek.)

The Priorities of the Serious People™.

“This chart puts the class war in simple, visual terms. On the left you have the ‘shared sacrifices’ and ‘painful cuts’ that the Republicans claim we must make to get our fiscal house in order. On the right, you can plainly see WHY these cuts are ‘necessary.’” Via JackDean and several other sites, This is What Class War Looks Like.

But, hey, Win the Future and all that.

Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’…

Not that any more egregious timesucks are needed ’round these parts at the moment, but in case you find yourself with a free quarter-hour or three: Kris at Webgoddess recently pointed the way toward a fun movie-hangman game, Famous Objects from Classic Movies. (Most are pretty easy, although I’ll admit to having googled for a swing set.)

And, if that doesn’t do you, their constant begging for a subscription fee can’t kill the crack-like entertainment value of Lumosity’s addictively addictive Word Bubble game, sent to me by a co-worker. (My current high score is 4320, although that is after a lot of playing. When I first started, breaking 2000 was a good game.)

Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his..hat?


Another fortnight gone by, and GitM is behind the curve once again: Clearly keeping up to date around here isn’t part of “The Plan” at the moment. At any rate, some quick thoughts on George Nolfi’s Twilight Zone romance, The Adjustment Bureau, which I caught awhile ago.

In brief, I found myself enjoying The Adjustment Bureau, even though many elements of this story really have no business working. For one, its basic conceit — supernatural Organization Men have a Plan for all of humankind, and the meet-cute and subsequent romance of Senate candidate Matt Damon and ballerina Emily Blunt just isn’t in Their Cards — flirts dangerously with both Touched By An Angel and Bagger Vance territory at times. (As Damon’s guardian angel and eventual angel-buddy, The Hurt Locker‘s Anthony Mackie gets stuck with the thankless Will Smith role here.) And, to be sure, all the quasi-religious meanderings here get a bit cloying after awhile. (Every time somebody namedrops “the Chairman” of this spiritual bureaucracy, I half-expected Morgan Freeman to pop up in the final act.)

For another, while I understand Bureau is based loosely on a 1954 Phillip K. Dick story — I haven’t read it, but it sounds quite different — parts of the film seem decidedly retro, and I’m not just talking about the fedoras. At one point, one of the sternest Men With Hats (Terrence Stamp) talks of how giving free will to humankind ultimately led to the Dark Ages — Well, ok, that’s a cautionary tale…if you’re Western European. Meanwhile, as a friend pointed out, Arabs are inventing algebra, and the Chinese are doing just fine, thank you very much.

That’s a passing irritation. But more problematic here is Emily Blunt’s retrograde character, who is passive to a fault: She doesn’t actually do anything in this story but look fetching and wait for Damon to call the shots. (At one point, three lost years go by because Damon loses Blunt’s phone number. Really? She couldn’t call him?) Now, I’m all for a guy going the extra mile to win the girl of his dreams — Say, Sam Lowry chasing down Jill in Brazil, or Luke braving the Death Star to rescue the pre-sororital princess in Star Wars. But, in those cases, Jill basically thinks Sam is a loon, and treats him as much, while Leia realizes pretty quickly that her rescuers haven’t put a lot of thought into their escape plan.

In other words, I find romances more engaging and, well, romantic when there’s more back-and-forth between the pair involved, like, to take just a few examples, Alvy and Annie in Annie Hall, Tom and Verna in Miller’s Crossing, or any of the couples in Stanley Cavell’s “comedies of remarriage” (and their spiritual descendant, Eternal Sunshine.) But Emily Blunt barely participates in this story. She’s less a character than an object of desire to keep the story rolling along. For all intent and purposes, she’s just the Maguffin.

Now, having said all that, why am I still recommending The Adjustment Bureau? Well, chemistry goes a long way, and if nothing else Damon and Blunt have are convincing together. They’re a cute couple, even if they have to slog their way through some seriously terrible plot points at times. (For example, the angels make it clear that this duo’s romance will be irrevocably set in stone if Damon sees Blunt dancing. That in itself is cheesy enough, and it’s not helped by the fact that the herky-jerky Blunt happens to dance like Elaine Benes.)

Plus, while the “Mad Men angels” conceit starts to bog down under its own weight in the second half of the movie, and particularly when Damon’s personal Clarence starts enumerating all kinds of new random rules — angels need their hats, they can’t stand water, doorknobs have to be turned clockwise — just so we can have a big chase scene finale, the first hour or so is still intriguing and sci-fi enough that it held my attention even when the story faltered.

Let me put it this way: About twenty minutes in, The Adjustment Bureau has one of those scenes where, while addressing a large audience at a hugely important moment, Senate-wannabe Matt Damon rips up the remarks he was giving and starts ad-libbing, because, you know, he just can’t give that pre-prepared speech right now — It’s time to keep it real. From Up in the Air to Traffic, this is one of the hoariest and most cornball cliches in the movies, and it takes me out of the flow every time. And, yet, even with groaners like this, I still found myself mostly enjoying The Adjustment Bureau by the end. For all its faults, it’s a low-key, goofy, and amiable time at the movies. Who knows? Perhaps I was just predestined to like it.