A very happy Labor Day to you and yours.
Category: World at Large
Trailer Convoy.
Several items for the trailer bin:
* Diane Lane and Thomas Jane go on the lam to escape hitmen Mickey Rourke and Joseph Gordon-Leavitt in this glimpse at John Madden’s Tarantino’ed-up version of Elmore Leonard’s Killshot. (Johnny Knoxville and Rosario Dawson are involved in some fashion as well.)
* Chow Yun-Fat and Gong Li gear up for some trademark Zhang Yimou wire-fu (a la Hero and House of Flying Daggers) in the new teaser for Curse of the Golden Flower.
* Nicole Kidman ventures through the photographic looking-glass as Diane Arbus in Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus, the new film by Secretary‘s Steven Shainberg, also with Robert Downey Jr. (Mirrored here.)
* Helen Mirren jumps from Elizabeth I to Elizabeth II in this look at Stephen Frears’ The Queen, concerning Buckingham Palace’s reaction to the death of Princess Diana. (I have zero interest in the subject matter, frankly, but I do like Mirren, Frears, and James Cromwell, and there’s an iffy Tony Blair impression here by Michael Sheen, to say nothing of the guy playing Prince Charles.)
* Finally, Guillermo del Toro returns to the faerie Spain of The Devil’s Backbone in this rapid-edit teaser for Pan’s Labyrinth. (Being on a lousy hotel connection, I couldn’t get this link to work, but I believe the same teaser is mirrored here.)
Under the Sea.
“While it is the infrequent shark attacks that make the headlines, drowning claims far more lives in Hawaii, where coastlines of sand, coral reef and lava rock create shorebreaks and currents that cause many swimmers to encounter peril entirely unexpected.” Hawaii tries to lessen its drowning rate, highest in the nation. Memo to myself: Avoid Sandy Beach.
George the Revelator.
He’s a smooth operator, it’s time we cut him down to size. The indignities of dial-up being what they are, I have yet to see the whole thing. Still, this Monty Python-ish and Dubya’ed up remix video for Depeche Mode’s version of “John the Revelator” seems worth a look-see, DM fan or no. Update: Thanks to a brief and random wireless connection, I watched it all. (Poor Tony Blair.) Ok, the Revelations bit at the end is a bit shrill, and Afghanistan is not Iraq, but I did like the crusader outfit and particularly the 7x7x7 cube of lies.
Strategery in Action.
“As for Iraq, it’s no news that Bush has no strategy. What did come as news — and, really, a bit of a shocker — is that he doesn’t seem to know what ‘strategy’ means.” Slate‘s Fred Kaplan tears apart another dismal Dubya press conference. At this point, it’s a bit like shooting fish in a barrel, isn’t it?
Lapu in the Mikini.
Aloha y’all…In keeping with recent Murphy tradition, I’ve joined the family for a late-summer jaunt to Hawaii. Unclear how this will affect the updates around here the next few weeks — on one hand, fun activities like snorkeling and pleasure-reading (note the cue at left is finally moving again) have been eating into my usual blog-hours (and the 1998-ish dial-up here doesn’t lend itself to much time spent on the Internet anyway.) But, then again, I’m already on the verge of sunburn, so I’ll have to find some way to wile away those safety hours indoors. At any rate, I’d expect the intermittent summer posting schedule to remain the norm around here for now, so, as always, mahalo for dropping by.
Just another day in Lower Manhattan.
As the five-year anniversary approaches, New York Magazine wonders “What if 9/11 never happened?”, putting the question to Andrew Sullivan, Thomas Friedman, Dahlia Lithwick, Frank Rich, Tom Wolfe, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Fareed Zakaria, Douglas Brinkley, and others. (By way of Lots of Co.)
The Bloody Business which Informs.
Scots meet Aussies in the trailer for Geoffrey Wright’s gangsterland update of Macbeth, with Sam Worthington, Victoria Hill, and Lachy Hume.
Song for Bill.
“Seen the arrow on the doorpost saying, ‘This land is condemned, all the way from New Orleans to Jerusalem.’ I traveled through East Texas where many martyrs fell, and I know no one can sing the blues like Blind Willie McTell.” Or Kind Willie Clinton, for that matter…a belated happy birthday to our ex-president, who turned 60 yesterday.
Joe Must Go.
“It surprised me…It seemed almost orchestrated. It’s sort of demeaning to the people of Connecticut…I thought the senator and the vice president were both wrong to use that attack (strategy) on the voters of Connecticut.” In the first full week of the post-primary race in Connecticut (Joe’s up five at the moment), Ned Lamont calls out Lieberman for his recent Cheneyisms. And, in related news, Russ Feingold asks Lieberman to get out of the race on ABC’s This Week: “Joe is showing with that regrettable statement that he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get it…Senator Lieberman has supported the Bush Administration’s disastrous strategic approach of getting us stuck in Iraq instead of focusing on those who attacked us.”